about Christianity. This might make a few people very angry, but I don't think what I'm going through is wrong. And if you do consider yourself a Christian, and it does make you angry, you might want to do some soul searching of your own. A Christian should eagerly and quite happily jump at the chance to debate their religion with someone having doubts. As someone with a decent amount of teaching experience, I can tell you that as we teach others we also educate ourselves.
I believe my God wants us to question him, his works, his word. He does not want us to blindly accept his teachings, he wants us to question him and find the answers for ourselves, and in doing so realize that his teachings stand up to our close scrutiny. That way we come to him in spite of our doubts because we have established that it's the right thing to do, that his way is the one, true way. This is what I believe.
What I also believe, and you may find this hard to swallow, is that Judas Iscariot was nothing more than a patsy. Judas did not betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, or whatever reward he was given; Judas betrayed Jesus because that's what was meant to happen, it was his destiny to betray Jesus. Read the Bible. Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed not because he knew what Judas was going to do, but because he knew that's what was meant to happen. Judas betrayed Jesus because that's what was meant to happen.
I have a problem with the whole "Free Will" thing, and the Bible's contradiction of this, and the case of the Holy Kingdom of God vs Judas Iscariot is just one of these.
In the beginning God made man, and he created him in his own image, and that's another contradiction. If God is an all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipotent deity, how could he create a flesh & blood entity "in his own image"? And if he is all-knowing, why would he give man 'free will', slap him down in the Garden of Eden along with the Tree of Knowledge, then tell him not to eat from it? He's all-knowing, so he had to have known what was going to happen when he put Adam and The Tree in an enclosed area, and yet God still punishes Adam when he does what God knew he'd do all along.
A man bought an expensive, antique vase, which he took home and showed to his wife and 7-year old daughter. Then he said to his daughter, "this is a very expensive vase. You must never, ever touch it, lest you break it."
And the child said to her father, "then you must never, ever put it where I can touch it."
I ask you, when the father places the vase on a pedestal in the middle of the living room, and the daughter breaks it, who is truly at fault?
Yes, I dare to suggest that it was God who was at fault for putting Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Knowledge, then telling them not to eat from it. God knew exactly what would happen, but not only did he know what would happen, he facilitated it, then he punished Adam & Eve when they did what he knew they'd do all along.
Then there's the Great Flood.
God is all-knowing yet he still gave man Free Will. And because he is all-knowing he had to know exactly what man would do with his Free Will, and yet when man does what God knew he'd do, God is angry and floods the Earth and wipes out everyone bar Noah & Co.
After the flood Noah & Co. find themselves in Shinar (Genesis 11:1-9). When I was told the story of the Tower of Babel in Sunday School I was taught that the Babylonians were arrogant, hence their desire to build a tower that would reach to the heavens, but now I know that the Babylonians were comprised of Noah and his immediate family. They've just got off the Ark where they witnessed first hand the might of God as he destroyed almost the entire world. Why on earth would they be arrogant? I don't think they were.
Genesis 11:4 says, "Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
I've been thinking about this passage, and I don't like it. No sir, not one bit. This is immediately following the Great Flood. These are the only people on the planet and they know it. So...who are they trying to impress? There's nobody there but themselves, and God. And why are they concerned about being scattered over the face of the earth? They want to build a Tower that reaches to the heavens so they can make a name for themselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. They're not building the tower out of arrogance, they're building it out of fear. Fear of losing their identity as a people.
But whose people are they?
Quite clearly they're God's people, because it was he who saved them. God commanded them to build the Ark and he saved them while drowning everyone else. Damn straight they were afraid, they were afraid of God. They feared his wrath, they were afraid God would scatter them over the face of the earth so they built the legendary Tower of Babel to impress him, and impress him it did. It impressed God so much that it led him to do exactly what the people feared would happen if they didn't build the tower. How ironic is that?
How do we know God was impressed?
Genesis 11:5-6 says, "But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."
Nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
The Lord sees what the people are doing, and says, "Holy Crap! Working together, these guys can do anything!"
This is the Lord God speaking. He knows 'Impossible'. When he says, "nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them" he means it!
Now who's afraid? Both parties are. The people are afraid of God, and God is afraid of them. How on earth can I say God, the all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipotent being...is afraid?
Because of what he does next. Immediately following the Lord's observation that his people can accomplish the "impossible", he separates them and scatters them across the face of the earth. Why would he do this? The most obvious answer is so they won't accomplish the impossible.
God gave us Free Will, but when Adam & Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, as the all-knowing God must have known would happen, he punished them.
When Adam & Even were cast out of Eden they made babies, and their babies grew up and had babies of their own, lots and lots of babies, and God had to have known that would happen. And they multiplied and spread out over the Earth and did wicked things, and when God saw what they were doing he wiped the slate clean and started over with Noah & Co.
Then when Noah & Co. settled down after the Flood and built the Tower of Babel, God took one look and said "Oh no, you don't!" and he scattered them across the face of the Earth.
I really want to understand why God would do this, but I cannot, because these actions do not speak of an all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipotent deity. They speak of a spoiled child, upset with how his science experiment has turned out and throwing a temper tantrum because things haven't gone his way.
I would really appreciate someone explaining this to me. I'm quite amenable in the face of a persuasive argument, but you need to do better than just say "Dude! Read the Bible!" As should be quite apparent I have read the Bible, and that is why I have questions.
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Ahem. First comment from someone that you know not at all and I choose to make it on this post of all things. I don't know what your faith background is but reading your post I suspect it is different to mine. So if you want to dismiss this view, then I will not mind.
I agree that the God of the old testament appears like a spoilt brat sometimes. In fact, in addition to the examples you named, I can list a dozen (at least) further examples where God's behaviour is in some ways inexplicable. However I believe that this largely arises from the way that we as modern people read a pre-modern text (ie, in my view often the wrong way).
I think that your questions (and mine) arise from one who automatically and from years of practice reads the text and asks "what happened?". I think that the texts were written for an audience whose first question was "what does this mean?" When we ask first what happened, then we are stuck with arguments over whether Jonah was eaten by a whale or a big fish and we end up, in the words of matthew, "straining out gnats" while missing the point of what is being communicated.
Please note that I am not saying that the bible is not true or truth or anything like that - I am saying that if we read "the raven" as if it were a newspaper article, we might get hung up on whether it is possible for a bird to act with that sort of awareness and miss the whole point of the piece.
I will give you an example. In the beginning of Job, there is a theatre of cruelty where God and the devil have a conversation where God effectively says "fine, torture my best and brightest and most faithful follower, kill his family and make him gravely ill so that I can prove to you that he is my best and brightest follower. I don't want to follow that sort of God, but if I look at what it means rather than what it says, then I can see that Job is a part of scriptural conversation happening over a period of time with other books like Proverbs and stands for the point that bad things sometimes happen to good people.
I hope this makes sense as I am trying not to overtake your comments section.
Oh, and I like an alternative reading of the Judas situation, which I don't have room for here. Judas as patsy doesn't gel for me.
Hi Deege.
Thank you for commenting. I'm certainly not going to dismiss your point of view, I opened the floor to comments, questions, and points of views, so anything which is constructive is more than welcome.
I agree with your theory that many of the inconsistences we're (I'm) seeing could be because we're looking at these passages, and the bible as a whole, with the wrong mindset. I'm familiar with the story of Job (but has forgotten all about that one) and it's also one I 'didn't like'. What kind of god would play with someone's life like that? God's test for Abraham is similar to this one, where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, just to test his faith.
But as you say, if we're meant to read the Bible and ask "What does this mean?" rather than "What happened?" then we need to look a lot deeper into the text than just skim the surface. If I recall correctly, this is how I was taught to read the Bible when I was growing up. Now that I'm a grown man and forgotten the lessons learned in childhood, I've forgotten how to read the bible, so instead of reading it as a book of mysteries or parables, I'm reading it as I would a story, and that's not the way to do it. That could clear up a lot of the issues I'm having.
I'd very interested to read your alternative reading of Judas situation, and don't worry about taking over my comments section. I frequently set out to write a quick, short comment in other people's blogs but often end up writing quite a few paragraphs. So I turn my comment into a blog entry of my own and link back to my blog in their comments section :)
Personally I know I have some beliefs.
What I believe is that there is a God, and the God loves their creation, loves mankind. How that belief got in me I do not know. Perhaps God placed it there.
I also believe that this God gave us an enquiring mind, and expects us to investigate the situation we find ourselves in.
God is love, God loves us or he would have destroyed us for being abject failures.
God is not like a man, so God is not interested in petty rules or point scoring that makes up much of religion.
Given that, I can not see how this God would make a 'One true religion'.
To me it seems more likely that religions are tests of the golden rule. How we treat each other.
If we use religions of ours or others as excuses for cruelty or mistreatment, then we fail that test.
Some interesting reading for the so inclined ( http://web.archive.org/web/20010418063317/www.snow.icestorm.net/gary/index.html )
I have heard some people suggest that the god of the old testament is different from the god of the new testament. I thought it was an interesting concept but I don't know yet how I feel about it.
It seems that most of the "old gods" are the grumpy, shallow, selfish, and snarky ones. It's the more modern "new gods" and prophets that seem to be kinder and gentler. Look at Jesus and Buddha and Mohamed and compare them to old testament god and the olympian gods and the egyptian gods.
I just thought it was an intriguing thought. Take it for what it's worth. Just one truth seeking faithful person to another.
-Dusty
O.K, here goes.
I was raised Catholic by my mother who knew far more than I do even as an adult about the bible and what it means to be Catholic. She learned this while traveling as a nun all over the world. Obviously, my mother isn't a nun anymore, or I wouldn't be here to write this comment. She lost her faith, or what traditional Catholics consider faith when she saw the immense cruelty displayed by the Catholic church. She joined the convent out of love for God and a desire to help others, what she found was that loving God is an individual choice that NO ONE can take away, but helping others came with conditions. Conditions that consisted of complete submission to the Catholic way of life. Those who refused were denied medical treatment, biblical lessons ect. For her that was the breaking point.
What she discovered, and what took me 10 years of research/religion hopping to find for myself, was that while the Bible is widely considered "the word of God", it was written by men... men who had vested interests just like those who she followed for over a decade. With that being said, we have to consider the possibility that the men who wrote this book may not have had all the answers, and they may not have been writing Gods words verbatum. They were simply doing the best they could to lead others through tough times. This is blasphemy to those who staunchy believe... To me, and forgive me if I am wrong here, but for you as well, it would seem that to not question the reality of the situations presented along with the messages is to ignore the greatest gift that God gave us. Our brain.
You don't need a book to believe in God John, you don't need a preacher, you don't need any of the things that modern "religion" tells you you need. All you need is a love for your creator along with a love for your fellow man/woman/child. Imo of course.
I haven't attended church in over a year, and I don't feel as though I am missing anything that I didn't feel like was already missing the entire time I was there. I didn't get the answers I was looking for the 10 years I attended, and I doubt I ever will. The only thing that has changed is that I'm ok with it now, and I have learned that what truly matters in life-at least to me- is how I treat the people I share this world with. We all have a moral compass and we know when we are doing wrong to another person.
I could list 100 examples of biblical inconsistencies, but the fact of the matter is that it wouldn't change anything. Either one has an inquisitive "free will" or they don't, and those that do have a personal feeling of exploration will continue to explore alternatives until they are satisfied or dead. For myself, I believe that unless the Jehovah Witnesses are correct and all of our answers come in 2012 when the 144,000 are taken to heaven, I will probably die without knowing. But one thing is for sure, when I die, if there is a God, I will be able to look, smile, and say I did my best to not only use the faculties provided, but use them in a postive way that helped others, instead of being a sheep, led around by the nose, never questioning anything. And hopefully he smiles back and orders a round of Guiness.
Okay, alternative view of Judas is one imagined by Nikos Kazantsakis (sp?), the author of the Last Temptation of Christ and I find it attractive because I think there is enough in the text for it to be biblically plausible (though in the category of the things we will never know).
In that book (and film) Judas was a firm supporter of Jesus (supported by references in the text) but like all of the disciples wasn't always clear what Jesus was on about in terms of the kingdom etc (supported by the text). In short Judas believed that the reign of God and the power of Jesus would come about with a political revolution against the Romans which would remove the oppression of the Empire (a common enough view). Anyway the theory supposes that Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans because he thought that a confrontation with the Romans was the whole point and necessary for Jesus to come into his own. In his mind he exercised his free will for good, to give the 'reluctant' jesus a prod towards his true destiny. When he found out that he had been mistaken he was so distraught that he killed himself. It might not be true but the idea of it makes Judas more of a believable person to me.
For me, reading books of the bible as living documents crafted by men who themselves were struggling to understand God brings them alive for me. God is truth and God inspired the text, but I don't believe it is possible for human beings to know God entirely (ie to have him figured out). I believe that this inevitably means that the text is not the entirety of the truth of God.
My beliefs match those of Wolfgangdoom. I was raised catholic, attended church, Sunday school, and parochial elementary school, and was even an altar boy.
But I have believed for a long time that the bible was written by men and though there may be some truth to the stories found in there, most of it should be taken with a grain of salt.
The important thing as a parent is to help develop a good moral compass within your children as you nurture and raise them so they have something to follow through their own lives.
To me church can be a good social organization to spend time with like-minded individuals and to learn or reinforce moral behaviors.
I don't fault someone for spending the time to analyze or translate parts of the bible, just like I don't fault someone for spending the time to analyze or translate parts of the latest Harry Potter novel.
I gave up on church a long time ago. I was forced to go for almost 18 years (my parents would guilt trip me something fierce if I didn't get out of bed to go...and still drop hints even though I don't live near them anymore) and the more I learned the less it made sense. I even took and Early Christianity class in college to try and get some answers. Didn't help.
I'm with the others above in saying that the bible was written by MEN and men are fallible. Obviously there are going to be different takes on things because everyone interprets things a different way. Compare the gospels of MML&J and they can't agree on anything.
I don't know about God. I don't think I can believe anymore. I do still have this strong belief that there's a higher conscience but have a feeling that's because it was ingrained into my childhood. That being said, nature is phenomenal. Watch a spider spin it's web. Watch ants go about their lives. Notice how your foot fits between your elbow and your wrist and your arm span is approximately your height. There's a magical sort of order to the world that makes an average person like me believe a little in faith.
I'm all for the idea of Christianity. The basic "do unto others" and "love thy neighbor" bits. And it seems that people with faith in God have the hope that others don't. It's been proven that prayers are not necessarily "answered" but those with faith heal faster than others. But as for the rest of it...too many wars have started over religion and it's too easy to blame a "devil" that God seems to allow to exist (why are people ok with that?) instead of taking responsibility for our own actions.
I don't even know if this had anything to do with your post now that I'm done ranting :/
I came up with one idea that 'God' is the collective of our souls when we pass away. In this way, God really does know and love us because we are literally his/her children (or grandchildren, etc). That's just one idea.
It appears that many people are also just like me and harbor similar thoughts re: "The Church" as while the vocal minority may not represent the majority, it does represent a percentage of the population.
Deege, I believe I'd heard your story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus as it was not unfamiliar when I read it.
I still do believe in God, or...a God. I'm not entirely sure who he/she/it is, or what she/it/he is, but I believe there is definitely a higher power. I've spoken with people who've had Near-Death Experiences, and from what I've been told I believe 100% that when we die it's not just like a light switch being turned off and we cease to exist. There is another journey waiting for us after we die.
I think the basic tenets of each religion are too similar for them not to be related, in fact I think there is One True Religion, just nobody practices it anymore. Each religion's scripture has been passed down over the centuries and rewritten so many times that the truth is out there, it's just hidden behind all the rest of what everyone felt compelled to include. But the basics are still the same.
Love your god, and love your neighbor.
I think if we do this we will have remained true to what 'God' expects from us.
Angela, your post fit in just fine with the theme of this thread, as has everyone else's. And I think I got answers to my questions.
There appear to be inconsistencies in the Bible and the character of God because the Bible was written by man...men, lots of men, and so was subject to a great deal of personal interpretation. Too many cooks spoiled the broth ;)
I want to thank everyone for commenting, and if anyone else has anything further to add please don't see this topic as closed. I'm sure this particular thread has been read by far more people than just the few who've commented, and just as it has helped me, I have no doubt that it has helped others, too.
I concur that we are meant to question things. That's how we learn. It's why an omnipotent being doesn't give us all the answers; we have to learn what we can, at the right time.
That said, the question shouldn't be "what do I want God to be?", it should be "what does God want me to be?"
Specifically with Judas, I don't think we have the full story. Suffice it to say that yes, his betrayal was part of the plan. Of course God knew beforehand what would happen, but knowing that something would happen and preventing or causing it are different things.
God, knowing all things from the beginning, knew what Judas would do. That he and the Savior allowed it to happen serve to illustrate the thought that we will be allowed to make mistakes, even if they hurt. It also was a trigger for other events, but specifically related to Judas, his actions demonstrate what happens when a man takes it on himself to try to dictate the will of God, rather than try to learn and obey.
That's the crazy aspect of free will, also called agency. We are given the opportunity to choose, with God knowing full well what we will choose. The key is, he doesn't tell us all that he knows. We are left to learn and understand things as we are able and/or inclined to. That's how we grow.
Again, it's less about what he is, and more about what we should be or become. Agency is a gift to us, so that we can grow. Punishments or rewards are the consequences that he uses to teach us. Of course, they can come at us sideways, otherwise we'd simply be Pavlovian dogs following stimuli.
The ultimate goal is for each of us to learn to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time. If God's always telling us when that is, we aren't learning anything. It's a bit like a good teacher; their goal is to obsolete themselves. Until they can do so, students need correction and guidance. Still, the students need to learn how to act, not react, and sometimes they have to make mistakes to learn how to do that.
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