Thread: Is it possible for us as men to have a discussion on God

Not sure I understand the definition given of "Special revelation"

The list as given by Wiki says it is a list as defined by Orthodox Christianity, of which I am an adherent. Yet I had never heard that terminology before. And yet the footnotes all refer to Mormon sources. What's up with that?

I don't think there is anything particularly special about an experience of God (well, actually it in itself is a rather special experience, but not that I or anyone else is "special" because of it), it is available to anyone and everyone.

Someone being called upon to be a prophet (ala Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, etc), now that would count as special!

Anyhow. I think Hoglahoo gave a pretty good summary of coming to a personal experience of God.(you know Hogla, you may strap with a strop, and have a strange affection for Wapi scales, but you're OK in my book...)

Without a personal experience, I'd throw my hat in the ring with you guys who say that to blindly follow religion "just because" is a religulous...er...ridiculous course of action. As a matter of fact that is exactly what my experience has been.

I was raised without any religious upbringing. My mom gave up on Catholicism years ago, and my dad wrote off his early evangelical experiences, and neither wanted to impose such things on their kids. I had always had a personally negative view of Christianity. Let's face it. The stuff you generally see out in the public eye is none too favorable: televangelists, the Catholic church's ideas about guilt and it's dabbling in the socio-polital areana, fundamental nutjobs ranting and raving. What's to like about that? My life was just fine without any of that nonsense.

I met my wife, who is Greek, and an Orthodox Christian. At first that raised major red alarms. But lo and behold, she was actually a pretty normal person. Long story short: I was baptised as an adult into the Orthodox church (my batismal name actually is Seraphim...). Going to Church was a nice enough way to spend a Sunday morning...

After a couple of years I really got resentful about the whole thing. Why are they praying to and glorifying Jesus, and not simply God, and such issues really ****ed me off. I gave up on the whole deal, what a crock of bull...

So, newly "enlightened", I also spent my time lampooning the huge, glaring, logical faults of Christianity. When I'd speak with preists, they would often reference the Bible, which I felt was erroneous, since how can you use a work of fiction as a point of reference, etc, etc. My knowledge and intellect were unassailable! I was free! Whew!

After a couple years I was going through a particularly difficult period in my life, really pretty bad personal issues that I won't go into here. And again, long story short: somehow, in some small way I conciously said in my unbelieving heart and mind "God help me!", and you know what? He did!

Now it is the most difficult thing to descibe, because at once having a personal experience of God is both so very obvious, and yet also so very subtle. How to describe it? You sort of have to "be there", I suppose, which I'm sorry to say is most likely a quite unsatisfactory explanation for purposes of this discussion.

Have you ever been in love? How do you descibe it to someone else? Is your experience of love real or not, as it cannot really be proved nor explained.

I have since had many instances in my life where it has beeen obvious that God's hand was involved.

My take on the Bible:
Without a personal knowledge/experience of God it may not make any sense whatsoever. For me it was/is not a means to greater understanding in and of itself, yet after coming to accept God, the Bible is now such a remarkable work that I find to be truly sublime. Quite a strange turn of events!

I am an Orthodox Christian. That has been my direct route to understanding and experiencing God. I cannot speak to any issues regarding Hindus, Buddists, etc. You'll have to ask them if you want their perspective on things.

I have no real interest in "converting" anybody, I'm not proseletizing here, just sharing my experience.

Thanks guys for getting the discussion back on track!

Russel,

You will never be satisfied. I am amazed at the references we do have. Documents of antiquity do not last. Just look at the Constitution and the sate it is in, and it is kept in claimant controlled conditions, and is only 200 years old. Demanding a copy of a newspaper from 2000 years ago is just not a reasonable request.

Hutch,

I don't understand why you have to be so demeaning and condescending. My posts with you have been in response to your degradation of the beliefs of others. Through such degradation, you have tried to force your beliefs on others. I believe that you are the one proselytizing you religion of humanism. show me the threads in which you and I have engaged where I try and force my beliefs on others.

Matt

We can easily go down to Staples or Office Depot and pick up some paper, pens, 3 ring binders, etc, etc.

Was parchment so easily available in 33AD?



Soon thereafter (circa 70 AD) the Romans came to town, sacked the city and leveled the Jewish temple to the ground. Any documents that perhaps had been there would have been lost as well.

Originally Posted by mhailey

Russel,


Hutch,

I don't understand why you have to be so demeaning and condescending. My posts with you have been in response to your degradation of the beliefs of others. Through such degradation, you have tried to force your beliefs on others. I believe that you are the one proselytizing you religion of humanism. show me the threads in which you and I have engaged where I try and force my beliefs on others.

Matt

I did have a response for you but,I think it best if I just chose to ignore your personal attacks. You sir seem to read way more into every post and take everything personally, so no matter what I say to you, you'd probably take it the wrong way. If you choose to continue attacking me please PM me so as not to waste everyone else's time.

Originally Posted by Hutch

I did have a response for you but,I think it best if I just chose to ignore your personal attacks. You sir seem to read way more into every post and take everything personally, so no matter what I say to you, you'd probably take it the wrong way. If you choose to continue attacking me please PM me so as not to waste everyone else's time.

Hutch, I agree that the best course of action is to let it drop as you seem to be indicating, but please don't blow it so out of proportion at the same time that you are professing to take the high ground, besides which, this is a thread about God and your beliefs which can and should be debated in a gentlemanly manner. but was never intended to be a thread where you belittle the beliefs of others in the process of making your point! So please be respectful in your disagreements! Remember that you are not the only one with a point of view.

Mark

Plenty of written records on prominent people are extant from the period and throughout the Roman Empire. It is actually quite extraordinary that there is no mention of any such radical rabbi. I will contend that it is possible that a man named Jesus, son of a Mary and Joseph and married to a Mary Magdalen could have existed, but nothing like the man they started telling people about a few generations later.

I remember seeing Peter Brook's 5 hour Mahabarata in '89. Now there's a fantastic story. Every bit as rich as Greek mythology is to us in the west. I have no problem seeing this as myth. We can't reasonably expect stories of magical powers whether they be Christ's, Krisna's, Apollo's, Horus's or any other sun god's super powers for that matter.

Oxford Professor of Robotics Stephen Roberts whose research is related to artificial intelligence said;

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

We should be comparing gods in this thread. That might be less hurtful to people and would certainly be more interesting to me.

X

Originally Posted by JMS

Hutch, I agree that the best course of action is to let it drop as you seem to be indicating, but please don't blow it so out of proportion at the same time that you are profess to take the high ground, besides which, this is a thread about God and your beliefs which can and should be debated in a gentlemanly manner. but was never intended to be a thread where you belittle the beliefs of others in the process of making your point! So please be respectful in your disagreements! Remember that you are not the only one with a point of view.

Mark

Not sure what or how I'm "blowing it out of proportion"? My basic intent was if Matt wants to personally attack me or engage in some other of topic discussions he is free to PM me.

Not sure where I have belittled someone. or been disrespectful of someone (unless of course one equates not believing and questioning someone's beliefs as belittling and disrespectful). Does this go back to my question as to why someone would choose to believe and live their entire life based on a victorian translations of ancient fairy tales while disbelieving other fairy tales? The question still stands, as no has answered why the story of Jonah and the Whale is more believable than Jack and the Beanstalk.

Then there is the Old Testament which many theologists say are not real and should be not taken literally (mainly because they paint religion in a bad light), with that said they expect their followers to believe the New Testament, or Quaran lock, stock and barrel.

Then there is the question what makes one right about their God, the vast majority of religious people believe in a religion based upon the chance of geography ie. you were born in the US you're most likely Christian, if you were born in India you'd most likely be a Hindu. What makes the fact that one chooses to believe in one God over another and the fact that one disbelieves someone else's religion any different from the fact that some choose to believe no religion?

Originally Posted by xman

We should be comparing gods in this thread. That might be less hurtful to people and would certainly be more interesting to me.

X

Good call, x. I for one, am a fan of Thor. Most deities are sissies, Thor is not. Any deity that spends all their time beating snakes (Jormundgandr) to death with hammers (Mjollnir) is pretty awesome. If I wasn't an atheist, I would definitely worship Thor. I mean, if you're going to make up an anthropomorphize the laws of nature into a deity, why not make it an especially awesome one?

Were I a polytheist, mine would be Ullr, god of skiing.

God tur!

j

Thor is cool. I'm partial to Ganesha, remover of all obstacles.