Q and A about what it means to follow Christ

Don't mind me, just browsing.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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SkyCore wrote:

It is our own ego (sense of self) which blockades our inner sight from witnessing the complete oneness of the universe.<snip> But in the holistic vision, us mortals are little more than animals with primitive desires and emotions.

The last sentence logically follows from the first.
IF
1. the components of the mind are id, ego, and superego
2. the id is primitive animal desires
3. the ego is the internal rationalizer of sensory data
4. the superego is the personal store of the rationalizations of others, and
5. all egos are worthless,
THEN because all rationalizations began in an ego at some point, all superegos are also worthless,
THEREFORE only the id matters.

However, if that were true, you wouldn't be capable of typing it up, and I wouldn't be capable of logic. Therefore, it is false.

Related funny comic:

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Bars wrote:

Disputes about religion are always funny.

If someone says they see a great elephant in the sky with pink and green stripes, you don't argue if the stripes aren't actually black and white or ask them to prove it, you give a polite cough and carry on with your day. Let them argue if the elephant exists or not. Some people seem to enjoy it.

And when those people who believe in the great elephant in the sky become the driving cultural force in your society, and start issuing edicts and crafting laws based on their interpretations of the recent trumpetings? We did not bring this debate to them, they brought it to us, and it is important to have it. :/

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Tribulation wrote:

When a person encounters something absolutely life changing in a positive way, would that person really not want to share it? For instance, I just cannot keep this little bit of genius to myself:

PRAISE THE LORD!

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

As I've said earlier in this thread (edit: or was it another thread?) moral relativism — that is, the abandonment of religion — is not the same as atheism, but the correlation between the two is destroying cultures where atheism becomes prominent. As a culture, I believe we can exist without God, but I do not think we will persist without a profound appreciation for the holy. It is that appreciation which spurs a people to positive action against the doom of apathy and nihilism.

That is a very odd definition of moral relativism. How does one even define "holy" without the existence of a divine being?

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Aim_Deep wrote:

As I've said 100x stop thinking and feel, which most ppl dp. Remember you were made perfect (human ego) and people piled the hate on you and the purpose of religion is to present the notion that you are loved even though you are "evil" so that you will forgive yourself and stop your self hate.

I see nothing wrong with faith as the person who is optimistic will have a better success rate at what they attempt than a person who is a defeatist. Faith is precursor for nearly everything we do if you think about it. A marriage, a business start up, anything.

Until it starts impacting me ofc

How does the faith of a Muslim differ from your faith? And if someone trying to sell you something told you to "stop thinking and feel", would you say that made them less or more trustworthy? How do you even define the word "faith" in this context? I think you're talking about two very separate concepts. If I say "I have faith that god exists, therefore I need no evidence" and "I have faith my car will start tomorrow morning because it's done so the last 100 days I needed it to", I'm clearly using one word to mean two very different things.

Same request for any Christian here who considers faith a good thing, btw. Define "faith" as you see it, then explain why it is a good thing. The working definition I have most of the time is that faith is belief in things with no further reason to believe in them; belief "just because". This seems applicable quite a lot of the time, but I can't for the life of me figure out why it's a good idea.

As for loving oneself... I love myself without any help. I don't think I'm evil. I'm not perfect, but I don't feel like "perfect" is a reasonable standard to hold anyone to, because nobody is. This is, IMO, one of the harmful aspects of Christianity. It treats us as broken, as evil, as wrong, for no fault of our own. It convinces us that we're sick, then sells us the cure. But I don't think we needed the cure in the first place.

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bwam wrote:

Spoiler

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Tribulation wrote:

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Boem wrote:

This gonna be gud.

As for a question, why do you need/want god to exist?

Peace,

-Boem-

I never needed/wanted God to exist. I honestly didn't believe in God throughout my younger years. I grew up going to church every week, but there was nothing in my household that pointed to God except for two hours on one Sunday a week. So basically nothing. If anything it reinforced that God was just some made-up something for people to feel good about themselves.

I joined the Marine Corps at 18 (34 now), and had fun pretending to be a badass for some time after Sadam threw the scuds over. Long story short, I met a buddy while deployed who tried to followed Christ and his life was much more fulfilling than mine. Mine being spending $150 a night on shots of Patron Silver down in Pacific Beach and the like, having fun but still feeling like I was wasting my life.

I began to question God again and pretty soon God gave me an experience of "peace that surpasses all understanding". That was kind of an "oh crap" moment that was hard to ignore. Every day I pursue a friendship with God, I see Him work, and I just do not want to live without that. Life is too damn hard otherwise.

Tribulation,

I'm currently reading through the thread, but wanted to respond to you when I saw this.

A bit about me: I'm a Christian. I'm also a former Marine as well (I'm 29), and I fought in Iraq circa 2008.

I was a super enthusiastic PoE player until late last year. Something about the "Sacrifice to the Goddess" tokens really rubbed me the wrong way. One day, while I was staring at my stash, it occurred to me, "This is idolatry...."

As I said in a letter to Dan at GGG:

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Basically, you've set up a system where there's an in-game entity, a "Goddess" (not an issue for me -- Dom calls himself God, and that doesn't bother me at all... Bad guys are bad), and players "offering" tokens to it. The tokens are considered valuable, as finding them requires time, effort, opportunity, and skill.

Therein lies the issue. Think about it aesthetically, even. Imagine you're a player, hording "Offering to the Goddess" items in your stash, and what that looks like. I call a spade a spade.

I quit immediately.

The only reason I'm on this thread today is because I was messaging GGG's Dan (again) to see if my objections could be accommodated. (I was even willing, and still am willing, to donate to make this happen.)

Do you disagree with my assessment? For me, when I saw a whole bunch of these tokens in my stash, and when I ran my cursor over them seeing "Sacrifice to the Goddess" over and over again on my screen, I got sick.

I'd be interested in hearing your opinion.

Do you partake in any media that has its own mythology? In the world of Wraeclast, gods in the model of pagan and greco-roman religions exist. There may also be another, higher being more akin to the abrahamic god in the background (the god volks like the Templar or Voll worships), although to my knowledge this has yet to be truly established. However, lesser gods? They definitely exist. Patch 3.0 makes that very clear. In fact, if the Orchard map is any indication, you can beat the aforementioned pagan gods, specifically the aforementioned "goddess of justice", into submission with a big fuckoff hammer.



^Like that one. ^_^

I dunno if I'd even consider such an entity as a "god"; merely a very powerful, non-human sentient being. "God" has some slightly heavier baggage attached.

But the key point here is: "in the world of wraeclast". It's fantasy, an escapist fantasy world you engage in knowing full well that it isn't real. If that bothers you, chances are good you're going to want to avoid pretty much most fantasy media, lest you worry that laughing about the various jokes centered around Anoia, Discworld's "goddess of things getting stuck in drawers" be considered idolatrous. But I see little that should stop you from distinguishing between fantasy and reality (disregarding for the moment my personal feelings on where your God falls on that divide).

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I, obviously, hadn't seen them that way either. But it occurred to me, rather suddenly, as I was sitting in front of the game, that I was collecting "Sacrifices to the Goddess" en masse, and what that might look like to the one who lives in my heart.

If god is all-knowing and can see your heart and thoughts, he probably can figure out that this isn't meant as idolatry. ;)


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@OP, a few questions.

Do you believe that the bible is divinely accurate/divinely inspired?
Do you believe that the bible, particularly genesis, can be taken literally, or that certain parts of it are better taken as metaphor? If the latter, how do you determine which parts are accurate and which parts are metaphor?
How do you define "faith", and why do you consider having faith a good thing?

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

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Bars wrote:

Disputes about religion are always funny.

If someone says they see a great elephant in the sky with pink and green stripes, you don't argue if the stripes aren't actually black and white or ask them to prove it, you give a polite cough and carry on with your day. Let them argue if the elephant exists or not. Some people seem to enjoy it.

And when those people who believe in the great elephant in the sky become the driving cultural force in your society, and start issuing edicts and crafting laws based on their interpretations of the recent trumpetings? We did not bring this debate to them, they brought it to us, and it is important to have it. :/

What, you think you're somehow living in a special time where this terrible thing has happened which has never happened before? The forces in power always have a narrative, full of varying degrees of bullshit (usually high), which is used to keep society in check. The forces in power usually don't believe in this narrative. If we look at history's lessons, some of the worst disasters happen when they actually believe it. Since I assume you're referring to Trump, I don't think he believes the narrative.

You're taking this all as a huge fucking tragedy because you believe the bullshit fed to you by the other side. I'm taking it as a comedy because I believe it's all bullshit.

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Bars wrote:

What, you think you're somehow living in a special time where this terrible thing has happened which has never happened before? The forces in power always have a narrative, full of varying degrees of bullshit (usually high), which is used to keep society in check. The forces in power usually don't believe in this narrative. If we look at history's lessons, some of the worst disasters happen when they actually believe it. Since I assume you're referring to Trump, I don't think he believes the narrative.

You're taking this all as a huge fucking tragedy because you believe the bullshit fed to you by the other side. I'm taking it as a comedy because I believe it's all bullshit.

Au contraire, the world has more or less always been run by religion in one way or another. In modern, western societies, we're gradually moving away from that. Which is a good thing. That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to push back against the places where a religious belief leads to a worse society. Things like abstinence-only sex education, bans on stem cell research, denying homosexuals equal rights, the rejection of science... None of these problems have gone away. When we refuse to push back against them, we cede the ground to the religious.

Trump is not the worst case of this we've ever seen. He's not even the worst case we've seen in the last 40 years (remember when Pat Robertson had plausible political aspirations? Good times), or arguably in the last 10 years. For all I know he might be our first atheist president, despite his constant overtures to the conservative christian wing of the party. But when you have influential politicians standing up to say that they reject warnings from scientists about one of the major problems facing the world in the next hundred years because of their religion, or that established science is lies from the pit of hell, it's clear that there's still work to be done, and that just ignoring the people who believe in that flying elephant isn't really a good option.

It's not all bullshit, believe it or not. Sometimes this shit matters. And just because it was worse in the past and is better now than it has ever been doesn't necessarily mean it's time to rest on our laurels. Particularly when others are trying their best to make it worse again.

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It's not all bullshit, believe it or not. Sometimes this shit matters.

Well, here lies our fundamental difference. You can't not care, I can't care. I can only wish you good luck trying to change the world.

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Bars wrote:

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It's not all bullshit, believe it or not. Sometimes this shit matters.

Well, here lies our fundamental difference. You can't not care, I can't care. I can only wish you good luck trying to change the world.

Doesn't take much. All it takes is some people giving a shit sometimes.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Don't mind me, just browsing.
@OP, a few questions.

Do you believe that the bible is divinely accurate/divinely inspired?
Do you believe that the bible, particularly genesis, can be taken literally, or that certain parts of it are better taken as metaphor? If the latter, how do you determine which parts are accurate and which parts are metaphor?
How do you define "faith", and why do you consider having faith a good thing?

I do believe the bible is divinely inspired.

I believe that genesis and the creation of the world could be taken literally. Also metaphorically. God could have done it either way. We don't know which way it was, but He has the power to do it either way. It also believe it doesn't matter when it comes down to it. We'll figure it out when we get into eternity. Not worth squabbling over now.


I define faith as hope and trust in something. Faith in God doesn't revolve around not seeing Him or not knowing whether He is there, but rather having experienced His goodness and having hope and trust in Him and that He will continue to do so. Faith that even when things don't look good, or that times are tough, He is still with me and still loves me, and will work things out for good. Trusting that good can come out of my current situation, even if the situation sucks. That is faith.

A good example is Job 1. Read the whole chapter, but pay attention to the last 3 verses, 20-22.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+1&version=ESV

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

...a big fuckoff hammer.

^Like that one. ^_^

I LOL'd :)

Job get his wife killed by god because Satan play a game with him.

Job get a new wife and kid and is happy, yet previous wife and kids got killed by god because of some stupid mind game. It doesn t bother Job much his wife and kids are dead, neither god who killed them.

Imo Job story is very dark and show women have little value in this old time and God don t give a fuck about killing innocent people if it is to prove a point.

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Tribulation wrote:

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Don't mind me, just browsing.
@OP, a few questions.

Do you believe that the bible is divinely accurate/divinely inspired?
Do you believe that the bible, particularly genesis, can be taken literally, or that certain parts of it are better taken as metaphor? If the latter, how do you determine which parts are accurate and which parts are metaphor?
How do you define "faith", and why do you consider having faith a good thing?

I do believe the bible is divinely inspired.

I believe that genesis and the creation of the world could be taken literally. Also metaphorically. God could have done it either way. We don't know which way it was, but He has the power to do it either way. It also believe it doesn't matter when it comes down to it. We'll figure it out when we get into eternity. Not worth squabbling over now.

See, I kinda have an issue with this. The bible is divinely inspired, but we seem at an utter loss to be able to interpret it accurately. Why is it that a divinely inspired text cannot make its meaning clear, even to the people who believe in it? It's like... If a physics professor writes a physics textbook, the vast, vast majority of people will understand exactly how it is intended. Why is the same not true of a book which is apparently written by a perfect being? Particularly when said being could clearly predict that such differences in interpretations would lead to great violence and suffering?

And if we can't interpret it properly, what use is it to us?

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I define faith as hope and trust in something. Faith in God doesn't revolve around not seeing Him or not knowing whether He is there, but rather having experienced His goodness and having hope and trust in Him and that He will continue to do so. Faith that even when things don't look good, or that times are tough, He is still with me and still loves me, and will work things out for good. Trusting that good can come out of my current situation, even if the situation sucks. That is faith.

Couldn't you just use "hope" and avoid all the baggage that comes with using a term like "faith"? It seems like a poor choice of words, given how it is used by various other people. The term "faith" carries a TON of baggage.

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A good example is Job 1. Read the whole chapter, but pay attention to the last 3 verses, 20-22.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+1&version=ESV

Except any rational person, given that performance, would reasonable say to god, "What the fuck, dude?! You just ruined my life, killed my family, and now I'm supposed to worship you?!" What kind of faith is that?

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Except any rational person, given that performance, would reasonable say to god, "What the fuck, dude?! You just ruined my life, killed my family, and now I'm supposed to worship you?!" What kind of faith is that?

Earlier in this thread I explain that God will let us go through some crap in order to bring us closer to Him. In the context of eternity, if we experience some crap in this life, the crap seems trivial.

This isn't just some rhetoric I am spewing that read/heard. There are many parts of scripture that support this, and I have gone threw some crap and have experienced God's grace on the other side. The crap made me pursue Him quite a bit more, and I am quite thankful for it.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

See, I kinda have an issue with this. The bible is divinely inspired, but we seem at an utter loss to be able to interpret it accurately. Why is it that a divinely inspired text cannot make its meaning clear, even to the people who believe in it? It's like... If a physics professor writes a physics textbook, the vast, vast majority of people will understand exactly how it is intended. Why is the same not true of a book which is apparently written by a perfect being? Particularly when said being could clearly predict that such differences in interpretations would lead to great violence and suffering?

And if we can't interpret it properly, what use is it to us?

I was just making the point that it really doesn't matter. The important part is loving God and living for others. In this life, what kind of impact does the literal 7 day creation or the metaphorical version? Basically 0.

In truth, that part is quite literal. Making that metaphorical is just an easy excuse for unbelief. AKA trying to make the "facts" fit around our pre-conceived notions. God made the earth in 7 days. Historians can track the 7 day week back to about 500 B.C. That's only what we can track.

To interpret the Bible, context is the key. An easy example would be:

1 Corinthians 7:1 -- "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." Does this mean that there should be no physical contact whatsoever between men and women? In what sense is a man not to "touch" a woman? This passage occurs in the context of the importance of abstaining from sexual immorality (1 Cor 5:1-5; 6:9-20; 7:2, 9), and that is the sense in which a man is not to touch a woman. It would be wrong to conclude that any man should never touch any woman, but sexual purity should be the goal for every man and woman. (http://www.spiritandtruth.org/teaching/Bible_Interpretation/03_Context/03_Context_Notes.pdf?x=x)

Checking against the containing verse, book, and then the rest of scripture, is a pretty good (albeit time consuming) way to get context. But on the bright side, we are to "meditate on His word day and night", so I guess it goes hand in hand :)