Hornet

Just out of curiosity, what kind of sermons do you hear in churches that embrace progressive Christianity?

In my experience with evangelical Christian churches, I have heard a lot of expository preaching where the preacher would explain the meaning of a particular text of Scripture and how it applies to our lives. In some evangelical churches, the preacher speaks on a different topic every week. In other evangelical churches, the pastor preaches through an entire book of Bible before speaking about another book of the Bible.

The main point of the sermon in evangelical churches has to do with God or Jesus. Even if the preacher talks about marriage, one's career, money, and so on, he will talk about how those topics relate to God or Jesus. Evangelical preachers will talk about what is morally right or morally wrong, but they don't merely give a moral lesson. They talk about how God saves people from their sins.

I don't see morals as being initiated by some personal agent, but rather a result of evolution of various survival mechanisms.

 

If it is logical for something to be 'uncreated' then that logic must extend to it being possible that the start of life (big bang, first cells, etc) was uncreated.

Inanimate survival mechanisms are not concerned about what is morally right or morally wrong. Survival value is not the same as the rightness or wrongness of an action.

 

I thought that is what I was trying to say, Hornet. It seemed to me that CP couldn't accept that a cell might exist without having a creator, but seems to accept that God existed without something causing God to begin to exist.

Things such as moral values and the laws of logic can only come from personal things, not from impersonal things. The uncreated cause of all things that began to exist must be personal.

Hornet,

 

I do not need to know that my religion or belief system is true. I shed that requirement some time ago.

 

In my view, 'belief systems' are just that...belief systems. They are not truths. To me, they are merely man's vain attempt at truth to answer questions concerning life and the nature of things. To me, God is not a belief system but rather an ever-present reality that i experience. There is no need for words to describe that reality but of course that doesn't stop one from trying to communicate such in words to point to that reality.

 

Joseph

Do you believe that when it comes to religious beliefs a person should just go with whatever he thinks works for him?

I think religion is a means to an end that end being an experience of the Divine. My own belief system has evolved as I participate in rituals and disciplines and as I acquire self-knowledge.

Having a relationship with God is important. Some people go through the motions of participating in rituals or church activities without having any sort of love or affection for God.

 

1. By your own logic CP, God cannot exist as the creator, because something must have created God as nothing can come from nothing. God couldn't exist without being created, according to this view.

 

He probably meant, "If something began to exist, then something must have caused it to begin to exist."

If someone asked you, "How do you know that your religion or belief system is true?", how would you respond?

If a society bans same-sex marriage, then is that society morally wrong for doing so? If so, then what moral standard are you using to judge other society for being morally wrong?

Joseph,

 

Yes, we are a democracy and the majority rules however unreasonable it may be at times. But, we are also protected by the Constitution against infringements or our rights which includes issues of equality. Further, the Constitution insures religious freedom. We cannot impose our religious views on others.

 

A church can grant or deny marriage to whomever they wish. However, they cannot impose their religious doctrines on others.

 

George

Maybe religious people should come up with non-religious arguments against same-sex marriage.

Dennis,

 

I would suggest that if the premise is unsound, then the conclusions that follow from it would also be unsound.

 

If someone wants to say I don't agree with gay marriage because it violates my personal religious convictions, that is fine with me. My response would be, 'Then don't marry someone of the same sex.' But, I would also say, "Don't tell other people what they cannot do based on your religious convictions.' (unless there is harm involved).

 

I am still waiting for this rational argument against gay marriage - seriously. I am not trying to argumentative. If there is a sound argument, someone should bring it forth.

 

George

God defines what marriage ought to be. God says that same-sex marriage is wrong. I think that this is better than saying, "Same-sex marriage is wrong because two people of the same sex cannot procreate" or "Same-sex marriage is wrong because it is unnatural."

One's religion or worldview is going to influence one's political philosophy. One's religious beliefs are going to affect one's views about freedom, liberty, the rights of other, what the government should prohibit or not prohibit, and so on.

Hornet,

 

I would be interested if you could cite a good, scholarly source for this. Truthfully, this reconciliation sounds a little like apologetics to me, but I am open to good, well-supported information.

 

George

My source for this is Colin Humphrey's book, The Mystery of the Last Supper. You can read about his book here: http://www.cambridge.org/asia/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521517553

According to the Synoptic Gospels, the Last Supper was a Passover meal whereas the Gospel of John says that the Last Supper was before the Passover. How do you resolve this alleged discrepancy? This is resolved by understanding that the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John were using different calendars and that these different calendars give different dates for the Passover. The Synoptic Gospels use the pre-exilic Jewish calendar which was based on the Egyptian lunar calendar and John uses the official Jewish calendar which was developed during the Jewish exile in Babylon. According to a reconstruction of the pre-exilic Jewish calendar, in A.D. 33, the year of Christ's death on the cross, the Passover meal was on a Wednesday. According to the official Jewish calendar, the Passover meal was on a different day.

I've known many evangelical Christians who see praying in public as an evangelizing tool to save the lost poor souls. My Sunday school teacher said that the reason they pray in public at restaurants is on the off-chance that some poor lost soul will see them doing it and that somehow their actions will lead them to Christ. After all, as we all know, if you're working at a restaurant on Sunday morning instead of being at church, you must be a wicked heathen damned to hell or something.

I don't see it as an evangelizing tool. The purpose of praying in restaurant is to give thanks for the food. The purpose doesn't have to be to show off.

Brent

 

"Within the bounds of that which is consistent with the divine nature, it is literally true that "with God all things are possible."

 

One could also say that humans are omnipotent (i.e. within the bounds of human nature). The question then is, what are the bounds of divine nature?

 

George

I believe that omnipotence should be defined as having unlimited power rather than the ability to do anything. Since God has unlimited power, He cannot have any weaknesses. Since God doesn't have any weaknesses, He cannot do evil.

Just because someone cannot do a certain task does not mean that he is lacking in power. For example, no one can make a square circle. Not being able to do this task does not mean he is lacking in power. He cannot do it because the task is logically contradictory.

As with most theological issues, the bible seems to have conflicting views on the omniscient nature of God. As the bible's mythology continued to be developed, God's powers kept getting beefed up by the writers and there are passages like the prophecy verses which seem to hint that God has all-knowing powers. But then there are other verses like in the story of Adam and Eve's fall where God doesn't know where Adam and Eve are and is calling for them in the garden or in Noah's Ark where God actually forgets about Noah at one point.

God knew where Adam and Eve were. He was testing them to see if they would give honest answers.

I'm in CA single with progressive beliefs, but little scholarship apart from currently reading the NIV study Bible. I've been looking online and can't find an answer that satisfies my question: If Jesus knew that Judas Iscariot was going to betray him, then why did He pick the man for a desciple?

To prove to us that He can love those kinds of people.

To prove to us that not everyone who claims to be a Christian will continue to follow Christ for the rest of their lives.

How can Heaven be a place? Place suggests finite physicallity. My understanding of what may come after this is that it is eternal - without end or limitation of any kind.

 

Peace,

 

Brian

Heaven is located somewhere. It has a finite size. Heaven is eternal in the sense that it will exist forever.

So, Hornet, what is your view of Heaven, in addition to Hell, & Free Choice (or Free Will)?

 

Brian

Heaven is a real place and believers in Jesus will spend an eternity in heaven.

I think that free choice or free will is the ability to act according to one's desires. Free choice or free will defined in this way is compatible with determinism. This notion of free choice doesn't need the agent to be able to do otherwise. If I perform action X and I had the genuine desire to do it, then I have free will even if I could not have done otherwise.

A lot of faith healing is bogus. I remember going to a church where a sick person went to the front of the sanctuary. She had her right leg lengthened by a faith healer and she was declared to be healed. People actually thought that she was healed.

If someone claims to be a faith healer, I would love to see him go into a hospital and heal all of the sick people instantly.

I believe that God can heal people and do miracles, but I don't believe that having your right leg lengthened by a faith healer is evidence of being genuinely healed of your sickness.

Hell is supposed to be a place of punishment for those who deserve it. I don't believe that God gets His jollies by sending people to hell.

There is a kind of relativism called "moral relativism", which says that moral truth is relative to the individual person (Ethical Subjectivism) or relative to a person's culture (Ethical Conventionalism). If moral truth is relative to the individual person, then whatever I think is morally right is in fact morally right. If moral truth is relative to a person's culture, then whatever a person's culture says is morally right is actually morally right.

Moral relativism is different from ethical objectivism, which says that there are universal moral truths that exist independently of what human beings think. According to ethical objectivism, torturing babies for the fun of it would be morally wrong independently of what I think or what my culture thinks or what some other cultures think.

There is a kind of pluralism called "religious pluralism", which says that all religions are equally valid as ways to God. If this is correct, then there is no good reason to do evangelism.