PaulS

I came here initially because I was learning about a new approach to Jesus & the Bible that fundamentalism hadn't ever indicated existed. To me this was truly astounding and an approach that I could understand and even accept to some degree. I seeks answers but not answers that I need to take on for myself, but answers that help me understand why some people think some things. I find it all very interesting. Food for thought you may say as I continue to live, evolve, and develop as a person. I have stayed here because I enjoy the courtesy usually extended to and by everyone, regardless of their 'position' or beliefs, and I continue to learn about what makes others tick in regards to God, religion, agnosticism, and atheism. I welcome the diverse points of view and find they all enrich my understanding of 'us'.

Welcome Amy, May we all travel a road that gets us there without harming ourselves or others. Cheers Paul

Welcome Beachgal, I hope you enjoy participating here and sharing your views having been through a similar journey as so many here. Cheers Paul

To me it seems pretty explicitly clear in the NT that Paul had no intention of taking his message to the Jews, but rather only chose non-Jewish people to take his message to. I don't know if there were synagogues in Rome when Paul went there to set up camp only to find Stephen had beaten him to the punch, but it is clear that he had no interest in hanging around Jerusalem. Who is worth following is a good question. Or more to the point, why restrict the choice to historical Jesus/Gospel Jesus? Does one have to 'pick' somebody to follow, or can we take various excellent teachings from the many excellent, yet only human teachers, and continue to evolve? Maybe God intends something for us that isn't Jesus? Maybe that's why only now scholars and theologians are able to present such compelling arguments concerning what Jesus was actually all about vs the Gospel version. Who knows.

A book I have just finished called Zealot, presents a convincing argument that Jesus should be taken in context of his culture and time. This book points out that Jesus himself stated several times that his 'message' was to the Jews, not the gentiles. It would seem that Jesus' 'message' didn't extend outside that circle - so to love your enemies wasn't to turn the other cheek to the Roman soldier torturing you, but was intended as a message for Jews to love their fellow Jews. It seems that Paul took Jesus' message and chose himself to expand it to include gentiles. Whilst the Gospels may present Jesus' currently understood message 'clearly' I think we should be at least conscious of the fact that with the gospels having been written at least 40 years after Jesus left, it is highly likely his 'message' was lost a little in translation. That said, nothing stops us (or Paul) from building on that original message and developing it even further for our world today.

Welcome Gaylordcat, I too have just finished Zealot by audiobook (this morning actually) and found it to be extremely interesting and the most sense I have heard yet made of the historical Jesus. I believe that putting Jesus in the cultural/political context of his time helps form a picture of what Jesus was about and helps better understand the Bible. I hope you enjoy the discussions here and I look forward to your participation. Cheers Paul

Unfortunately for many, the security offered by 'believing' is much more rewarding than 'searching' and having to live with unknowing.

DavidD, I think it is inevitable that the creation story as told by biblical literalists and young earthers, will collapse one day. I believe it is doing so as we speak. The internet has made information so readily available to so many, and I think we are starting to see the impact of such availability of information. It may seem slow, but I think it is faster than what we imagine. Cheers Paul

Interesting. I wonder when the online shop for indulgences might launch.

Welcome Element, I hope you enjoy it here. Cheers Paul

Very well put, Bill. I like it. Cheers Paul

Bill, personability The quality of being personable.Synonymspersonableness I can't agree that the teleological argument is more than just about odds. In fact, the whole basis for the teleological argument is that life is so complex and its existence astounding, that there must be a creator/designer who created it. This is an argument for odds - the chances of life being created other than by a sophisticated creator beyond our comprehension, are simply too great due to its level of complexity. It seems to me that this a position created to explain the unexplainable, but without any 'answers'. I started this thread using the term 'love' because that is what I often hear from people concerning the main attribute of God. So I was interested to hear about how people actually understand that. But at a deeper level I ask the same question about the existence of God at all - how do people understand this entity's existence and how do they come do believe this entity exists (I use the term entity 'loosely' to broadly cover person/spirit/chemical/feeling/etc). It seems to me that everyone who believes in God has their reasons, which as we have seen here vary far and wide. It just seems to me that any arguments for the existence of God seem to boil down to an individual's personal experience with such experiences varying widely - some genuinely heartfelt and many perhaps constructed by teachings and culture. I am curious as to how all of these different views fit together (if indeed they do). I appreciate everybody's input into the discussion. Thanks. Cheers Paul

Bill, I've never understood this argument - Although we don't 'know' the answer we seem to accept it because it's just too big for us to understand at present. If the odds of the universe happening so as to allow life are astronomical, then the odds must be even more astronomical for there being a creator who existed before existence itself existed. At least the lottery is only 175,000,000 to 1 (yet people win it). I would hazard a guess that much like ancient people who scoffed at the odds of the earth revolving around the sun or that indeed the earth was a sphere and not a flat disc, primal cause is still yet to be understood. Personally, I find less and less points toward there being a personable creator, but maybe I am wrong. Paul

Welcome Veratatis, I think you'll find a very diverse range of views here concerning God - in fact many people's view of God differs amongst others here! I hope you enjoy I here and nook forward to your participation and readin your views further. Cheers Paul

Hi zcarol and welcome, I hope you find plenty of interesting things here to read, but unfortunately I think Bishop Spong is yet to post here (maybe there's something in an ancient archived post, I'm not sure). You can subscribe to his newsletter and access all of his previous essays from his site http://johnshelbyspong.com/ As I understand it, Spong is affiliated with Progressive Christianity and this web site, but he is no more a player here than any other member chooses to be. I've been here a few years now and am yet to read a post from the good Bishop. I subscribe to his newsletter though and like you, have found a different way to understanding the bible than I was taught within my fundamental, biblical-literalist, Christian upbringing. Again, welcome and I hope you enjoying learning and participating here. Cheers Paul

Welcome CDWolfe, I hope you enjoy sharing and participating here. Cheers Paul

Listening to a podcast today (Interfaith Voices) the subject of mystical experiences was introduced. A couple of interviewees cited experiences they had had which to them had 'connected' them to the divine, albeit temporarily. One spoke of being in a church service that was quite intimate but enjoyable, when he was just suddenly overcoming with incredible love & feelings of connectedness with everything. Marcus Borg reports his mystical experience in an aircraft cabin once when he 'saw' light permeating 'through' the airplane an everyone in it. The producer of the show quoted William James as below: America's great psychologist, William James provided a description of the mystical experience in his famous collection of lectures published in 1902 as The Varieties of Religious Experience. In Lectures 16 and 17 he stated: "...propose to you four marks which, when an experience has them, may justify us in calling it mystical...:1. Ineffability - The handiest of the marks by which I classify a state of mind as mystical is negative. The subject of it immediately says that it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words. 2. Noetic Quality - Although so similar to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for aftertime. 3. Transiency - Mystical states cannot be sustained for long. 4. Passivity - Although the oncoming of mystical states may be facilitated by preliminary voluntary operations, as by fixing the attention, or going through certain bodily performances, or in other ways which manuals of mysticism prescribe; yet when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set in, the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power. So of course I got to wondering what mystical experiences some here may have had? Would you care to share if you have, or even if you have not, about mystical experiences? Cheers Paul

Familiarity (Christianity is something I grew up with so culturally it's something that I can relate to), and my idea of Jesus (a man who showed us how we can all live a life of peace and fulfilment).

Yes

Keith, it seems to me that Spong puts across a more thorough argument than the one-liner your OP presents. Chapter 32 of that book (from where this line comes) is dedicated to this issue and it presents Spong's reasons for deciding that he thinks Paul was most likely a repressed gay man. It's not just a shot in isolation, he discussed his thoughts at length. I think any reasonable reader would be able to weigh up Spong's reasons and decide for themselves. I don't think anybody should take anybody else's thoughts as their own without considering all the available evidence.

Why? By what rule does it have to be this way? How do you come to that conclusion? (Not arguing or saying you're wrong, just trying to understand).

I'm getting your picture now, I think. God is everything. God is you, me, our thoughts, our feelings, our physicality, our spirituality. God is a leaf and all of it's components. God is air, space, fire, cloud. God is because God can not be not? Close?

Myron, Do you have a view then whether God is love or is not love? Cheers Paul

Joseph, So how would you describe God then? Do you think of God as a soundwave, or like water and we are the fish swimming in God. How does God as love 'exist' to you? Cheers Paul

Bill, I think the difference between your parenting and any Gods is that you do anything and everything you are capable of to help your children. So if your child was starving to death, you would do what you could to intervene and save them. That's because you love them. I can't reconcile how a God sitting back and allowing things to play out as they may, could be described as 'love'. We have an agreed view on an interventionist God - there isn't one. True, how do we account for the good things in our lives, but rather than luck or chance I think I would simply put that down to "that's life". Maybe something/someone called God wound us all up to experience good things, and it's our fault that the bad things get in the way. Perhaps, but again, I can't see then why anyone would relate this to God being Love. I do like your question - "Why is there good in the world?" Maybe that is God. All good fodder to ponder! Cheers Paul