romansh

One of the literal translations of the word religion is to reconnect. For me the question becomes to reconnect to what? Is it each other? To God or god? The universe? The fact that you are asking am I a true Christian is likely a just a reflection of your environment. If you were bouht up in India would you be asking am I a true Hindu? Speaking personally it is all about having a connection to the universe and understanding that connection. I must admit I find the word hypocrite a judgemental word ... which in itself is a judgement, so I too am 'guilty'. I think the point is to cut others and oneself some slack. You are 8 h drive from me which I suppose is fairly close by continental standards.

Welcome zzmel, In terms of full disclosure I do not consider myself Christian. Personally I do not fear death no more than I fear going to sleep every night. I am not looking forward to the act of dying ... but it is something I don't think I will be in a position to choose the how and the where. I trust it will be swift. Regarding the afterlife ... as a devout agnostic I pay lip service to not being sure, but as somebody with a scientific background it has to be a nonsense ... other than some Lion King Great Circle of Life ... that sort of makes sense to me. So my advice would be, we should make the most of our years whilst we are alive. And finally to your question ... If you call yourself Christian then that is fine by me. You may not be Christian by some dogmatic definitions, but I suspect the few people that are here pay little heed to dogmatic definitions, it is your actions that count not your beliefs.

I think if we first separate Christ from Jesus, then we can put the two concepts back together again. If John 10:30 is as accurate for me as it was for 'Christ' ... that tends to lead us to some pantheistic world view ... I think.

Can't really describe myself as any kind of Christian, but I am giving up sobriety for Lent.

For me the two videos are about interconnectedness ... it is not just our interdependence of one another ... it is about out our interdependence on everything. To think of oneself as somehow separate from the rest of creation is for me, one of the greatest dogmas that we don't even have to preach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422411861&v=hwyuQbIb0Xs&x-yt-cl=84924572 related ....

Maybe.

Here is a useful link on free will ... from a naysayers perspective: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/category/free-will/ the latest blog, 13 Nov 2015, is quick review of Dennett's review of Mele's book.

Only if you can incorporate some sex during play.

an interesting view point http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2013/12/02/why-life-does-not-really-exist/ and what is life? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428655.800-widen-the-goal-in-the-search-for-alien-life.html#.VLdXNk05DIU

Is there any sensible evidence that god has wants and desires? Often we wander off into the territory where god is transcendent, ie beyond all categories of thought. So any answer we come with as to the reason for population density of our galaxy is by definition unverifiable or meaningless. So it is left to those who god is made in our image to explain why there may or net be life on other planets. See my previous paragraph.

Well if fundamentalist interpretations (seemingly literal) are true then god definitely is not great, and it has a great deal of explaining to do at least for me. Of course god is not going to do that, then it is up to fundamentalist apologists to do that on god's behalf. But I must admit I question do these people have any greater access to the interpretation of god than say, I do.

ps In the book - Ehrman describes himself as an agnostic ... so he can't be all bad, Earlier in this thread Joseph said Now it doesn't really matter to me whether Paul really said that or not, when referring to a particular passage in the New Testament. While I might not agree with Joseph's following sentences, I think the first one is key from the perspective of this discussion.

Hi Paul ... I agree it is an excellent book, and I agree with Ehrman, that Jesus did exist. I also agree with Ehrman rebuttals of mythicist positions'. A Campbellian take on myth is very different from that of a mythicist. Campbell might argue that whether Jesus existed or what might be ascribed to Jesus is unimportant. What is important is the meaning of the overall myth. Whereas I would argue that for a mythicist all that is important is whether Jesus existed or not. A quote by Campbell ... mythology is what we call someone else's religion. Just a note on my personal nomenclature. Jesus is the historical character that the myth of Christ is built on. So the combination of Jesus Christ would be an oxymoron if you found me writing it. Now I am fairly sure other traditions were incorporated into the mythical Christ, as were actual events and that later sages added their own ideas. But that is OK (in the Campbellian sense). So the question becomes how do we interpret our religious texts in today's context. Campbell argued that we should be evaluating these texts with our modern understanding, not some two thousand year old understanding or even an understanding from the nineteenth century.

To carry on with the alliteration of 'Liar, Lunatic or Lord' - I think we can an add legend (in the sense of myth) ... and here I use myth in a positive (Campbellian) sense.

My land line has never been able to access Facebook. Plus I would have to join Facebook ... frankly I can't be bothered.

That someone applies a logical argument( based on observation) on whether god exists, I think is quite reasonable ... literally. I am not sure what other options are .... throwing bones, faith, meditation? While all these are nice ... I would check the outcome against observation and logic.

I think that we can only use our richest faculties of our mind, and they are surely not the faculty of having mathematical concepts. This is a matter of opinion is it not? but the faculties of emotions, feelings, silence, irrationality. If that is what you believe then fair enough ... But this would include fear, hate, shame, anger, impatience, greediness to name a few. Perhaps the only feeling I might vote for is acceptance ... but speaking personally I don't think I could feel acceptance unless I had a feeling of understanding ... which brings us back to the logical part of our existence. I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside Oh, yeah, oh, yeah (that's right) I've got a feeling, a feeling I can't hide Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no Yeah. Yeah! I've got a feeling, yeah! But if we think love or an expression of oxytocin is an expression of God or something similar ... I can't argue with you, I suspect any definition of God will end up being wrong somehow. So then why even think in terms of God? I can be humanistic without God or gods ... in fact I suspect I am.

I must admit the objective and subjective are a little bit like one those illusory opposites we take a look at from time to time. Energy comes to an object (we call that energy objective) that energy is in some way reflected or re-emitted from the object (and we call that subjective). Think of a mirror ... light hits a mirror and its reflection is perhaps distorted or incomplete. And a quote from Joseph Campbell: If all you think of are your sins then you are sinner.

I must admit I have technical difficulties of the infinite being synonymous with oneness. ie a mathematical concept being god. Bearing in mind the universe appears to be finite or if Lawrence Krauss is right the whole lot adds up to a big fat zero in terms of energy. Then there is Cantor's an infinity of infinities ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor But I think you might enjoy The Infinite Book by John D Barrow, a Christian view of the inifinite

Relativism for me is a philosophical position that allows us to hang on to duality or perhaps pluralism. While the experience of oneness that Joseph talks about, I can't say I have experienced it; but philosophically and logically it make sense for me.

Angel ... this interpretation does not make sense to me. So when Adam and Eve taste the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, does their knowledge of such things become perfect? If not why not and if so what is the problem? I could interpret it as a nihilistic approach to good and evil, rather than a relativistic one. And frankly that makes way more sense, at least to me. And saying distinguishing good from evil is impossible even for God, does not make sense to me either ... If "God" can't tell the difference then evangelical interpretations of hell make no sense whatever. The problem with metaphors, their interpretations are in the eye of the beholder.

Paul In my experience the majority of Christians don't believe in a literal Genesis ... But to be fair these Christians don't generally enter into debate. This is based on twenty five years in the UK and a similar number in Canada. And even the literal belief of an immaculate birth is waning. People tend to interpret the original sin as breaking God's command and don't seem overly bothered by what the command was or what its contents meant. Now that later commentators see this command breaking as sin is interesting and that later generations have taken the commentary as gospel is somewhat sad at least for me. Where in the Bible does it explain why we should not know of good and evil? I don't recall ever seeing a good explanation. “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.” This can be interpreted as not doing evil stuff ... which of course is debatable or it could be interpreted as don't do what you don't want done to you. Fairly straight forward with a few caveats.

Paul I can't speak for literalist Christians ... I do not understand what would make anyone think the Earth is six thousand years old ... You need to be asking YECs ... by and large they don't last long here. The fall is Man tasting the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Do people people actually believe there was a physical tree that bore fruit of knowledge and evil? ... I have never heard anyone argue for this literal claim. It is always Adam broke God's command that is the fall and the original sin. Yet it clearly states that ... knowing of good and evil is the problem.