In Reply to: On faith and lack of faith posted by Skep on January 18, 2006 at 21:18:44:
Dear Skep, I am enjoying the communication with you, as well as like, what the others had to say here too, it's one of those special treats.
I like to continue the exchange with you, addressing things one by one will take time though...hope you don't mind?
I thank you for your kind words of appreciation, some people make it easy to reply (and be good)....there are times I get provoked & am
rather unkind for which I of course feel bad...although it's important not to be such a manpleaser either.(However, I think you must be a real nice person, not sure though, what your "career in TF could have been like, how you got "in there"...not the main subject though, just a thought ) you wrote:
I need to add that in my thinking the idea that it is okay to dismiss other beliefs and only examine things (like what we have been talking about) from the Christian perspective is not sufficient for me. Obviously works well for all of you but other belief systems work well for their followers That'd take a longer answer as it's the "troublesome" subject of posing one religion against the other....I know too little about
most of the other ones.Before I joined, I met Rose, now the wife of Stephen Schaf, in the Berlin subway where they made music.I got briefly
to talk to her...probably she was on her way to the poorboy-club, where month later I joined .I argued, that there must be many ways to God or heaven, being at that time a staunch pluralist, as long as a way of life made people happy & really didn't bother others, I would have been content....anyway, her short reply was John 14:6 There are not many possibilities, either Jesus is a fake an usurper or madman or
HE simply says the truth.Beside my personal experience in a prayer it was also the long list of fulfilled prophecies of the OT which were hard to ignore.When I read also Daniel 2 about history in a nutshell till His return, I was mindblown.All a big subject in itself.
We understand well the "be a baby" thing but some people want to know about the miracle that allows the chemical exchanges between the soil and a seed so that the garden develops well. Once they learn a bit and go deeper to understand the details it stops being supernatural
Well, these are two different subject, IMO.The above one adresses the religious side more, in the next pargraph you talk more about the
the questions pertaining to nature/science....of course, for a believer, the earth is the Lord's & everything on it beneth & above etc.So it
doesn't seem so seperated to me.However, to make it easier, I'd say, God shouldn't mind, as far as I can see it, that we learn more about His
powers & ways to handle things, natural laws etc.But also note, that at times these strict laws are "out of order"....Jesus walking on the water,
Philip being translated etc. etc. sure the rationalist attack these parts of scripture, treating them as metaphors, exaggerations, being conjured up later by the disciples. Einstein is supposed to have said: all we can do is trace HIS lines......God left HIS handwriting so to speakg in nature or the signs of HIS craftmanship.You want to discover that?Nothing bad about it, I suppose.Now if the Bible says, that God sends lightenings, thunders & whatnot it's not giving a false account.If God is the author of everything, the source, well, then the events here you can trace back to HIM Be a baby is also a stage, dear Skep, a baby grows up, but a baby doesn't go to university either.The writer of Hebrews is a bit upset with his audience, cause he figures, they should already be a bit more advanced & he feels, he has to repeat the basics.
At times Jesus seemed a bit "nerved" too, how slow the disciples were to comprehend.So I too hope for His mercy, there are tons of things which intrigue me, yet I don't understand....I have my walls-like you-too....but there are verses, which indicate, that there'll remain walls, like it or not.Sometimes it's wiser/better to give up, no use in getting a bloody nose, running into those walls, also:
KJV Ecclesiastes 12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. {study: or, reading}
However, knowing all of that doesn't have to contradict their faith. It does not contradicts mine, only pushes my questions further into more detail than before. And so it goes, similar to what Cantor did in describing his infinite sets....
You say, it doesn't contradict your faith, but in the paragraph above you say, that some things stop being supernatural.I object, a sunset is something supernatural, marvellous & super beautiful, no matter how many rockets I launch into the sky.(Well, may be a NASA-scientist is less romantic about a sunset with all his knowledge???)The problem for man has meanwhile become, to get all the information in line, coordinated, screened.I have so many books, but compared to the knowledge there is out there, it
amounts to nothing (but I have most of all the Bible ; ) ) Yet, I have trouble, to keep up
with the ones I have.Last year's Nobel-laureate in Physics - one of them I meant - said in an interview, that many/all scientists have become very specialised...but it's sufficient to be a real expert in the special niche they turn to.
Problem are those scientists or people, who claim they understand it all, acting a bit like God themselves.
KJV John 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
KJV John 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
KJV John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
Plenty of things even for the believer to discover
I am a little familiar with Goedel and his proof of incompletness, and it is precisely because of that and that I know about entropy that I am convinced that God's mercy is what produces miracles and that the miracle of life is not just physic laws or the chemistry of inert electromagnetic energy but the Spirit of God quickening it.
I am glad you see it like that....however then you have less problems, than I thought or may be you're "swaying" once in a while????
I like to continue another time....I'll end with an interesting quote I picked up at movingon...Baxter is not really a professing Christian, but
many of his thoughts, contributions I have since longer treasured (there are some sentences in the quote which don't reflect my 100% conv...
nonetheless I quote the whole),
the quote taken from :http://movingon.org/article.asp?sID=3&Cat=25&ID=3460
from Baxter
Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - 05:52
(Agree/Disagree?)
I actually took the time to read your article. Don't take my criticism personally.
First off...
Science does not disprove the possible existence of God. Contemprorary science simply does not comfortably accomodate the concept of God. There is a difference.
Knowledge does not necessarily translate into a depletion of faith. Modern science is dependent to an enormous degree on faith. Perhaps the scientific theory displays less in the way of superstition or dogma, and perhaps it exists in a much more fluid state than religious doctrime, but this still does ot discount the crucial prevalence of faith. Perhaps this is also a considerably more individualistic definition of faith, but it is still faith.
Christianity is in its essence, and like other religions, a set of ideals. There are superstitions intrinsically attached, however it would be wrong to dismiss all the modern Christians who do not hold to the necessity that any of the mythology of the bible is infallible, or indeed that it takes priority over the basic ideology of Christianity. In any case, if via their religion (Christian, Moslem, Hindu or otherwise) people lead productive lives, who cares what they believe?
You yourself display what appears to be a complete faith in modernity. You assert that the ideas of the past are obsolete purely on the basis that information has increased exponentially since that time, and that now we think we know more than they did. But the very nature of knowledge is that it is never truly concrete. What we know cannot ever be fully substantiated beyond the degree to which we ourselves trust our own fallible powers of perception. In the end, we choose to believe what we believe.
What do you mean when you refer to yourself as free? Do you mean that you are enlightened? Do you mean that your perception is not obscured? Do you mean that you are free of delusion? Is it dangerous to assume that escape from one delusion is freedom from all delusion?
Or indeed that the escape from said delusion was not in itself a delusion? Do you genuinely believe that have succeeded where the rest of humanity has failed?