Page 2 of 3

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:26 am
by Seraph
B.W. wrote:This does not answer the question - what specific ways has God helped you and answered your prayers?

I was asking if you could share these events...
I don't know. The line is blurry between what God has done for me and what would have happened anyway. I have a job, was that God's doing or would that have happened anyway? I can certainly make a huge list of things that God has *not* done, where people in my life have needed him and he didn't do anything.

The big thing that I attribute to God though is the thing I mentioned in the thread I just created called "Experiences with God?"

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 10:34 pm
by B. W.
Seraph wrote:
B.W. wrote:This does not answer the question - what specific ways has God helped you and answered your prayers?

I was asking if you could share these events...
I don't know. The line is blurry between what God has done for me and what would have happened anyway. I have a job, was that God's doing or would that have happened anyway? I can certainly make a huge list of things that God has *not* done, where people in my life have needed him and he didn't do anything.

The big thing that I attribute to God though is the thing I mentioned in the thread I just created called "Experiences with God?"


On your new thread you actually answered specifically something God did for you many years ago... as quoted below...

So,how then is this, as you put could it be, "a blurry between what God has done for me and what would have happened anyway?"

Seraph wrote:I remember back in early high school there was a period where my parents were in the middle of a divorce and I was devistated by it, and during that time I would listen to music on the computer in the middle of the night at a low volume and I felt a sort of profound sense of eurphoria, well-being, and love. The feeling persisted for several weeks and I loved life in general for that period even though it was a rough time of life. I attributed the feeling to God, it was the best feeling of my whole life, and its why I have to believe that God is personal and cares about people, no matter how "hands off" he seems in his approach to things. It was *far* different than what people typically mean by experiencing God, where theyre in church with their hands in the air feeling passionate, it was a very relaxing, and genuinely beautiful experience. A big reason I think this feeling was God's intervention was because very shortly after, my Dad was killed in a horrible accident and a series of very tragic events occured, but that feeling of closeness to God sustained me through the worst months of my life.

Sadly that euphoric experience hasn't happened since then, but I remember it with fondness and to me it remains evidence for God's existence. I'm wondering, have other people here had something similar?
One last series of question, rather more personal ones at that too so I'll leave it up to you to openly share on these or not. If not, I understand.

Since you experienced an event of great betrayal and was devastated by it - could you be mirroring that event into your concept of God i.e. projecting your parents and experiences into your image and interpretation of God?

Do you feel like God divorced you?

As you grew older and watched other families stay together, how did that make you feel compared to your own experience?

Have you shaped that into your concept of God as rather distant, a deistic there but not there... much how your emotions felt when devastated and felt a hollow loss?

Have you thought on these matters?
-
-
-

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 5:27 am
by bippy123
Seraph wrote:
bippy123 wrote:And what truthhood's may those be Seraph? maybe u would like to share them with us?
Well I did briefly go over them in the opening post, but I'll go more into detail.

To me it seems apparent that the Bible is just one of the hundreds of religious texts throughout history and its simply the one that happened to catch on. Read the creation story of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve, and it reads exactly like a simple creation myth that hundreds of civilizations have come up with, because they had no knowledge of how the Universe and Earth actually formed, which humanity now knows. Old Earth Creationism and Christian Theistic Evolutionism seem to be desperate attempts to justify the creation story and reconcile it with modern science, despite this websites very valliant attempts to do so. The Sun was not created after the Earth. There was never any waters for the spirit of God to hover over. Look at palentology and its apparent that there never was a time where death was not present in the world like the Bible claims of the garden of eden. Also, why would God have life exist and spread across the planet for billions of years without intervention, only to plant a garden with a magic tree containing sin in it? A simple reading of genesis without all the footnotes and going "but what it REALLY means by this text is..." makes it appear as just another primitive creation story. The serpent appears to be a simple "trickster" character that appears in a ton of creation myths, but was late amended in the new testament to be the Devil. For the past couple years I've been almost afraid to read Genesis because it would be painfully obvious how desperate non-YEC interpretations are to explain Genesis' incompatibility with facts that have been uncovered about the formation of the world since Genesis was written. On top of that, Christianity teaches that we live in a fallen world of Sin and that God never intended for it to be this way. A few minutes of Philosophy 101 makes the problems with this paradigm very apparent, and a few minutes of Biology and Palentology 101 show that this was never the case. All of this is just the beginning of Genesis.

Noah's Ark and the Great Flood whether local or global, I'm just gonna say, is a rediculous unbelievable story. DNA analysis of ancient humans migration across the planet does not show any point where humanity's population "bottlenecked" where all of humanity except for a very small amount of people went extinct (at least not homo sapiens, humanities ancestors did bottleneck with the eruption of the supervolcano that is now Lake Toba). A global flood interpretation is just ludicrous, as Noah could not possibly put two of each ancestor of present day species on a giant boat. A local flood interpretation does not make much sense either, as why is it so important to save two of each local species, when the flood only covers a relatively small area, and the rest of the planet is still filled with life? Why did God regret creating humanity at this point? The idea of the nephilim seems like another myth similar to the greek titans, or other mythological "giants", which are mysteriously absent from fossil records. On top of that, how could Noah or any of the other humans at the time have possibly been 900+ years old? People back then lived only half as long as they do today, not ten times as long. The Noah's Ark story reads a lot like that of any other mythological story that make an interesting story but did not actually happen.

Fast foward to the rest of the Old Testament. I have a hard time believing that the God who created the stars and galaxies, the outer reaches of the universe and the galactic clusters and filaments as well as the God who is involved in humanity, chose only to reveal himself to the Hebrews, a single small nation in the middle east thousands of years ago. There have been tons of civilizations on the planet, yet Christianity says that God chose to directly interact with this small ancient nation. This whole time, China and the Native Americans have just been out of the loop, with God having nothing to do with them for thousands of years, yet with Israel God directs their armies and performs miracles to lead them to victory? I have a hard time believing that. On top of that, and this gets pointed out quite a lot, God in the old testament is extremely cruel and the complete opposite of omnibenevolent. Why punish King Saul for failing to slaughter every last amalekite, children included? Why kill Uzzah for trying to protect the sacred ark of God? Why harden Pharoahs heart just to prove a point when all it does is make it necessary to kill the firstborn of every family in Egypt? Why give the israelites an encyclopedia of crazy laws only to have them "fulfilled" by Jesus later? What does "fulfilling" a law even mean? What if someone came to the US dressed as Uncle Sam and claimed to "fulfill" the laws of America and they no longer need to be followed? The God of the Old Testament seems to be a god of war that the israelites invented to lead their people to victory, just like how the old greek cities would claim to be supported by one of the greek gods, which was later "amended" to be God preparing for the coming of a messiah.

Fast foward to the New Testament. The plan of having a messiah come to save humanity from sin is a terrible plan and only limits who can be saved. What purpose does a messiah serve to an omnibenevolent God? Why does sin need to have something slaughtered to be forgiven? How insane would it be if my friend stole a dollar from me and I told him that if I am going to forgive him, he will have to slaughter a cute bunny because some living thing will have to pay for what he did? Why have sacrifices at all to forgive someone? And if you have a messiah come and die for everyones sins, why does it require belief in it to "work"? The amount of people on the planet throughout history who have been exposed to Jesus and believe in him is probably less than a tenth of everyone who has ever existed. Pretend for a moment that you arent Christian and someone is telling you this whole paradigm and trying to make you believe in it. Most thinking people who werent raised Christian will probably reject it because it seems ludicrous. God's plan for salvation for someone involves getting them to believe a story that to many will appear ludicrious? Surely God, before the universe was made, could have come up with a way for people to come to him that wasn't so roundabout and exclusive to a select few? In order to believe in Jesus, one has to have been born at the right place, at the right time, and have the right mindset and knowledge. It is not simply "you can choose to believe in him, or not believe in him". It is based on so many factors that have to lead to a person believing in a story. It's silly, and doesn't seem like a plan devised by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, beautifully simple God. And it's not fair to a lot of people. Consider the (non-radical) Muslims, who genuinely seek a relationship with God but don't believe in the penal substitution of Jesus. God's just going to send them to hell despite genuinely perusing him because the lived in the wrong place at the wrong time and made the wrong choices about which story to believe? It makes no sense.

A lot of Christian Philosophy, as demonstrated by many on this site, is horrifically medieval and outdated in nature. The reconciliation of divine simplicity and the Trinity, or the reconciliation of God being three persons yet one being, all seem like something that can only exist on paper and not in reality. Most philosophers now disagree with a lot of the old Christian thinkers entire way of thinking. It's just not something I'm able to subscribe to.

In the end, Christianity feels like trying to desperately make a bunch of peaces fit together that clearly don't and trying to make a massive unstable structure hold up. I know that people probably have an answer for each object I brought up but each answer I've seen to these feels like jumping through mental hoops to try and believe genuinely. Believing in all of them is becoming somewhat impossible and extremely stressful. All of this has been floating around in my head for years. All of this extra mental baggage has been a roadblock in my relationship with God, the idea of believing in a simple God that is accessible to anyone without the need of a human sacrifice and belief in a single one of hundreds of different similar stories sounds so liberating and freeing to me. It makes more sense to believe that God does not require penal substitution, and that when we die we are each in the hands of a just loving God who judges on an individual basis of if he wants to continue a relationship with the person after death. Maybe I'll end up rejecting Deism and sticking with Christianity somehow in the future, but this is where my head is at the moment.
Instead of dealing with all these questions you have, lets make this a very simple question shall we Seraph.

How are you as far as believing in the resurrection of Christ?
Do you believe that the apostles made it up and then died for that lie?
Do you believe that the apostles were sincere in what they wrote about seeing the risen Christ?
As william Lane Craig has said many times Christianity rises and falls on one event, the resurrection of Christ

Again do you believe that the apostles were sincere about what they wrote about seeing the risen Christ?
Yes or no? and why :)

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 9:05 am
by Seraph
bippy123 wrote:How are you as far as believing in the resurrection of Christ?
Do you believe that the apostles made it up and then died for that lie?
Do you believe that the apostles were sincere in what they wrote about seeing the risen Christ?
As william Lane Craig has said many times Christianity rises and falls on one event, the resurrection of Christ
Many people died for David Koresh but that doesn't mean that his claims were true, know what I mean?
If I knew that Jesus raised from the dead, I would say he is almost certainly God and all of his claims were true.
However I wasn't there, I don't know. People claimed to see Muhammad rise to heaven, or see Buddha go decades without nourishment in a state of meditiation. People make unreliable outstanding claims about others quite a lot.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 9:09 am
by Seraph
B.W. wrote:One last series of question, rather more personal ones at that too so I'll leave it up to you to openly share on these or not. If not, I understand.

Since you experienced an event of great betrayal and was devastated by it - could you be mirroring that event into your concept of God i.e. projecting your parents and experiences into your image and interpretation of God?

Do you feel like God divorced you?

As you grew older and watched other families stay together, how did that make you feel compared to your own experience?

Have you shaped that into your concept of God as rather distant, a deistic there but not there... much how your emotions felt when devastated and felt a hollow loss?

Have you thought on these matters?
That might have something to do with my often reluctance to place faith in God, I am afraid of getting hurt by placing hope in something only to be let down I guess. But I don't really think it has to do with my attraction to Deism, I would be the form of Deist who still believes God is personal. I'm mostly disillusioned with the idea that God limits relationships with him to those that partake in a seemingly primitive ritual (or at least the fulfillment of an old ritual). A ritual which claims to satisfy an event (the sin of adam and eve) that practically requires one to believe in magic. The belief that God is "hands off" comes mostly from what I see as the universe's tendency to run on its own according to its design without the need for further intervention.

It has definitely made me resent people with upbringings in a healthy family though, you are right about that.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 11:33 am
by bippy123
Seraph wrote:
bippy123 wrote:How are you as far as believing in the resurrection of Christ?
Do you believe that the apostles made it up and then died for that lie?
Do you believe that the apostles were sincere in what they wrote about seeing the risen Christ?
As william Lane Craig has said many times Christianity rises and falls on one event, the resurrection of Christ
Many people died for David Koresh but that doesn't mean that his claims were true, know what I mean?
If I knew that Jesus raised from the dead, I would say he is almost certainly God and all of his claims were true.
However I wasn't there, I don't know. People claimed to see Muhammad rise to heaven, or see Buddha go decades without nourishment in a state of meditiation. People make unreliable outstanding claims about others quite a lot.

http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/cr ... ngaway.htm
You bring up some good points but you forgot about one thing. The criterion of embarressment.
This is what seperates Christianity's claims from the claims of all other religions.
Who was it that discovered the tomb empty first, who was it that saw the risen Christ first?
The answer to both of these questions was THE WOMEN.

What was the testimony of women worth in first century Jerusalem?
Lower then dirt and this is what makes almost all new testament historians (whether atheist, agnostic mainstream Christian or liberal theology) believe that the apostles were not lying , and in fact were being sincere about seeing the risen Christ. The only thing that seperates these historians are their willingness or unwillingness to believe in the supernatural. There is no question about the apostles honesty because of the criterion of embarressment. If they wanted to lie about the empty tomb or seeing the risen Christ they certainly wouldnt have wrote that the women saw the tomb empty first or saw the risen Christ first.

Once you have established the honesty and sincerity of what the apostles saw the next question would be how reliable is the eye witness testimony of the apostles.
Could they have been having a mass delusion? Remember before we critique the delusion theory we have to remember that in the bible it states that the risen Christ was seen by over 500 people, many of them non believers. I dont think that anyone outside of david Koresh's brainwashed sheep saw david do any miracles or eat and sleep with unbelievers after his death. David Koresh is dead and he has stayed dead.

Lets turn to the resurrection man himself Gary Habermas to see how the hallucination theory holds up
While the recent surge of hallucination theses reveal some differences, there are more similarities. We need to weigh the hypothesis as a whole. But we will begin by evaluating two important side issues: the possibility of group hallucinations and the status of the conversion disorder thesis proposed by Kent and Goulder.

Collective Hallucinations. One of the central issues in this entire discussion concerns whether a group of people can witness the same hallucination. Most psychologists dispute the reality of such occurrences, as pointed out below. A rare attempt suggesting that collective hallucinations are possible, without any application to Jesus' resurrection, is made by Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones. They point to phenomena such as claimed sightings of the virgin Mary and other accompanying reports from groups of people. In cases like these, "expectation" and "emotional excitement" are "a prerequisite for collective hallucinations." In such groups we see the "emotional contagion that so often takes place in crowds moved by strong emotions .

But favoring collective hallucinations is highly problematic, and on several grounds. (1) To begin, the chief examples of "collective hallucinations" provided by Zusne and Jones were group religious experiences such as Marion apparitions. But these citations simply beg the question regarding whether such experiences could possibly be objective, or even supernatural, at least in some sense. In other words, why must a naturalistic, subjective explanation be assumed? [xxvi] This seems to rule them out in an a priori manner, before the data are considered.

(2) Further, the collective hallucination thesis is unfalsifiable. It could be applied to purely natural, group sightings, simply calling them group hallucinations, too. On this thesis, crucial epistemic criteria seem to be missing. How do we determine normal occurrences from group hallucinations?

(3) Even if it could be established that groups of people witnessed hallucinations, it is critical to note that it does not at all follow that these experiences were therefore collective. If, as most psychologists assert, hallucinations are private, individual events, then how could groups share exactly the same subjective visual perception? Rather, it is much more likely that the phenomena in question are either illusions--perceptual misinterpretations of actual realities [xxvii] -- or individual hallucinations.

Moreover, the largest series of problems results from comparing this thesis to the New Testament accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances. And here, the explanatory power of this hypothesis is severely challenged, since much of the data not only differs from, but actually contradicts, the necessary conditions for "collective hallucinations." One of these issues will be mentioned here, with others following below.

(4) For instance, Zusne and Jones argue that "expectation" and "emotional excitement" are "prerequisites" before such group experiences will occur. In fact, expectation "plays the coordinating role." [xxviii] But this scenario contradicts the emotional state of the early witnesses of Jesus' resurrection appearances. Even psychologically, the early believers were confronted face-to-face with the utter realism of the recent and unexpected death of their best friend, whom they had hoped would rescue Israel. As those recent events unfolded in a whirlwind of Jesus' physical beatings, crucifixion, and seeming abandonment, the normal response would be fear, disillusionment, and depression. To suppose that these believers would exhibit "expectation" and "emotional excitement" in the face of these stark circumstances would require of them responses that would scarcely be exhibited at a funeral! All indications are that Jesus' disciples would exhibition the very opposite emotions from what Zusne and Jones convey as the necessary requirement.

By comparison, the disciples' experience is totally unlike those in the other cases above where pilgrims expressly traveled long distances, exuberantly gathering with the explicit desire to see something special. There would seem to be very meager grounds of comparison here with Jesus' disciples. [xxix]

Many other crucial problems also plague the thesis of group hallucinations, and we will pursue several more below. But for now we will repeat that Zusne and Jones never attempt to apply their approach to Jesus' resurrection. Rather, they even rather incredibly close their examination with the admission that group hallucinations have a "dubious status" because it is not possible to ascertain whether these individuals were actually even hallucinating! [xxx]
The hallucination theory just doesnt fit the psychological profile of the apostles. Not just this but you also have skeptics who converted after seeing the risen Christ. Remember the apostle james?
He was the family skeptic during Christ's ministry and even said that he thought that Jesus was crazy for what he claimed to be (the son of God)
after the resurrection and after personally seeing Christ risen he not only believed in Christ's claims but he was one of the most zealous apostles willing to die for what he sincerely saw. You simply dont have anything close to this in any other religion Seraph.

nothing comes even close

By the way seraph, what is your take on the shroud of turin?
the evidence seems pretty strong to me :mrgreen:

Also thank you for explaining the different types of deism to me, it helped to clear up a misconception I had :)

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:25 pm
by Seraph
I don't really find the shroud of turin very convincing unfortunately. At best it seems like it could possibly be true, but theres not much reason to believe in it. Certainly not enough to save a crumbling faith. Also when did Jesus start looking like a medieval english lord? :P

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:57 pm
by bippy123
Seraph wrote:
bippy123 wrote:How are you as far as believing in the resurrection of Christ?
Do you believe that the apostles made it up and then died for that lie?
Do you believe that the apostles were sincere in what they wrote about seeing the risen Christ?
As william Lane Craig has said many times Christianity rises and falls on one event, the resurrection of Christ
Many people died for David Koresh but that doesn't mean that his claims were true, know what I mean?
If I knew that Jesus raised from the dead, I would say he is almost certainly God and all of his claims were true.
However I wasn't there, I don't know. People claimed to see Muhammad rise to heaven, or see Buddha go decades without nourishment in a state of meditiation. People make unreliable outstanding claims about others quite a lot.
Seraph u conventiently glossed over my explanation why the resurrection has more solid historical evidence then all the other claims from other religions.

The women finding the tom,b empty and teh women seeing the risen Christ first is a testiment to the sincereity of the apostles. There is nothing like this criterion of embarressment in history.
Plus the apostles didnt automatically die for Christ right away. At the beginning they were hiding in their homes terrified that they would be next in line to be crucified and they thought that was it, no more jesus coming back, no more resurrection, It was time to pack it in and god home and hide until this all blew over.

Then suddenly they were transformed from people that were scared for their lives to people that were proclaiming the gospel with no fear of death whatsoever and in the very town their master was crucified. What else but the resurrection and them seeing the risen Christ could have done this to them. Absolutely nothing.

The mass hallucination theory is easily debunked. Jesus appeared to them even when the dorrs of their homes were locked. He ate with them, he allowed them to feel him.

I challenge you to find anything even close to this in any religion. You simply cant
So my question is why did you conveniently gloss over this information when I presented it to you before?

Is this absolute proof. Of course not. Is this very strong proof. Yea, to any reasonable and honest man who has researched this thoroughly.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:13 pm
by Danieltwotwenty
Seraph wrote: I'm mostly disillusioned with the idea that God limits relationships with him to those that partake in a seemingly primitive ritual (or at least the fulfillment of an old ritual).
I don't think this is quite true Seraph, I don't think God limits his relations to just people who follow Christ.
A ritual which claims to satisfy an event (the sin of adam and eve) that practically requires one to believe in magic. The belief that God is "hands off" comes mostly from what I see as the universe's tendency to run on its own according to its design without the need for further intervention.
I believe that God works through the natural world, I have witnessed it with my own eye's. I am not sure of what magic you are speaking of but I lean towards an allegorical understanding of a lot of the Bible, lessons to be learn't rather than a literal story etc...

Wouldn't God by definition be magic (super natural)? If God is purely natural, then wouldn't he become contingent?

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 7:54 am
by B. W.
Seraph wrote:....That might have something to do with my often reluctance to place faith in God, I am afraid of getting hurt by placing hope in something only to be let down I guess. But I don't really think it has to do with my attraction to Deism, I would be the form of Deist who still believes God is personal. I'm mostly disillusioned with the idea that God limits relationships with him to those that partake in a seemingly primitive ritual (or at least the fulfillment of an old ritual). A ritual which claims to satisfy an event (the sin of adam and eve) that practically requires one to believe in magic. The belief that God is "hands off" comes mostly from what I see as the universe's tendency to run on its own according to its design without the need for further intervention.

It has definitely made me resent people with upbringings in a healthy family though, you are right about that.
Was a bit busy the past few days so my apology for the delay...

Well, as long as you can see that things from your past influenced your perceptions about God now, then that could answer a lot for you. Maybe by mirroring these into your concepts about God has created a stone wall providing a way for you to try to comes to terms with the events of the divorce and the passing of your father. What I mean by stone wall, is a form of emotional protection, that numbs and says, I will not be hurt (abandoned, guilty, rejected - etc) again. Not sure, but maybe you have pushed people away from you as a sort of test mechanism for trust. This often occurs in cases of trauma and maybe after your encounter with God, you pushed God away and are testing him to see if he will reject you - like....???

I know all of this on a more personal level and you need not answer if you do not like too but after reading your post over the years you been here, it appears to me that you have been devastated, mainly by what you bravely shared and this wound is your main issue. The flirting with Deism is one area that is currently manifesting. Have you considered that you maybe mirroring your parents relationship/rejection of each other, into your idea that God limits relationships with him to those that partake in a seemingly primitive ritual that practically requires one to believe in magic? If this is so when young, what did your magical thinking imagine - how was it dashed? I know that is deep, but please take the time to mull over it a bit because in that you might discover something you haven't thought of before that may help you come to terms with something deep...

The universe just goes on and life went on after the devastating events - do you see a correlation?
-
-
-

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 11:34 am
by bippy123
Seraph wrote:I don't really find the shroud of turin very convincing unfortunately. At best it seems like it could possibly be true, but theres not much reason to believe in it. Certainly not enough to save a crumbling faith. Also when did Jesus start looking like a medieval english lord? :P
please tell me why you dont find the shroud very convincing and please tell me why you think the image on the shroud looks like a medeival englishman since no major art expert in the world says it does.
Even Art historian Thomas de wesellow who is an unbeliever himself said that this image corresponds to no one period in art history. This also tells me that you havent gone through the thread we have in the forum on the shroud because there are numerous historical evidences that place teh shroud at way before the medieval times. I looks to me like you want the shroud to be a fake, but that isnt how an honest seeker seeks is it ;)

Seraph are u dismissing the shroud because of the evidence or because of dogmatic emotion?

Have you watched the history channel's real face of Jesus?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE

that certainly doesnt look like a medieval european to me.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 11:59 am
by Seraph
bippy123 wrote:
Seraph wrote:I don't really find the shroud of turin very convincing unfortunately. At best it seems like it could possibly be true, but theres not much reason to believe in it. Certainly not enough to save a crumbling faith. Also when did Jesus start looking like a medieval english lord? :P
please tell me why you dont find the shroud very convincing and please tell me why you think the image on the shroud looks like a medeival englishman since no major art expert in the world says it does.
Even Art historian Thomas de wesellow who is an unbeliever himself said that this image corresponds to no one period in art history. This also tells me that you havent gone through the thread we have in the forum on the shroud because there are numerous historical evidences that place teh shroud at way before the medieval times. I looks to me like you want the shroud to be a fake, but that isnt how an honest seeker seeks is it ;)

Seraph are u dismissing the shroud because of the evidence or because of dogmatic emotion?

Have you watched the history channel's real face of Jesus?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE

that certainly doesnt look like a medieval european to me.
What are you trying to say, that the fact a piece of cloth if you squint has an image that looks like a bearded man is proof that Jesus rose from the dead and the Gospels are vindicated based on this? It is just superstitious stuff and the burden of proof doesn't fall on people who aren't convinced by it. Even the catholic church doesn't seem to acknowledge it as anything significant. Maybe it is the imprinted image from a bearded man's body, but so what? You don't even know it came from the same time period as Jesus, let alone whether it was him. And if it was, it doesn't prove that he rose from the dead. Sorry, its a dead end.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 12:03 pm
by Seraph
B.W. wrote:Well, as long as you can see that things from your past influenced your perceptions about God now, then that could answer a lot for you. Maybe by mirroring these into your concepts about God has created a stone wall providing a way for you to try to comes to terms with the events of the divorce and the passing of your father. What I mean by stone wall, is a form of emotional protection, that numbs and says, I will not be hurt (abandoned, guilty, rejected - etc) again. Not sure, but maybe you have pushed people away from you as a sort of test mechanism for trust. This often occurs in cases of trauma and maybe after your encounter with God, you pushed God away and are testing him to see if he will reject you - like....???

I know all of this on a more personal level and you need not answer if you do not like too but after reading your post over the years you been here, it appears to me that you have been devastated, mainly by what you bravely shared and this wound is your main issue. The flirting with Deism is one area that is currently manifesting. Have you considered that you maybe mirroring your parents relationship/rejection of each other, into your idea that God limits relationships with him to those that partake in a seemingly primitive ritual that practically requires one to believe in magic? If this is so when young, what did your magical thinking imagine - how was it dashed? I know that is deep, but please take the time to mull over it a bit because in that you might discover something you haven't thought of before that may help you come to terms with something deep...
Perhaps. There probably is something to that. Still though, I am genuine in my doubts expressed the tirade I went on a couple posts back.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 12:17 pm
by bippy123
Seraph wrote:
bippy123 wrote:
Seraph wrote:I don't really find the shroud of turin very convincing unfortunately. At best it seems like it could possibly be true, but theres not much reason to believe in it. Certainly not enough to save a crumbling faith. Also when did Jesus start looking like a medieval english lord? :P
please tell me why you dont find the shroud very convincing and please tell me why you think the image on the shroud looks like a medeival englishman since no major art expert in the world says it does.
Even Art historian Thomas de wesellow who is an unbeliever himself said that this image corresponds to no one period in art history. This also tells me that you havent gone through the thread we have in the forum on the shroud because there are numerous historical evidences that place teh shroud at way before the medieval times. I looks to me like you want the shroud to be a fake, but that isnt how an honest seeker seeks is it ;)

Seraph are u dismissing the shroud because of the evidence or because of dogmatic emotion?

Have you watched the history channel's real face of Jesus?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE

that certainly doesnt look like a medieval european to me.
What are you trying to say, that the fact a piece of cloth if you squint has an image that looks like a bearded man is proof that Jesus rose from the dead and the Gospels are vindicated based on this? It is just superstitious stuff and the burden of proof doesn't fall on people who aren't convinced by it. Even the catholic church doesn't seem to acknowledge it as anything significant. Maybe it is the imprinted image from a bearded man's body, but so what? You don't even know it came from the same time period as Jesus, let alone whether it was him. And if it was, it doesn't prove that he rose from the dead. Sorry, its a dead end.

Wow by the wave of hand you have conveniently swept all the evidence for the authenticity of the shroud and just magically have made it go away.

Well lets see, it fits the gospels perfectly in every way. And saying that its superstitious stuff doesn't make it so.
My question is which u haven't answered is HAVE you looked at the evidence presented on the shroud thread before forming an opinion . You know as well as I do that you haven't because I just caught you making false statements not based on the evidence .

And you just posted another falsehood on the Catholic Church's official stance on the shroud which isn't that it's nothing significant , but that it's not needed to have faith in Christ. Privately most of the recent popes believe in its authenticity .

Again when you claim that we don't even know if it came from the same period as Jesus let alone whether it was him,my lunate completely wrong.

My question to you seraph is HAVE YOU LOOKED AT ALL THE EVIDENCE OR ARE YOU MAKING THESE CLAIMS BECAUSE YOU WANT THE SHROUD TO BE DESPERATELY PROVEN TO BE WRONG ?

It is very obvious to anyone on this forum that has gone through this thread that you have posted nothing but erroneous information.

I challenge you to go through the whole thread and I bet that after you do you will see how emotional your arguments against the shroud truly are.

The evidence for its authenticity is so strong that even unbeliever art historian Thomas de Wesselow admits that it's too strong to deny that this didn't come from Jesus's time.

Seraph why not admit you have an emotional problem with the shroud then an intellectual one?
It's much easier for you to do then go through every post on the shroud thread and me ending up debunking your arguments one by one. You really don't want that do you.
The last person to do that was an atheist and he came out an agnostic .

But it looks to me like you have an emotional problem u need to deal with first so I will bow out if this conversation for the time being and let BW help you deal with that issue as it looks to be much more important then the shroud right now.

Re: Flirting With Deism

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 2:07 pm
by Seraph
All I have to say is that being skeptical is not the same as being emotionally disturbed and DESPERATELY wanting something to be false. I am not the one who is emotionally attached to the truth or falsehood of the shroud.

You call what I write in this thread misinformation, but it hasn't been close to being debunked.