Holy War

[catastrophe]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

This is much closer to my feeling on the topic, subject to the massive qualification that if there is an eternal, all powerful God up there that loves us and is giving us instructions, it’s not so that we can be healthy and happy during this infinitesimally small period on Earth. It’s so we can choose to spend eternity with him when that time is up.

That said I do think there is plenty of objective science saying that living intentionally with purpose is going to provide a better quality of life overall.

[Sandstone Outcropping]

Atonement for the Whole World

August 2, 2019 · Fr. Stephen De Young   

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/08/02/atonement-for-the-whole-world/

First John 2:2 states that Christ has offered himself as an atoning sacrifice “not only for our sins but also for the whole world.”  For most of Christian history, this verse has been used as a football in various theological disputes.  First, it was used as a proof text against the Donatists who saw their churches in North Africa as the totality of the church of Christ.  Second, it was debated in regard to the condemnation of apokatastasis or universalism.  Beginning in the period of the Protestant Reformation, it became a key text in the debate surrounding the Calvinist doctrine of limited or particular atonement.  While what St. John has to say to the Johannine community in 1 John may apply in various ways to these later debates, it is quite clear that none of these applications reflect the original context.  St. John was not writing against hypothetical first century Donatists or Calvinists.  Nor was he writing in support of some universalist notion.  Rather, St. John is applying a consistent understanding of atonement centered around the Day of Atonement ritual itself to the sacrificial self-offering of Jesus Christ.

Paradise is the place where God dwells.  After the creation of humanity, they were brought into Paradise to dwell with God and with the already created spiritual beings.  Humanity was meant to grow to maturity and then depart from Paradise bringing Paradise, the presence of God himself, with him in order to transform the whole creation into Eden.  Instead, by partaking of the knowledge of good and evil, humanity became subject to corruption and ultimately death.  The first humans were expelled from Paradise, not because of their sin and uncleanness alone, but because for them to live eternally in that state would have made them like the demons, unable to repent (Gen 3:22-24).  Rather than bringing Paradise with them, they brought their corruption with them and lived in difficulty within this present world.

The first transgression, in the garden, took place at the instigation of the devil.  This pattern, of wicked spiritual powers influencing humanity to perform evil deeds, continued and intensified.  This begins with Cain, the archetypal wicked man (Gen 4:6-7).  In Second Temple Jewish thought, Cain is the archetypal sinner and wicked man.  While his father was told that the ground was cursed because of him, Cain himself was cursed ‘from the ground’ (v. 11).  While Adam would bring forth food from the earth by the sweat of his brow (3:17-19), the ground would not at all yield its fruit to Cain (4:12).  Unable to live by the work of his hands, Cain founds a city so that he and his lineage create commerce, culture, and warfare.

What was true of Cain plays out in his genealogy (Gen 4:17-24).  The corruption of the world continues and culminates in the figure of Lamech whose song to his two wives is emblematic of his sexual immorality and violent murder exceeding his forefather Cain exponentially by his own boast.  This moral corruption was paralleled by spiritual corruption (Gen 6:1-7).  In the interpretations found within Second Temple Jewish texts, this relationship, as with Adam and Cain, is causal.  Rebellious spiritual powers are at work in and through human rebellion to corrupt and destroy the created order.  It is the purification from the world of this evil and corruption which necessitates the flood as prophesied at Noah’s birth (Gen 5:28-29).  St. John directly references these traditions surrounding Cain and his lineage in regards to the corruption of the world in 1 John 3:12-13.  For St. John, the whole world lies under the power of the evil one (5:19) through this corruption.  But Christ came to destroy the works of the devil brought about in the world by human persons (3:8).

The name attached to the leader of the supernatural powers involved in this corruption in league with Cain and his descendants in Second Temple literature is typically Azazel.  So, for example, 1 Enoch 10:8 says, “The whole earth has been corrupted through the works taught by Azazel, ascribe to him all sin.”  The use of this name serves to connect these traditions about the corruption of the world to the Day of Atonement ritual itself.  The first of the two goats utilized in the Day of Atonement ritual is the goat ‘for Azazel.’  It is entirely possible that this was, at the earliest stage of the text of Leviticus 16, not a proper name but simply referred to ‘the goat who takes away.’  This is the goat into which the sins of the people were ritually placed by the high priest and which was then sent into the wilderness to die.  In later, Second Temple traditions, this was understood to mean that the goat was taking the sins of the people back to whence they came, to the evil spiritual powers who had inspired them.

The Day of Atonement ritual took place annually and took place in addition to the regular cycle of sin and guilt offerings.  This means that it served an additional ritual function above and beyond what those sacrifices accomplished.  The Day of Atonement ritual, indeed all of the commandments of the Torah, are aimed toward preserving the holiness, purity, and cleanness of the Israelite camp and the later nation.  Sin was seen to leave a metaphysical taint, a stain of impurity, on those who committed it and on the world around them.  It brings spiritual corruption in the world.  For God to continue to dwell within the tabernacle at the center of the camp and later the temple in the midst of the nation, not only must sin be atoned for through sacrifice, but this stain and corruption must be purified.

This is enacted within the Day of Atonement ritual.  The sins of the people are placed upon the goat and sent away and the blood of the second goat is used to cleanse the sanctuary, the place where Yahweh himself dwells because this is the place in which that corruption and taint are the most dangerous.  When the Torah was kept, it preserved first the camp in the wilderness and then the nation of Judah as holy and pure islands in the midst of a world which had been subjected to evil spiritual powers through sin and death.  Those of the nations, ruled over by demons whom they worshiped, were unclean.  Animals from outside the camp were unclean.  Even physical objects were unclean and had to be cleansed and dedicated before they could be used in the sanctuary and then annually cleansed at the Day of Atonement.

The same literature which connects the corruption of the world in the earlier chapters of Genesis to Azazel and the cleansing ritual of the Day of Atonement also envisions an ultimate fulfillment to that ritual.  Texts such as the Apocalypse of Abraham, which has been preserved for us in Slavonic by the Orthodox Church, describe an ultimate eschatological Day of Atonement at the end, connected with the coming of the Messiah, in which not only the sins of the people will be cleansed, but the entire world will be set free from the corruption of sin and death.  This is fulfillment in the original sense, that the pattern of the old covenant is filled to overflowing by what is accomplished in the new.  This event will represent a fulfillment of the entire Torah in that what the Torah merely managed and controlled on a small scale, this latter Messianic fulfillment will deal with once and for all.

That Christ’s atoning, sacrificial death represents this fulfillment is ubiquitous among the New Testament authors.  The Synoptic Gospels, and St. Matthew’s Gospel, in particular, present Christ as fulfilling the role of both goats through his suffering and death.  St. Luke in his two-volume work, his Gospel and Acts of the Apostles follows the same trajectory at the pivot point from one volume to the next.  The end of St. Luke’s Gospel culminates in Christ’s self-revelation on the road to Emmaus followed by the continued praise and worship offered by the original Christian community in the temple.  This parallels the events of the Maccabean revolt in which the climactic battle at Emmaus was followed by the rededication of the temple after it had been desecrated and abandoned under Antiochus Epiphanes.  This Lukan rededication of the people as a temple is followed at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Yahweh himself, to fill not a new building, but his people.  The sacrifice of Christ had not only purified and cleansed them to allow the Spirit to dwell within them but had also expanded the boundaries of the camp to encompass the entire world, such that Gentiles and even wild animals were no longer unclean (Acts 10:9-23).

Though this final purification of the world is accomplished in principle in Christ’s death and resurrection, it finds its application in the world of time and space over the course of the period preceding Christ’s return.  That all food is clean finds its expression in the lives of the faithful when that food is received with prayer and thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:4).  For St. John, Christ came to destroy the works of the evil one (1 John 3:8).  This finds its fruition within the community of the church.  “We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (5:19).  Just as those who are, like Cain, from the Devil bring sin and corruption and death into the world, so also those who are from God bear fruit of purification and life.  Just as they actualize the works of the evil one in time and space, so also the one in whom the Spirit dwells brings the works of God into the world of time and space.  God calls these works good because they are his works.

St. Paul tends to speak of this in Adamic terms.  The body of the Christian, as the result of Christ’s atoning death, is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20).  This means that, as was the intent with the first created man, the Christian as the presence of God within him as he goes out into the world.  The Orthodox Divine Liturgy culminates not in the reception of the Eucharist, but in the dismissal when the faithful, having received Christ into their bodies, are sent out into the world bearing him with them.  The entire creation is now the possession of our Lord Jesus Christ who wields all authority within it.  We, as his assembly the Church, bring that rule and its effects to realization within the world as we receive God’s creation, bless it and hallow it.  This includes the baptismal reception of the people of the world but extends also to every level of the created order, animate and inanimate.  This is the work of the church in the world until the last day when there will be no temple because the whole creation will be the dwelling place of the Lord God Almighty and of the Lamb (Rev 21:22).

That's a pretty good summary of the Bible. Speaking of atonement, I was just listening to the podcast w/ NT Wright. The corner of Christianity that I grew up in was pretty obsessed with the penal substitutionary aspect of atonement and tended to neglect the wider meaning that Fr DeYoung discusses here.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/russell-moore-show/nt-wright-bible-most-misunderstood-verse-romans-atonement.html

[Cire]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


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[nicname]

“The Presence of God is fire. Those who have something in common with the Lord, will feel the fire as a flame of quickening love encompassing all things. For the rest, it will be a fire that consumes all things.”

[Pete]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

[Cire]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


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[steve dave]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


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[Pete]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Precisely what I was going to say.

[Cire]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Precisely what I was going to say.

Part of the point of those old stories like the flood is that God promised never to do that again.


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[Cire]

And how ever many thousands of years ago that story was first told was a pretty radical/progressive idea about a God.


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[wetwillie]

I think the American version of Christianity is highly bastardized and turns me off quite a bit.  The churches I attended growing up and into my early 20's were more or less just country clubs.

[Pete]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Precisely what I was going to say.

Part of the point of those old stories like the flood is that God promised never to do that again.


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Says who

[Pete]

I think the American version of Christianity is highly bastardized and turns me off quite a bit.  The churches I attended growing up and into my early 20's were more or less just country clubs.

I'd say everything is bastardized starting at the point where they demanded money and became a part of government (which is the vast, vast majority of the history of Christianity)

[Pete]

ALL those pages of horseshit that nic posted (no offense personally to nic) is humans twisting crap to fit their own agendas.  Centuries and Centuries of selfish humans twisting and spinning it to best satisfy their own desires. 

[steve dave]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Precisely what I was going to say.

Part of the point of those old stories like the flood is that God promised never to do that again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

also one time some kids made fun of this bald guy so he cursed them in god's name and god sent a bear to kill 42 of the kids. if I were god I'd just choose to not do that in the first place.

[Pete]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Precisely what I was going to say.

Part of the point of those old stories like the flood is that God promised never to do that again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

also one time some kids made fun of this bald guy so he cursed them in god's name and god sent a bear to kill 42 of the kids. if I were god I'd just choose to not do that in the first place.

That's one of my favorite stories from the Bible.

[Spracne]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Precisely what I was going to say.

Part of the point of those old stories like the flood is that God promised never to do that again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cire]

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.

THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%).

Sounds like you’re living a life that makes God happy to me


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I fail constantly, but it does feel good to think I might be.

Brother, the Bible is chalk full of people failing and God loving them through it


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Also full of god killing all their babies and basically scorch earthing the planet at least once because people were bad. It’s a mixed bag with god tbh.


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Precisely what I was going to say.

Part of the point of those old stories like the flood is that God promised never to do that again.


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Says who

Historians


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[star seed 7]

[Pete]

What a bunch of absolute horseshit. The notion that  slowing killing someone via throwing rocks at them in an angry mob is the will of God is just the biggest  LOL evidence of the corrupt influence of evil men on the so called “word of god.”  It’s the word of lots of dudes with lots of mumped up ideas.

[Spracne]

Preach, brother.

[CNS]

Imagine if the current crop of well known holy men would write their own book and it be added to the bible.  Can you imagine how awful, self serving, and corrupted that would be?

Why should we think anything else happened 300-500 years after Jesus died?  Everyone likes to say history repeats itself, history rhymes, etc.  Why wouldn't we think that those in power, or prominence, at that time would have better "truth" than some corrupt bad person who collects checks preaching about how you're going to hell, all the while watching his wife get piped by the pool guy?

[BIG APPLE CAT]

Can’t even imagine what the 10 commandments would look like today.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife (unless you are the pool boy in which case get in there bub)

[Spracne]

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, but sometimes you just have to be a man, and sometimes a man just has to do what a man's gotta do.

[CNS]

Thou shalt not kill unless it’s someone knocking on your door and you have a sweet gun and have been getting super scared online with your bros over made up nightmare, and completely unreal, scenarios.