CHUD's religious forum - Page 2

You're just messing with me now, aren't you?

yes and no

This forum has aided me in honing my atheist arguments and thought...and trying to relate to how others are attached to religion, whether in finding difficulty in letting it go or embracing it. It's just difficult to convince someone of anything if they've already taken a, well, Leap of Faith. Recent events transpired in my life have made me a non-casual atheist (as opposed to a casual one of simply not paying attention to religion). But how do you convince somone the sky isn't solid? I'm starting to worry they religious are on a different wavelength entirely.

I don't often post in this forum but I read it on a daily basis, and I haven't seen or read anything that has swayed the opinions I have on the subject, but it's always good to understand other people's points of views and be tolerant. Sometimes these threads get relegated to bickering and nothing interesting really comes out of it unless you're looking to read a fight.

Then again, a lot of threads not in this forum are the same way.

Just incredible. I'm wondering if you typed that up with a straight face. Given the way you spoke to me in the Paranormal thread for the fact that I have somewhat of a belief in ghosts/some psychic ability, I'm absolutely stunned. You must need a wheelbarrow to tote around balls that big.
And this - wow, this is even better. Given both your great big "apology" PM to me and your post, where you quite condescendingly acted like, "Oh, silly little woman, you have to understand what a great man of science I am and why you're so wrong", this just floors me. So, wait - let me get this straight. I'm a complete loon for believing that there might - MIGHT - be other spirits, ghosts, etc. out there, but you're perfectly fine for believing in a bunch of different religions over your lifetime, none of which can you prove that any of their gods exist (sound familiar?), and that's all okay. Wonderful.

Yeah, I know people like that too. Though in all seriousness, I don't put a lot of weight into what's being said in this forum. I respect everyone's beliefs, and a big part of my agnosticism/spirituality is the fact that anyone can believe what they want to because what I specifically believe in is very personal to me, and something that I don't usually feel like arguing about or justifying to either side, whether atheist or believers. I fully believe that a good number of posters here are well informed, educated people who've thought their beliefs out fully, but to think that you can influence a person of faith, when faith is such a personal and individual thing, or that you can influence a person of science, who's been through the journey of understanding why they don't believe (also a very personal and individual thign), is a futile discussion as this thread, and most of heavily institutionalized religion proves.

Wanted to reply earlier, but was out of town. I didn't mean for my "snarkful" quick post to seem like I was being dismissive.

But even if you are religious, what you believe is based on texts written by others...

So no man is an island and all that shit.

I was talking more about what was being said in this forum. The original "don't believe anything written down" was a sarcastic comment.

I don't want to speak too much for Overlord here, but why were you so offended by what he said? He basically said that someone who is religious (i.e., believes in something which is faith-based) should not attack people for believing in other faith-based issues (ghosts and whatnot). What he intended aside, that very short post preaches acceptance among the two groups, and not antagonism.

Did you read ANY of my posts all the way through in the other thread?

1) I said that I DID believe in most of the things that had been discussed in the other forum at one point in my life (ESP, psychics, ghosts, etc.).
2) Here, I'm saying that I DID believe (or explore at the very least) multiple religious possibilities.
3) Notice that I ended up agnostic, though. Which means that I don't think (notice, I don't "think"... I'm not 100% sure) we can truly find proof or evidence for any of this (religion, that is, not paranormal stuff, I actually believe we can find evidence for paranormal activity if it is real).

I mentioned my prior beliefs NUMEROUS times in the other thread. I even talked about how I understood where some people were coming from to some extent because of that.

And as far as the "big man of science" goes? I mentioned I'm a scientist and talked about real data to give it some credibility. Is there something wrong with that? Should I pretend not to be a scientist? Should I say it is all just my opinion and nothing more? If somebody is discussing something on another thread, and they have information because of their job experience, it is nice to know (it perhaps validates it more). I teach these issues in the classroom, and I do research that can be related to the discussion. Sorry for "holding this over you."

Also, if you are going to take cracks at my apology PM, just post the whole thing, because you are twisting my words. There is nothing at all in those two PMs that should make you respond like this.

And finally, I never called you a "loon" for believing any of this. I said that there was no proof, and people can believe what they like. It just worries me that some people (and I don't know if you are one, and I've said that before) will continue to believe things strongly with no evidence for it, and all current evidence against it. We shouldn't shut our minds down from possibilities, but I don't like people spreading the idea that "what I believe is ok, because I believe it." No, reality is ok, because reality is. If your beliefs don't correlate with reality, either you are wrong, or we don't understand reality well enough yet. So, there is room for belief (maybe we don't understand reality well enough yet... maybe we never will).

However, I would personally argue that most paranormal activity should be at least scientifically observable if not explainable. We can't even objectively observe it, though, and many, many, many people have tried. The James Randi Foundation, for instance, doesn't need to know how its done, you just have to show them something that they can't explain scientifically, and you get your million $s.

So, I don't KNOW 100% for sure (and in the other thread some of us discussed how it is not possible to disprove things like that with 100% certainty anyway), that psychics or ghosts don't exist. I don't BELIEVE they exist because that is how the evidence stacks up right now (and what our current understanding of the brain lead me to believe).

We mentioned griffins as well. If someone tells you they think they saw a 100 foot long dragon, do you suddenly believe large dragons exist? If YOU think you see a 100 foot long dragon, do you suddenly believe they exist? Lots of people think they see lots of things (both healthy people and people with brain damage, psychological problems, and people on drugs), but if something really exists, it seems likely that we can collect something more than anecdotal evidence about it.

Sorry for the thread semi-derail. Although ths does somehwhat relate through Overlord's post.

I will argue for a slight difference, though. Religious people often posit things that are NOT testable (at least many of them seem to), while paranormal believers often posit things that ARE testible. So, I actually could see a person who believes in a deity or deities of some sort having issues with someone believing in telekinesis or ESP, because someone with telekinesis or ESP should be able to show it off to other people in a controlled environment, but nobody has yet.

How quickly you're forgetting that he went after ME for the stuff I believe in. Did you not read anything in that other thread?

By the way - I got quite alot of support from other Chewers via PM. The only reason they didn't back me up in the thread itself is because they didn't feel they could have a conversation about it, since the thread got really one-sided, really fast. Wonder how that happened?

Uhm...no. Quite simply, there's no such thing as sin in Buddhism. Buddhism is a path to enlightenment and we each choose our own path. Anything that takes us off the path is bad but it's not a sin. It might help Westerners to think that anything that takes you off the path is sin but it's not accurate. As there is no deity to judge you it would be impossible to sin.

Also, there is no hierarchy of bad things in Buddhism like there is in Christianity so saying that pride is the worst of all bad things is also woefully inaccurate.

And, finally, there is nothing about pride in the Eightfold Path or the Four Noble Truths so I have no idea where you got the idea that it's a sin, or a bad thing or the worst of them all.

First off what is a sin? In Christianity it is simply missing the mark, period. If I remember right in Buddhism they have a similar ideal, as you say it is slightly different, though.

Second there is no hierarchy of sin in Christianity either, no matter what some might want to believe on the subject. A sin is a sin is a sin. There is no difference between murder, lying, fornication, or homosexuality. It is all the same. Also the penalty for sin is only death, and not eternal punishment. Sin only lead to death, because it is a lack of perfection. Although there is a foundation to sin, as in how it starts and why. As there are two different things to think about in Christianity the flesh and the spirit.

From when I read Prince Gautama's story when he was a ascetic at the river, when he almost died. He realized he had took pride in his acts, and that he realized could not escape his pride. Or something to the fact. It been almost 20 years since I read his story. I remember the story, because it was a revelation in the nature of sin.

I'm not connecting the dots here, but whatever you say. Yes, you guys were on opposite sides of a discussion on the other thread. Overlord's points on the other thread were:

1) There have been lots of observations for a very long time.
2) No actual evidence for paranormal activity has ever been found.
3) This seems statistically unlikely if there were paranormal activity.
4) There are known phenomena (i.e., with scientific evidence) that can explain some thought-to-be paranormal activity.
5) Based on the above 4 points, Overlord chooses to BELIEVE (he never expressed that he knew anything for certain) that paranormal activity is unlikely to be real.

If that is him going "after you," then I guess he did. He was antagonistic in his very first thread (before you two started addressing each other, but then he seemed pretty reasonable).

Regardless, he didn't go "after you" on THIS thread. He was insulting RELIGIOUS people who ATTACK other that believe in paranormal activity. Are you a religious person that attacks the beliefs of others in regard to the paranormal?

No, you are not. That is the reason I found your response to Overlord HERE a bit baffling. He was telling religious people that it was hypocritical to attack your beliefs. That is almost, kinda, sorta defending you in a sense.

Beats me. I guess because one side took everything to PMs... so only the other side was talking? That tends to make things one-sided.

P.S. - I like how you basically ignore the actual sentences I'm typing (I respond directly and explicitly to everything you say, but you don't respond in kind) and just type these odd, semi-tangential, one or two sentence reactions. I'm STILL not willing to be angry at you or hate you, though. If you are trying to get me to be really mean or something, you'll have to try harder, I'm pretty mellow in general. Maybe one day I'll turn into an angry curmudgeon like Slater, but not quite yet.

P.P.S. - If you want to continue this, though, why don't you head on back to the original thread, or send me more PMs.

This is just plain wrong, no matter how you wish to define "Christianity" in that sentence. Mark 3:29 gives us the following: "But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." If you were talking about Judaism, you might have a leg to stand on here. The question of the afterlife itself in the canon is kind of murky until you get to the New Testament. However, there is no doubt that when Christ refers to "Gehenna" and talks about the everlasting destruction of the damned, he's referring to a literal Hell. In terms of history of the Church's teachings, you're kind of right that the concept of sin is tied into physical death via the concept of Original Sin but it's never touted as the sole punishment for sin and not all sects of the faith back Augustine's play.

Eenin getting schooled warms my heart. True, it's in a subject I don't care about, but that in no way lessens my enjoyment.

First define blasphemes against the Holy Spirit. What I will make it easy for you just define Holy Spirit. Wait you can't, the Holy Spirit is not defined in the bible.

The New testament clearly say that the wages of sin are death, no more no less.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I though you said that you studied Judaism? If you did then you would know that "Gehenna" is not hell, but a Garbage dump out side the city of Jerusalem. Like all garbage dumps it had a eternal infestation of worms, and it fires never went out, ever. Because of it history it was a place of deep shame to the Jews of that day, and only baggers and criminals were buried there. When Jesus used the term "Gehenna" he was explaining to the Jews their state of holiest, which was not as holy as they thought it was.


you really need to study this subject a lot more my friend.

Well I am going to have to brake your heart because Cuchulain does not know what the fuck he is talking about. he just repeating things he heard with out studying the facts for himself.

Yeah, Greg, put the brakes on your heart over there.

As far as I understand from my Catholic upbringing sin is going against the rules of God.

I present to you venial and mortal sin! Seems like a hierarchy to me.

Plus if something is the base for all sin (as you said) that seems to suggest it's far worse then the others. But I admit that that may be my own reading.

I also think you're confused on the whole death is a punishment for sin. My understanding is that death is our punishment for original sin not sin in general. Else why would we give a shit if we sinned if all that happens is we die, which we're going to do anyway.

Right, Pride was his failing. It's not necessarily mine, or the buddhist who lives down the street. We will each fail along the path but it will be different for each of us and what has brought someone off of their path may not bring me off of mine.

You're making the assumption that there are universal negatives in Buddhism because there are in other religions. That's not the case. We share certain beliefs but because it's a very personal journey that we are on we don't all share common 'sins'.

If it was a revelation on the nature of sin to you that's great but as with all Buddhist stories/koans it is open to personal interpretation so you're reading of it is not necessarily the correct one for everybody.

Really? I am? It appears to me that I've offered explantions of the topics you've broached with an outline of the place Christ has in the development of the canon as both a historical and literary figure in the post-Babylonian Exile era of Judaism, which I've supplemented with quotes from the actual doctrinal norm of the faith and explanations of how your misguided interpretations are founded in a confusion concerning basic theological concepts. You, on the other hand, have responded with overly literal readings of certain sections of the text and exposed yourself as both a horrible student of literature and theology. I've been trying to be nice here but you really, really ought to hold back on "[you] don't know what the fuck [you] are talking about" and "you need to study this more" barbs until you actually offer something of worth in this discussion. (It's also kind of weird that Ryan and I would point out your confusion over the sin = death angle in the same exact way without consulting each other if that were totally baseless.) Okay, you're starting off by basically rejecting a verse from Mark that completely disproves your assertion by saying there is at least one unforgivable sin. That's intellectually honest of you, really it is. Oh, and I'll make things easy for you: None of the figures of the Godhead are really defined in the Bible. The closest the Hebrew Bible comes to defining YHWH is saying that he's the creator and ruler of the universe--which is a description of what he has done and does and not what he is--and it spends the rest of the time telling us how it is impossible to really know God. God, if you remember, doesn't even show his face to Moses but people make a big deal about Moses being one of the only people to be in the actual presence of God. The only way that Christ's nature itself is explicitly defined in the Bible is in the retelling of creation that John chooses to open his Gospel, which gives a descending Christological account as opposed to the Synoptic Gospels acsending Christological account.

Ryan and I have already explained to you why this is just wrong. All I'll add to that is you're basically just paying attention to the denotation of this section of the text, which is a cardinal sin in the study of literature. And--of course--there is the matter that 2000 years of Christian scholarship and at least two other people have consistent disagreements with you on this.

Okay, first, when you pose a rhetorical question, you don't use a question mark because it's unneccessary. That's just a little issue I have about your treatment of the language. Now, on to your other problems.

Yeah, Gehenna is the dump outside of the city. I think knowing the name of it sort of suggests I knew about it. (However, no matter how bad a dump is, I don't think it has "everlasting" infestations of worms. That would make the dump itself sort of a supernatural force, which may be where you get confused... I don't know.) What Christ is doing is using a common, everyday element from the experience of his audience to illustrate a concept. It's a didactic tool that he employs elsewhere, namely, in the parables. (Of course, given the strength of scholarship you've shown thus far, I wouldn't be surprised if you were to think that the story of the Good Samaritan is literally about a particular Samaritan and so on and so forth.) If you notice, Gehenna is outside the city gates of the Holy City or--in the parlance of Pentateuch--"outside the camp." Christ's role in the literature and--for the believers--history is to be the scapegoat or "lamb of God" that takes away the sin of the world and allows the unclean back into the camp or the Kingdom of God. By invoking Gehenna, he's putting forth the idea that the people who reject his message well be placed outside the camp or Kingdom just like the unclean items that are placed and destroyed in the dump. He's talking about eternal death. You have to not be paying attention on a truly epic level not to get that. You need to take some literature and religion courses, my friend.

There is you problem in a nut shall, Catholicism. Catholic belief system come mostly from paganism, and not Judaism, read your history. Catholicism is basically paganism with a veneer of Christianity, which is not to say that catholics are not Christians, just that they have a great deal of BS in the mix.

The whole mortal sin thing come from Mark 3:29, and others. Which is one of the verse which talk about sin against the spirit, which shame will never be forgotten. You have to understand the difference between flesh and spirit. The flesh dies, and spirit does not. It not that one is so much worse then the other. Iit just that the memory of one is greater then the other.

You are right that my reply to Greg David was uncalled for I ask your forgiveness. There are many question about what the verse you posted means. You may not be aware of some of those questions first off the whole "everlasting" is really questionable. Aiōnios might mean everlasting, or just ages and ages. One is forever, and one is just a really long time. You point about God being unknowable is a good one, but the Holy Spirit is even less known then the other parts. First off is all spirit come from God and return to God, then all spirit is holy. For the record I am not a trinity believer. There are just too many unknowns.
But you are looking at it from a orthodox outlook, and only taking into account writers that were approved by the Catholic Church. There are whole other realms of thought on many of these things. I have read most of the guys you have read, and many more. The whole world could disagree with me and it does not mean I am wrong. I already know I could be wrong, and am most little wrong on some things. If you noticed I did not make a statement about what the meaning of aiōnios, I just pointed out it could mean more then one thing. It not like I have not spent time studying and talking about these thing with many other people.


Grammar was never my strong suite. What more can I say. Although my reading comprehension is really high.


Who is being literal here I never said that the dump was "everlasting". Gehenna is more then a dump though it was a place of unforgettable shame to the Jews, because it was were they sacrificed children to Moloch or Bail.

Arrogance and condescension don't become you, eenin. Besides the absurdity of someone insinuating that their version of Christianity is the one true faith there's the absurdity of saying that other version's dogma is bullshit.

I am well aware of the history of the Catholic faith. I am also well aware of the history of Anglican, United, Episcopalian and all the other splinter groups of Christianity. For anyone to try and claim that they are the true believers is just plain arrogant and stupid. They have all been bent to the will of the human beings that have been in power in each church.

None of which changes the fact that you were still completely and utterly wrong about your comments on Buddhism.

"But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven, but is guilty of eternal sin."

Can you please explain your bizarre reading of this fairly direct verse? Is there some place in the bible that states that there is in fact a difference between sin of the flesh and sin of the spirit? Or how about your very odd interpretation of body versus spirit? And, again, I need you to explain why, if the punishment for sin is death, why do we care if we sin in this life? We're all going to die so what we do has no affect on our punishment.

Was not trying to come across as Arrogance and condescension just stating facts. It a fact that when the Roman emperors made Christianity the 'state religion' they forced the pagan majority to convert to the new religion. This was the worse disaster in the history of Christianity. It cause a total change in the views of the religion on many things. Christianity was mostly a Jewish religion before that, and afterwards it became for a large part a pagan religion. Like the status of saints, Paul called the saints milk drinkers, meaning infants. Also many ideals were suppressed because the emperors, or leaders who had the emperors support, like universalism. I have question about universalism, but many of their ideals are very sound. So some great Christian thinkers like Saint Pantaenu, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Basil of Caesarea were either forgotten, or suppressed. I am not really found of the 'protest catholics'(protestants) either, they are not any better then the orthodox churches. To better understand the New testament one need to look at it from a Jewish out look at the time of Jesus, which is not easy to do.

okay I will take you word for it, it has been almost twenty years ince I study Buddhism, and I did not go that deep into it.


The original Greek may not say that as it was written. There is some room for interpretation. It is no doubt severe, but it does not have to be forever. The pure idea of eternity is not found in any of the ancient languages, as far as I know. Also the next verse after that say because they judge him unclean.
Mar 3:30 BecauseG3754 they said,G3004 He hathG2192 an uncleanG169 spirit.G4151

True we are all going to die, but we shall be Judge by how we judge others. Sins of the spirit are pride and judgment, really, and even judgment come directly from pride. Also you can read the bible backwards and forwards there is no cut off date for salvation.

On the subject of punishment. It have never been about punishment, but perfection. For some it will be fairly easy, quick and painless to reach perfection. For other it a long, slow, and very painful possess. One need to understand sin and how it applies to themselves. The first step to over coming is understanding. Even though we can't overcome our sins we can at least understand them, and how they apply to ourselves. Also sin of the flesh is about physical health. The less sin you do the healthier you will be or the less chance you will die younger then you might. It can be argued in Christian philosophy, that we only die because we sin. Remember sin is the missing of the mark, the mark is perfection, and God is perfect. Also something most seem to either not get or forget is that in Christianity sin happen in thought, not in action. If you are doing something you have to have thought it up first, and even if you do not act on your thoughts it does not mean you are guiltless.

As far as the difference between sin of the spirit and flesh it, it is more implied by some things.

1 Corinthians 15:1 Corinthians 15:49And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 50Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
(notice that here that the dead sleep.)

I like your question keep them up I need to work on my explain of these things. Some of them are not easy to find, or explain easy.

I used to have a friend in high school, son of a Pentecostal minister that was bragging about shoplifting. I told him how he could do such a thing, and he confronted me by saying, "have you ever lied?" to which I replied yes. He then proceed to explain to me how all sins are equal and no one sin is worse than the others, even murder.

Not really, "sola scriptura" doesn't mean that Christianity is solely defined by what is in the Bible. People, includes a big deal of atheists on these boards, often forget that Christianity predates what they know as the Bible of today.

Also, serious interpretation of the Bible goes far beyond reading things literally and outside of the context and origin of the text. Creationists are not more correct than "reformist observers" when you can't get away from understanding that the Genesis story pre-dates Judaism and is meant to provide something far different from a scientific origin of the universe for example.

I hope someone takes your former friend aside one of these days and informs him that he suffers from a gross misunderstanding of the concept of sin. James sums up the equal weight of sin thusly: "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." The point of the passage isn't that no one sin is worse than any other and thus sin is a trivial concern. Rather, the point is that all sins are grave offenses to God and all have fallen far short of the glory of God since all have sinned. This is why Christ says "only God is good."

See we agree on some things.

The sheer arrogance of this statement is kind of mindnumbing. To be fair, I'll give you that you've moved on from calling me someone who just repeats unfounded hearsay, however, thinking you know the full extent of my study because I happen to adhere to traditional Trinitarian Christianity is kind of astounding.

Dude, I'm not even a Catholic and this offends me. On one hand, it's offensive because you're basically putting your own interpretation of the Bible above most of the Christian thinkers in human history but you're doing that with a horrible understanding of the history of the religion. You seem to think that there was some sort of "Christianity" to adulterate with paganism in the first place. The entire reason that Constantine organized the ecumenical councils after he gave Christian beliefs the official protection of the Roman empire with the Edict of Milan is that there were so many Christian sects with different texts in the empire. All he did was bring the sects together in an open environment for the first time in 300 years and iron out their theological differences in order to have a single consistent belief system to grant protected status. Prior to that, there was no single Christian religion and one unified Christian religion only lasted until
the Great Schism.

So, which 1st century Christian sect do you back as the one true guardian of the teachings of Christ? (Note that--in the Gospels--Christ himself refuses to rebuke a person who is preaching in his name while not being a member of his movement when the disciples confront him with the man's actions before answering.)

The question is when did traditional Trinitarian Christianity start?
this one of the major problem with Constantine. what he did goes against many of Paul teachings don't know, and does it really matter?
1 Corinthians 3:11For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

what is really important in Christianity is fairly simply:

The Sermon on the Mount; The Beatitudes
I don't disagree with this

I posted this on a religious board with regard to how the meaning of 'Hell' changes from the old to new testaments.

One also should note that the bible uses four different words which are translated in to the old English word hell.

The Hebrew word sheol (31 times)

The Greek word gehenna (12 times)

The Greek word hades (10 times)

The Greek word tartarus (1 time)