No more cloth for me.

[LoneWolf16]

god is a personal thing. If you believe in him he's what you want him to be. If you don't believe in him he doesn't exsist. That is why there are so many churches in the christian faith. Everybody has their own idea of what god is.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

but i know of many christian denominations that would agree with me that i and they are worshiping the same God

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're being deliberately obtuse.

 

There are subtle differences, unique to each established chuch, in the Christian faith. It's nothing glaring, but they're there.

[Blank]

but i know of many christian denominations that would agree with me that i and they are worshiping the same God

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're being deliberately obtuse.

 

There are subtle differences, unique to each established chuch, in the Christian faith. It's nothing glaring, but they're there.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

there are minute differences in the philosophies, but its isn't as though we are worshiping different gods, which is what i was talking about.

 

"and if everyone is a 'god', then the special power you might have had is nullified by everyone else's equal power."

 

No one has the kind of power over someone as they have over themselves. Thus, his 'special power' isn't nullified -- not when it comes to himself.

Not when it comes to himself, okay. but i kind of was referring to the fact that that is not real power. its only over yourself, and if you can't even control yourself then you are pathetic anyway.

[LoneWolf16]

Technically...I have the power to go to my father's house, take his stockless, pump-action 12-gauge, and go on a killing spree. Not that I ever would, but here's the point.

 

Each of us has the power to affect everybody around us. Therefore, we have power extending beyond ourselves.

 

At least, that's the way I look at it.

 

And yeah, the different facets of religions view their chosen version of a deity(s) at least a smidgen differently.

Edited November 22, 2005 by LoneWolf16

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Thats not the same thing as having power over yourself.

[LoneWolf16]

Thats not the same thing as having power over yourself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Er...yeah, sorry. I'm tired. Very, very tired.

 

...but simply having the power to make decisions for yourself...is, in and of itself, a force to be reckoned with. As Sarj said, "No one has the kind of power over someone as they have over themselves."

 

I'm in agreement...but wording myself properly is...ugh, I need coffee.

[Cantousent]

Anyone who truly believes they have any significant power over himself is sadly mistaken. We don't have power over ourselves. Science on the one hand gives increasing power to our very genes and yet advocates of science want to put everything on the individual level? What is it some of you say? You can't have your cake and eat it also?

 

According to Calax, God is nothing more than what we love in ourselves. ...But God is not the same in every religion.

 

For instance, some folks claim that humans created God because they feared death, but there are some religions that see death as the complete end of being, others that see death as universally bad (or at least not good), and even some that don't address the idea of an afterlife at all.

 

Some folks suggest that religion serves to explain natural phenomena, but that doesn't account for religions where explanations for natural phenomena are only incidental or don't receive any significant treatment at all.

 

Some folks say that religion only serves one purpose or another, but that's simply not true. Religion is a complex issue. Atheists and Believers alike should refrain from simplistic and pointed explanations. There is no real explanation for religion. Hell, even within a single religion, such as Christianity, different denominations will undoubtedly have different views.

 

So, you can't say "[t]hat is why there are so many churches in the christian faith. Everybody has their own idea of what god is..." and then say "the [sic] belief in god is a desire by man to find somthing bigger than himself to explain all the unexplainable things. Ultimatly god is everything we love about ourselves personified and taken to another level." At best, you might claim that the belief in God is a desire by a man to find something bigger than himself to explain those unexplained things which he would like to explain. Even that, as useless of a general statement as it is, remains woefully simplistic.

[Sarjahurmaaja.]

"Not when it comes to himself, okay. but i kind of was referring to the fact that that is not real power. its only over yourself, and if you can't even control yourself then you are pathetic anyway."

 

Not real power? One could argue that it is the only kind of power that matters.

 

"Anyone who truly believes they have any significant power over himself is sadly mistaken. We don't have power over ourselves."

 

You don't believe in free will? Color me surprised.

[Cantousent]

Perhaps we would do well to define some of these terms before we argue over them.

[metadigital]

 

See, but the choice about not going into the ministry was very much less about this relationship and more about general problems with doctrine, and disbelief in myself. 

 

The thing just seemed to evolve into a relationship thread the moment I mentioned a woman even inspired these thoughts a little. 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Personally i blame you for that. "

 

Now with regards to the man of the cloth thing, can't you just be undecided on those questions and instead do what you intend to as a minister?

 

What is the role of a minister? Is it just to quote scripture every Sunday? I thought it was a guidance counsellor position. Do you want to change the church form with in or is it helping directly that appeals to you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Um, it is kind of both.

 

As a minister, responsibilities would encompany tending to the flock, sermons, a lot of counselling, and helping others.

 

However I would never feel comfortable teaching something I myself cannot wrap my head around, and as much as I would like to do both of the things in your last sentence, I cannot teach something I don't understand.

 

Also lack of faith.

 

Basically, at the moment, I feel more of a Deist (as Baley suggested), than a baptized Christian.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jer 17:5 (NIV) This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD."

Prov 28:26 (NIV) He who trusts in himself is a fool...

 

Hmmm, doesn't appear that scriture is much help in this dilemma.

 

I would put it to you that you haven't spent nearly enough time researching and thinking about this stuff.

 

Also, if you think you are going to make a lucrative career out of psychology, then you ought to get used to the priest's stipend ...

[Calax]

Well if you drop the ministry you could still use most of what you learned as either a school counciler or as a psyciatric dr.

[metadigital]

Perhaps we would do well to define some of these terms before we argue over them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There you go again, taking all the fun out of the argument.

[Blank]

...but simply having the power to make decisions for yourself...is, in and of itself, a force to be reckoned with. As Sarj said, "No one has the kind of power over someone as they have over themselves."

 

"if you can't even control yourself then you are pathetic anyway."

 

sorry for quoting myself, but it didn't look like you read that: is it really power if all you are affecting is yourself, and you should be able to do it anyway? And to what you said about the killing spree, anybody with arms and legs can do that!

 

Not real power? One could argue that it is the only kind of power that matters.

 

does that power make you a "god" though? like i said, not very big power. and like Eldar said, do you actually think you have true power over yourself? some things tempt us and we give in, which shows our weakness.

Edited November 23, 2005 by Blank

[LoneWolf16]

"Big power" is subjective. And no, I didn't miss that line, Blank.

 

"if you can't even control yourself then you are pathetic anyway."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

does that power make you a "god" though? like i said, not very big power. and like Eldar said, do you actually think you have true power over yourself? some things tempt us and we give in, which shows our weakness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Contradicted yourself...either that, or you're saying we're all pathetic.

[Cantousent]

That's because free will is another logical dilemma. God grants free will. Man does not have free will of his own, but rather he is the recipeint of free will from God. Because of this, God still retains utlimate power to the individual. As a religious person, you have free will to the extent that you can accept God's grace. I'm Catholic, so I don't believe works are meaningles, but works themselves are inspired by God and performed by humanity. Ultimately, God still retains all rights to works and grace.

 

How many of you have heard of pre-determination? Not the old religious kind, but the new movement? :Eldar's looking at metadigital expectantly because he figures meta has and knows some links icon:

 

Science is well on the way to denying free will at all. We are prisoners to our nature, it seems.

 

To the extent that we cannot escape our humanity, we have no true power over ourselves. It is the details of our humanity that we exercise our free will. So, we really do need to define our use of the terms. It will probably allow for a better argument in the long run. After all, why waste time arguing over the broad points when we can get down to the stuff that starts all the wars... the fine points.

[Child of Flame]

 

See, but the choice about not going into the ministry was very much less about this relationship and more about general problems with doctrine, and disbelief in myself. 

 

The thing just seemed to evolve into a relationship thread the moment I mentioned a woman even inspired these thoughts a little. 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Personally i blame you for that. "

 

Now with regards to the man of the cloth thing, can't you just be undecided on those questions and instead do what you intend to as a minister?

 

What is the role of a minister? Is it just to quote scripture every Sunday? I thought it was a guidance counsellor position. Do you want to change the church form with in or is it helping directly that appeals to you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Um, it is kind of both.

 

As a minister, responsibilities would encompany tending to the flock, sermons, a lot of counselling, and helping others.

 

However I would never feel comfortable teaching something I myself cannot wrap my head around, and as much as I would like to do both of the things in your last sentence, I cannot teach something I don't understand.

 

Also lack of faith.

 

Basically, at the moment, I feel more of a Deist (as Baley suggested), than a baptized Christian.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jer 17:5 (NIV) This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD."

Prov 28:26 (NIV) He who trusts in himself is a fool...

 

Hmmm, doesn't appear that scriture is much help in this dilemma.

 

I would put it to you that you haven't spent nearly enough time researching and thinking about this stuff.

 

Also, if you think you are going to make a lucrative career out of psychology, then you ought to get used to the priest's stipend ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I am not looking to be lucrative, I am looking to get by.

 

I am fairly confident in my abilities to invest, and think that even on a middle class salary I could be pretty well off by retirement.

 

Also, how much you make shrinking people all depends on how good you are at it, and how much of a need there is for it in the area you set up your practice.

 

Part of the problem is that I have been thinking about it. All too much. I do not like things that require me to have blind faith in emotions, they get scrambled easily, and are subject to interference from personal vestments and troubled times.

[Calax]

"Man is born free, but everywhere he's in chains"

 

To say that we are not gods is to say that god is not god. Because if you look at the relationships god could squash us like a bug. He as the power of life and death over us. We have the power of life and death over ourselves too. We also have the power over other creatures on this earth.

 

To say that if you can't control yourself your pathetic is actually rather short sighted. You have hundreds of biological processes that you can't control, does this make you pathetic? Every male here has gotten at least one erection that was not needed at that time, does that make us all pathetic? Or were you just talking aobut the concious stuff? Like talking, or moving? Everything around us is affected by us. But it is also affected by the others near us. If your boss was to say go to NY and buy us an office building you would feel you don't have a choice but to do that. Often people will do degrading things because they don't want to have the shame of somthing broadcast to the world. SO yes we can control all of our concious actions but our psycology usually won't let us take certain roads. Thus we end up "forcing" ourselves into one decision or another.

[Cantousent]

I'm not advocating the position that we are "pathetic." The only thing I suggest is that we do not have true power over ourselves. We clearly have some power over ourselves, but even that might be illusory.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_determinism

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_determinism

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

 

Of course, even if we don't have free will, society can't function if we deny it. On the other hand, it is determined that we have free will, whether we have it or not.

 

So, whether you are Christian or Atheist, ultimately we don't have true power over ourselves. In either case, we have only that power granted to us by God or fate.

[Calax]

I'm not advocating the position that we are "pathetic."  The only thing I suggest is that we do not have true power over ourselves.  We clearly have some power over ourselves, but even that might be illusory.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_determinism

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_determinism

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

 

Of course, even if we don't have free will, society can't function if we deny it.  On the other hand, it is determined that we have free will, whether we have it or not.

 

So, whether you are Christian or Atheist, ultimately we don't have true power over ourselves.  In either case, we have only that power granted to us by God or fate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

that last statement was aimed at blank

[Blank]

"Big power" is subjective.

everything is subjective.

we're all pathetic.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

wow, you took the words right out of my mouth

[Janmanden]

Hypopathetical speculations, myth and tv-insanity I can do too, but it would be kinda funny to hear the words of a real worshipper that's reflecting on the center of his beliefs..that 'God' entity, especially to someone like me that considers that whole ordeal mentally deranged. Hey believer, I am really curious...do you believe that God could crush you like a bug?

[Blank]

"Man is born free, but everywhere he's in chains"

 

To say that we are not gods is to say that god is not god. Because if you look at the relationships god could squash us like a bug. He as the power of life and death over us. We have the power of life and death over ourselves too. We also have the power over other creatures on this earth.

 

To say that if you can't control yourself your pathetic is actually rather short sighted. You have hundreds of biological processes that you can't control, does this make you pathetic? Every male here has gotten at least one erection that was not needed at that time, does that make us all pathetic? Or were you just talking aobut the concious stuff? Like talking, or moving? Everything around us is affected by us. But it is also affected by the others near us. If your boss was to say go to NY and buy us an office building you would feel you don't have a choice but to do that. Often people will do degrading things because they don't want to have the shame of somthing broadcast to the world. SO yes we can control all of our concious actions but our psycology usually won't let us take certain roads. Thus we end up "forcing" ourselves into one decision or another.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But you just described abilities or inevitabilities that everyone experiences, are we therefore all gods because of that? i don't think so. like you described, God could squash us like a bug, and having that much power I think it is obvious why He is the one called God and not us.

How many of you have heard of pre-determination? Not the old religious kind, but the new movement? :Eldar's looking at metadigital expectantly because he figures meta has and knows some links icon:

i have only heard of the old religious kind (i think you are talking about Calvin when you say old religious kind). That pre-determination was based on verses like this:

Romans 8:29-30

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

 

and

 

Ephesians 1:4-6

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will

[tarna]

"And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

tarna, where is that quote from? just wondering.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's from "The Charge of the Goddess". A little 'inter-faith' but seemed appropriate to the subject.

[WITHTEETH]

I'm not advocating the position that we are "pathetic."  The only thing I suggest is that we do not have true power over ourselves.  We clearly have some power over ourselves, but even that might be illusory.

 

Of course, even if we don't have free will, society can't function if we deny it.  On the other hand, it is determined that we have free will, whether we have it or not.

 

So, whether you are Christian or Atheist, ultimately we don't have true power over ourselves.  In either case, we have only that power granted to us by God or fate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I disagree, I have control over myself. We always have the choice, if nothing at all.

 

Humans are not always rational beings.

When i go out to eat, i normally get a pop. Why do i get a pop?

Water is free and Healthy, pop is neither.

I have the freedom to choose, so im going to do it my way, Im choosing pop because i like the taste. Its just a matter of taste.

 

We have COMPLETE freedom of choice, with that choice we will choose what WE want, not whats rational all the time. The more we know ourselves, the more we can defeat natural law. So go out and discover yourselves!

[metadigital]

Does that power make you a "god" though?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, if you are an epistemological existential empiricist (in extremis).

...

Empiricists have traditionally denied that even these fields could be a priori knowledge. Two common arguments are that these sorts of knowledge can only be derived from experience (as John Stuart Mill argued), and that they do not constitute "real" knowledge (as David Hume argued).

...

 

Like I said, not very big power [sic]; and like Eldar said, do you actually think you have true power over yourself? Some things tempt us and we give in, which shows our weakness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Existentialists do not need an external "god" to complete their Weltanschauung:

...

Sartre's dictum, "Existence precedes and rules essence," is generally taken to mean that there is no pre-defined essence to humanity, except that which we make for ourselves. Since Sartrean existentialism does not acknowledge the existence of a god, or of any other determining principle, human beings are free to act as they choose ...

 

If a person chooses to give into temptation, surely they are acting in a totally authoritarian manner over the corporeal demesne?

 

Methodological skepticism behooves us to not insist on a priori knowledge, as the Rationalists do. ("... Descartes considered the knowledge of the self, or cogito ergo sum, to be a priori, because he thought that one needn't refer to past experience to consider one's own existence. ..."; whereas "... Existentialism conceives of Being itself as something that can only be understood through and in relation to these basic characteristics of human existence ... asserting instead that as conscious beings we always find ourselves already in a world, a prior context and history that is given to consciousness and in which it is situated, and that we cannot think away that world. It is inherent and indubitably linked to consciousness. In other words, the ultimate, certain, indubitable reality is not thinking consciousness but, according to Heidegger, 'being in the world'.", namely what is it to be?, the "... real essence or meaning, that is, its intelligibility for us ...", or Da Sein.)

 

Soooooooooooooo, the individual's power is about all the power an individual needs to consider themselves a god ...

 

:Eldar's looking at metadigital expectantly because he figures meta has and knows some links icon:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What? What am I, the local librarian?

 

Oh, I might do some googling later, I'm tired and I have to get up early tomorrow, so I'm off to sleepy bo-bos ...

[Cantousent]

You know, free will isn't the same as power over ourselves. Free will is only a specific type of power, and it is limited. We cannot change ourselves from human to spider, let's say, and then back again. The whole determinism debate, which is actually more of a premise that attacks religion these days, is another matter. Determinism denies any free will as every decision, no matter how whimsical, can be explained either as the result of some factor outside of the person making the decision or as the result of some innate quality. In neither case does the person making the "decision" have free will. I disagree with this notion, but it's out there.

 

My point is that there are many points of view on this issue and it behooves us to see this as something more than a religious v science debate. This is more of a religion, science, spiritualist, and everyone else added to the mix free for all.

 

Whether we have free will or not, we do not have true power over ourselves. At the very least, we don't have full power over ourselves. If we're to take "power" to mean "free will," then I'll agree to that. It's a working definition. It still doesn't address scientific, philosophical, and religious determinism, but that's okay.