An unexpected verdict--and perhaps not one with which all would agree.

This man to some degree, though, represents each of us. We see God's eternal purposes only partially--only unclearly--as if hidden behind a curtain. Understanding the Big Picture of the Great Controversy opens more to our view--an advantage not possessed by most, yet cherished by Adventists--but even that can't answer all questions.

We each, by active choice or passive default, will reach our own personal verdict about whether God is good--or is instead a bad and unfair God. Evidence is available to support both conclusions.

It seems to me that the overwhelming evil and injustice in the world makes concluding that God is bad the easier choice--and perhaps most do make that choice. It would even defy reason to dismiss the evidence for a bad God and would be unkind and unfair to judge those who decide that He is.

Evidence exists too, however, that God is good. But to conclude that requires the constant exercise of an active choice to believe in God's goodness--a choice based both on the reasoned examination of the available external evidence and on the internal evidence of one's personal experience with God.

Apart from that personal relationship--and in the absence of the Spirit's illumination of mind and conviction of heart, which of us could be faulted for concluding that God is bad?

But to conclude that He is good requires trust. And trust is a function of relationship. I must taste, by experience, to see that the Lord is good. Only that relationship, then, can make possible believing in a good God in the midst of a cesspool of evil and injustice.

But within that relationship, our eyes are opened to see beyond the curtain raised--at least in part--in the book of Job.

how does he know that david's child was actually in pain? i would like to know.
we are not God. all we know is what we see and hear. who says that because we see a child in pain, that means that in reality the child is *actually* in pain? is God not God?? is He not able to allow us to suffer the consequences of sin by watching loved ones writhe in pain--when in fact they are actually not? yes, the child died. he had to. his father created him in a sin that he knew full well was in fact sin, when he committed this act with this woman.
but who is to say it was not actually a peaceful death for the infant??
the effect is the same. the consequence (the horrible guilt) david still deserved, whether or not the reality is what we *think* we are seeing and hearing.

how many times had God listened to the israelites after they rebelled? who says he should need to relent each and every single time we make a mistake, no matter how sorry we are?? who does this man think he is, to say God is wrong because even though david spent time in sackcloth begging for mercy, God still allowed the baby to die??
david chose to do what he knew was wrong. there are consequences for doing wrong.
God has warned us all of this from the beginning.
does that mean that if we are "reallyreallyreallyreally sorry," then God should spare us?
we should be eternally grateful for the times God sees fit to hold back negative consequences--instead of damning Him for allowing to happen to us what we deserve to have happen--when it actually does happen!

who lived in the time of the flood?! this man acts as though it were HE who were there, who knew what the evil people then were doing! he asked "what had they done? what had they done?" but apparently even NOAH, our fellow human being and worshipper of God, could see how evil those around him had become! and he chose to not follow their doings, to stay separate, to stay close to God. as a result him and his family like him were saved.

why does this reality seem to boggle this man's mind?? he is miserable, yes, but he is not God. he cannot see the big picture. and as sinful as you and i are--do we really think that this is our natural-born right to be on the same plane as God, knowing and understanding all? i don't care if you only want an answer to one thing or to everything. what are we instructed to do, but to have faith. to obey. to believe God is God.
having faith is an important show of whose side we are on, AS JOB DID, and AS DAVID DID--even though we are in pain, even though we ask God why, even though our faith wants to waiver, we can in the end declare "the Lord is good! i will trust Him always!"
both of these men suffered much and still they trusted.

you may ask "what is the point of the holocaust? how could God allow these horrible things to happen?" i ask you, "how else can God show what evil will abound at the hand of satan when He pulls back His presence from our lives --or is FORCED out by our own desires?
God could say "well I saved you from this and that." after hundreds of years of saying that, wouldn't we begin to doubt? "yes, yes You saved me from this and that calamity.....so you say.... and satan is evil..... so You say. except that i've never seen him actually being evil."
how can we, if we've never had a chance, with God's hand holding constantly holding him back? the evilness and depth to which satan can delve to needs to be shown once and for all so that NEVER AGAIN will there be any doubt for the human nation, nor throughout all the universe, that God Is Good! the earth is a battleground for the last war. the tension is heating up! can you not feel it, fellow believers?!

the crux of the matter is: if God is not good, would He even care to one day rescue us forever? is someone going to tell me that the creator of the universe does not understand how much we hurt here here on earth?
and if there is someone who cares to waste time dabbling in such an idea, isn't there also someone who can remind that individual of how often and how deeply we hurt God when we sin against Him?
and yet, apparently, some of us believe we should be allowed to live as gods--to understand the end from the beginning..... or that we should at least be able to pick and choose what things of which we desire to be shown the secrets. (both ideas inane and laughable. we are mere, sinful, human beings. we deserve so much less than the promise of a heavenly home--and still we nitpick and whine!)

dare i say that this type of foolish thinking, begun in a garden, is what established the mess that the human race is in today.
this man has lost his faith, and in turn, is encouraging others to lose theirs. he is helping "others stumble," in faith--a sin in and of itself.

Rebellion has consequences, to the extent that God built a design in which rational beings could make choices, God is responsible for evil. In fact, God Himself is displayed in the Old Testament as taking that responsibility.

That is one of the primary purposes of the Christ event. "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father!" Man, among other things enjoyed doubt, chafes at delay, and loves making God into his own image.

Certainly, Job is an excellent place to begin--but the Gospels and Paul letters are the place to finalize one's vision of God and it is GOOD. Tom

The kernel of his confusion is alive and well today.
As with most faulty arguments his starts with the premise that Gods judgments have to make sense to him. He sets up a line of thinking where he puts human sensibilities above Gods. He asks "What did God think when Israel showed mercy to..." as if man was more merciful than God.
He strings a line of thought that sounds on its face as rational but is in fact cancerous.
If one keeps to a religious mindset as he obviously does in his treatise, one can distinguish between death and the fact that we all will face it sooner or later and the second death that we all live for. In fact we as Jews or Christians are counseled that one does not sacrifice principal in this life, even at the cost of death as in the story of the firey furnace.
He says the opposers to Israel learned that God was not good using the many deaths as proof. He then says he was only on our side as if everyone else died but no Israelites, but many Israelites were killed too.

Since we all die and no death being pleasant, is God any worse for us dying sooner rather than later?

Near the end he says we should have TAUGHT GOD the justice that was in our hearts, we should have stood up to him and said NO.

The same reasoning is being used today by those championing acceptance of homosexuality and other issues. Using mans sense of right and wrong and putting it in the light that mans sensibilities are superior to Gods.

Job dabbled in entertaining some of these ideas to which Gods answer to him serves just as well as an answer here.

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?

3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

kb.

If God were playing with David's perception, than that was lying. If god lies, than how do you know you aren't going to hell? God could be playing with your perception as you're reading what you think's a promise of heaven.

No wonder Christian kings often felt they were above their own laws. Look at their example!

I agree with the dude when he said that Abraham should have told God to shove off when asked to sacrifice his son. Humans must draw a line with their deities. Or else find a new way to understand them (the gods did NOT command that: humans did; the gods did NOT kill those children: we are responsible; the gods did NOT spark that tsunami: creation is free to act as it does; etc.).

In response to the old argument that Satan's depravity must be shown, if the Bible (especially, but not limited to, the OT) tells the truth about God, then it's not Satan's depravity we should worry about. If the Bible tells the truth about God, then I can understand the rebellion.

I had a lengthy conversation with my mother a day ago about theism (the belief in a creator God who is an active participant in the story of Creation) and deism (the belief in a God that served as a unmoved mover, in Aristotle's schema, that is not an active participant in creation).

I told my mom that if I had nothing to go on but the physical evidences from the world around me, I think the most plausible world view would be deism.

My mom came back citing examples of what she considered miracles that demonstrate divine action. But in reality, what she (and many others) considered miraculous turned out to be events that she didn't know how to explain--events that certainly did not demand (or even suggest) supernatural explanations.

We talked about sin (or evil) in the world, which Christians attribute to the Fall. Tsunamis, fires, natural and unnatural disasters of all types get slapped with the all-purpose sticker "Result of Sin."

The remarkable thing is that the chaotic and destructive forces at work on our "sinful" planet are also at work throughout the cosmos. Jupiter's moon IO has an active volcano on its surface that spews lava and noxious fumes hundreds of kilometers high. There are constantly extremely violent collisions between space objects powerful enough to destroy all living things, if there were life present. Potentially life-giving stars like our own sun die spectacularly and destroy anything near them. Our very universe itself, with its perpetual outward expansion is moving resolutely toward its own certain demise.

The point is that violent, destructive forces of nature are not confined to our "sin-marred" planet.

It seems as though any responsible theology must grapple with such existential quandaries. This video provides one way to deal with the evidence. There are others.

The point is that violent, destructive forces of nature are not confined to our "sin-marred" planet.

**************************************************************

One possible view...If the conflict is truly cosmic, then it involves the entire cosmos, and its results may be seen through its effect on the ehtire physical cosmos, not just this sin-marred earth.

When Paul speaks of the entire creation groaning as in labor pains, his view seems to take into account whatever is on, above and beneath the earth. Notwithstanding his flat earth cosmology, he seems to be speaking of the entire creation as being involved, effected, and thus anticipating the freedom to come. IOW sin, which began with war in heaven before it arrived here, and whose implications involves the entire universe, has left even a physical mark all through the created order of God's universe. A physical mark that can be observed in chaotic and destructive forces in the heavens as well as on earth.

Thanks...

Frank

"A physical mark that can be observed in chaotic and destructive forces in the heavens as well as on earth."

Within the universe, both here on Earth, and in the heavens, the chaos and destructive forces are ALSO the constructive forces.

It is the explosion of stars that spreads common atoms across the universe - such as the Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc. that you and I are largely made of

/Bevin

Why must we put such inordinate faith in the Bible's stories--stories that show little difference from the contemporary literature in attributing causes and results to the gods. The only difference--the Hebrews claimed (though seldom practiced) monotheism--and because they said their god had ordered the killings, was the instigator of all things, both evil and good, we have not moved beyond those ancient perceptions.

It is a modern wonder that there are people who still grapple with the story of Job--as though it truly occurred. The Hebrew Bible and the NT are respositories of an intellectual heritage that went well beyond the Hebrew and Christian worlds. Composed by legions of urban elites, they captured ideas of great civilizaions, from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Christianity's Hellenistic milieu. It is nothing more than an ancient tale--and nowhere is Job called a Jew but it found its way into the Hebrew Bible just as some of the Proverbs which originated with the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" and other literature: the flood story, the protection of Moses in the basket (a tale of Sargon from nearly 1,000 years earlier) and these are only a few lifted from other cultures' stories and once incorporated into the Bible became sacrosanct.

Has modern knowledge never invaded the religious mind--is there still a return to such impossible accounts of events that, if reported today, most would cringe at such immature explanations. The Bible, just as the Homeric epics; the Babylonian and Sumerian stories, tell more of the people who wrote than of reality. The Hebrews were, nor could have understood modern concepts and believed in all sorts of "reasons" justifying their concepts. By attributing them to their god, it gave them validity and purpose and also a retributive justice still seen in Christianity today.

I don't have a problem with the notion that ancient Jews and early Israelites believed their scriptures were an accurate portrayal of their God's interactions with creation. It makes sense, given the context. The problem I have is assuming that they got it right, blithely accepting the brutality in the Bible, brutality which is consistent with a brutal era. Present Truth would be a valuable paradigm to measure texts which ascribe ugly and cruel violence to God (which ought to violate our contemporary sense of justice) and an recent creation to life (which does violate what nature tells us).

We don't have to be angry at the ancient writers and editors, but neither do we have to wholeheartedly accept their cosmology.

Our contemporary sense of justice is not always just. So I'm reluctant to make it an absolute standard for anything, especially the Creator.
That said, if something fails even our variable good sense, it's worth taking a closer look at why. Our sense is not perfect, but it's what we've got so let's use it!

With regard to the Canaan mass slaughters, the European crusades, the Atlantic triangular trade, the European pogroms and modern Holocaust, the Rwandan tribal wars, and genocide in Armenia, Yugoslavia, and Sudan... it frustrates me no end when well-intentioned people dismiss human trauma in their attempt to affirm God. As removed as many of us are from death and pain, we can afford to get antsy about warside photography while gory movies are our entertainment. We show we don't know trauma because we take it either as a joke or as something to be theologically waved aside.

What I respect about Jewish commentary on both the Shoah and the Job story is the fact that these sources acknowledge and sanctify our wrestling with pain. Sometimes our wrestling uncovers not THE answer but AN answer, and that answer helps us reframe our lives (e.g. Ezra: "We went into exile because we failed to keep the Law. Let's recommit to this way of life, all of us."). Sometimes the destructive proves constructive (Joseph: "You thought you were destroying me but God knew better."). It doesn't always, at least from our perspective.

Job's greater wealth and "twice as pretty" set of daughters might be in bad taste but at least he got something out of his experience. Overall, his story does not provide listeners with an answer, and this is not its weakness but its point of value because it doesn't end our discussion... it opens it.

Two things struck me about the video itself:

1. It has been quite some time since God has taken up sword and killed people. We have been acting up raiding and slaughtering for millennia and then blaming one or other god for the blood on the grass.

2. There is intrinsic weakness to the kind of exclusive agreement the guy thought the Jews had with God: "He was not good; He was just on our side." How things shift when we realize that we're all in this together and He has no outside kids. When His children are playing football on opposite teams, who does He support?

Jared,
Thanks for the video...had not seen it. Pretty accurate depiction it seems but God gave them Saul a man of there choosing. He later gave David, a King after His own heart and the line of Christ.

Tom,

Thank you for yor comment that God takes responsibility.

"I am the Lord, and there is no other;
Besides Me there is no God.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me;
6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun
That there is no one besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other,
7 The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the Lord who does all these." Isa.45:5-7.

So which is it? "Free will" which is only possible with the possibility of sin. The development of pride and covetousness being foremost...or robotic activity?

The question also asked of some of the Nazi atrocities was "where is man?"

No, we don't have the wisdom to understand all the nuances of the "beginning to the end" but God showed His justice at the cross by assuming death/atonement for our sins in which He had no part so that He could be just and the justifier of those that trust in Christ. He has "skin" in the issue...and Satan the price of this world was judged.

Redemption is offerred to all of us... the unworthy. Shall we accept it OR say "this man shall not rule over us?"

I find no savior in humanity. I find in Christ one who did no wrong and claims He will save His sheep and make "literal Peace" reign in the Kingdom to come beginning at His parousia.

regards,
pat

The statement "God is bad" is a faith statement, just as is "God is good." In fact "God is" is a faith statement, because no one knows with certainty whether God even exists. It is all just arguments: you can argue for the existence of God or against it, you can argue that God is good or that He is the Devil.

The man in this video is a good arguer, but he makes moral judgments and value judgments without being in possession of all the facts (whereas God always knows all the facts). The man in the video does not know what sins the antediluvians were committing, he just assumes that nothing could be bad enough to justify ending them. He doesn't know or mention what sins the Canaanites were involved in, or the moral condition of those people, he just assumes that nothing could be bad enough to justify God's command to wipe them out. He doesn't know that God is with the Nazis and against the Jews, he's just taking the word of the Germans' belt buckles. He's making judgments based upon partial knowledge, based upon some of the facts, but God has complete knowledge and all of the facts.

Another thing he is doing is substituting his value system for God's. He's assuming that a people can never "fill up the cup of iniquity" to the point where judgment must be executed upon them. But that is just a value judgement that God apparently doesn't share. Good and bad, right and wrong, do not exist in a vacuum, they exist in relation to a system of laws and values. According to some ideas of justice, a man with a terminal illness should be set free from prison and allowed to return home to his family, even if he has intentially murdered over 200 people; I find that a very curious idea of justice. The point being that justice is not self-evident and universal; different people have different ideas about right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, so it shouldn't be shocking that perhaps God has a different idea than we do.

The interesting thing about the man's conclusion is that it is Satan's conclusion. Satan says God is not good, cannot be trusted, is not just, is not fair, etc. Satan "the adversary" is not only the accuser of the brethren, he is God's accuser as well. Is God telling the truth about Himself, or is Satan? That is what the great controversy is all about.

David

Thanks, you make some very telling points. Your last paragraph is right to the point. Tom

For those who seem to object to humans judging God: how do you know the difference between Satan and God? How do you know which ought to be worshiped? How do you even know which one is which? I assume that you trust that cosmic good roughly (at least) resembles your own concept of good. Ultimately, it comes back, in some way, to trusting our own experiences and educated instincts. Trust has to be earned. Even a deity ought to give evidence of character. Otherwise, how does one know that the deity is good?

Sure, we don't have all the facts, but we still have to make judgments and decisions. It's hardly our problem if the "facts" the OT provides us with paint a bleak and ugly picture of God. If it were me, I guess I'd rather believe that the writers and editors of the OT were working with a severely limited and culturally impacted view of God that we have (hopefully) outgrown. The NT seems to really move in that direction. I'm just troubled that anyone could consider the wanton murder/massacre/genocide of innocents (whatever their parents crimes) to be justified, no matter what. And these are the same people who are telling us that life is sacred! I accept that people 3000 years ago (or even 1000) might have thought that their god approved of their foul wickedness, but I could not worship such a god, and surely such a god does not exist.

Heisst Gottes Ehre Treue?

If you are uncomfortable with judging God, than I suggest moving to a new reality. The great controversy is much less about beating Satan, than about Judging God. Assuming that you believe in the theology of the great controversy everyone will Judge God with their own logic. Humans along with heavenly beings will test the "spirit" if you will.

I do hope he/she is acquitted.

cheers to all,

especially jemand,

jedermann

DAVID READ -- well put!!!

First let me thank you for providing this video. While the arguments presented are uncomfortable to my Christian ears I do appreciate the raw and deeply sincere & painful dilemmas discussed in this clip.
Reading some of the subsequent comments in this tread revels another big dilemma. Notably, how religious people obsessed with the nature of sin often betray incredible ignorance and the gravity of the very problem of Sin by narrowing it down to some kind of simplified computer strategy game.
Let me explain what I mean when I say this.
If there is anything that is more crippling and more paralyzing about the nature and problem of sin- or that defines the sin itself in its most cruelest way- it is the fact that sin is completely illogical and that it can not make sense from the perspective of the bubble we live in.
And this is the problem with the conservative and fundamentalist Christians- they simply cannot get this. It is in nature of the human psyche to explain and 'cause-effect' incomprehensible things around them. This is why Tsunami of few years ago happened because of the God's anger at 'thriving sex industry'; this is why Obama is an alien, this is why 9/11 is 'definitely' a government conspiracy- and this is why Jesuits already have all of our addresses in their notebook ready for their next Bartholomew night....An art of incredible 'conspiracy theory' delusions in which many Christians (not mentioning Adventists) excel.
The point is that, humanly, sin cannot be comprehended, dissected or understood. I hear people preaching on the graveyard that deceased was taken because of this or that- but this is load of rubbish- The feeling of bewilderment and immense loss is the dish for the surviving loved one.
...And this is exactly where trust (should) comes in. Great controversy 'star wars' can only get you thus far- just beyond the pictorial bedtime book. After this comes great unknown filled with uncertainty and lot of pain. And that's the chasm of separation God is trying to bridge. I cannot possibly fully comprehend nor understand what's going around me- but somehow I have a feeling that asking questions, being brutally honest about ones feeling and predicaments, as presented in this movie, is actually the first step out of blind alley. Much better then deluding oneself (like some Christians do) that sin can be controlled and comprehended by some magical theological joystick.

Interesting. Spectrum (or its predecessor) published a Q&A on the moral influence theory by Smuts van Rooyen under the heading "Is God on trial?".
Antony Sher (playing the rabbi character in this clip) performed a one-man reading of Primo Levi's 'If this is a man' for the stage. It's certain that Sher's interpretation of his role would have been informed by his knowledge of the acute situation of the men in that room. Tomorrow, or the next day, there would be another selection. No matter whether this rabbi, or another, asserted God is good, or not, what's important is how the men who were marched off to the ovens, and the ones left behind for another day, conducted themselves as men.

Let's rewrite history. Let's say that Abraham told God to shove it. The ending would be a little less inspiring! But, the way the story did actually end, did it show God to be good or not? Or am I judging too early?

Jacob fought God, and eventually honoured God's name, and God blessed Jacob for that. Genesis 32:24-30

From the title of this article, I thought the arguments would be something along the line of Plato's Euthyphro dilemma. But instead, a lot more about the problem of sin.

dalmation, I agree that we can not understand sin, it is from outside our human bubble. The question of "is God good" assumes the existence of sin. I have been very angry at God for allowing sin, sin hurts.

Etymology wise, the word 'Good' derives as the quality characterising God. It relays correctness, harmony, fit-for-purpose... My favourite Bible verse at the moment is "God is Love". To say that God is not Good, is to redefine what God and/or good actually means.

The remaining question for me is, which option do I choose:
Option 1) God is a super-human tyrant, who enjoys our suffering,
Option 2) Goodness and sin are human paradigms that we can choose to be outside of,
Option 3) Goodness triumphs.

And so, Option 1 is a contradiction of terms - at least in the way I understand those terms to mean. Option 2 is completely meaningless actually nihilistic to my human experience. Option 3 means that I will maintain faith in goodness. It's the only option that helps me.

Option 4) The Bible contains limited and (in many cases) misguided information about its God. People grow in their relationships with the divine and with each other. Today we may have a (slightly) better understanding of God due to our (hopefully) healthier relationships with our families and with people the world around.

And, back to Abraham, if he had told God to "Get out, Man!", I would hope that God would respond "I am so happy that your love of your child triumphed over your fear of me. I hope you also understand that I do not desire human sacrifice. I do not want you to do things that cause pain to others, human or animal. I am glad that you have set boundaries. It is evidence that my moral law which I set in your heart is at work." Can anyone here honestly tell me that you would sacrifice your child if you really thought God was asking? Or massacre an ethnic group? Maybe some here were in Rwanda...

Murderous and prone to commit heinous atrocities, vengeful and callous are some of the qualities I could not accept in a deity I worshiped. And, if God is good, surely he/she/it wants us to be discriminating about those things. Y'know, not just worship any old concept of the divine.

(Mt 10:21) "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death."
(Mt 10:35) For I have come to turn "a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ..."
(Mt 10:37) Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me ...
(1Cor 7:29-31) What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; (30) those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; (31) those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

Better to believe there is no god than the one often presented.

Belief in a god who offers a choice, demands that there be a choice; and a choice that is available, not man-made.

If those premises are correct, then God had to create the possibility of evil for there to be a choice in the Garden. And if He is omniscient He had to have known man's choice.

Conclusion: God made evil and the possibility, all the while knowing that man would choose it.

So, should God be blamed, or should He be acclaimed for giving us freedom of choice, knowing the results, then offering a remedy while knowing beforehand our choice.

The ultimate an inexplicable dilemma for which man has promoted, explored, explained, and devised many forumlas--none of which can be determined to be the "right" one.

Michael -- really? What lesson are you drawing from those texts?

David,

"Is God telling the truth about Himself, or is Satan? That is what the great controversy is all about."

That is true... but the answer was demonstrated/finished 2000 yrs. ago on the cross. God is just, as He upheld His law, and He is just in forgiving those that trust in Christ.

Now, the church needs to spread that message of the "now and not yet" kingdom of God. It will not come by force and it will not come by "compromising" the necessity of all men repenting and receiving Christ as Savior. Christ will judge the thoughts and intents of giving that message and the reception of it by the hearers.

regards,
pat

KM
reference Neimands post.
If God is this way I'll worship him, if hes not, I wont. Thats the perspective.
The question is, Will God still be God whether you worship him or not?
I say yes. I gave the texts to show where ones sensibilities about others even family come relative to God.
Whats to wonder about? Seems pretty straight forward to me.
It seems contrary to Neimands position and yet he still wonders whether to worship or not?

We are all responsible for the God we're willing to worship.

You look at the sources of information we have available to us about God. What are we talking about?

1.We have nature, which classically has been considered a revelation of the Creator.

2. We have Scripture, which is a compilation of accounts of people who describe their experiences of the Divine.

3. We have personal experiences, which includes our perceptions of divine providence and miraculous or mystical experiences.

4. We have logic, through which we can make deductions about the plausibility of the evidences of 1-3.

Now given all that we have available to us (and it's clear that we don't have direct access to the actual Creator, at least not in any tangible way), it seems as though the best we can say about God's benevolence, justice or goodness is that it's a mixed bag.

Nature provides complexity, beauty, grandeur and offers moments of awe and wonderment. But other times, nature provides savagery, brutality, danger, and chaos. Mixed bag for sure, if we take that as indicative of what the Creator is like.

Likewise Scripture provides ambiguous evidence of God's goodness. There are accounts of mercy, compassion, forbearance, and grace. Other accounts describe God's wrath, destruction, vengeance and even lying. Scripture's evidences about God's benevolence and justice are at best conflicting.

Ditto personal experiences. Some experiences can be characterized by words like "joy," "love," "peace," and "harmony." Other times, our experiences are more aptly described with words like "loss," "tragedy," "devastation" and "upheaval." Once again, if our experiences lead us to believe anything about God's benevolence or about divine providence, the evidence is mixed.

Now somebody will certainly want to inject the evil one into the mix, which is fine. It deflects responsibility for destruction onto some evil causal agent with supernatural capabilities.

The problem is that Scripture, which gives us our doctrines about the evil agency does not attribute all evil to the evil one. Scripture attributes some evil to God. It's just that when God does it, we call it "justice" instead of "evil."

Again, when we consider the cosmos, are we going to attribute the "evil" throughout it to the evil one as well? The violent, destructive forces responsible for both the births and death of stars--are those God's doing or the work of some evil agent? The inevitable collapse of the cosmos some day--because of the creator or the destroyer?

As I've opined before, any serious theology ought to grapple with these challenges.

Beliefs have social consequences. We are responsible for those social consequences.

The real question the concentration camp inmates were asking themselves was, "Are we good?"

This is not such a hard question if you get past the fear.

We are like the god we worship.

Jared,

"The problem is that Scripture, which gives us our doctrines about the evil agency does not attribute all evil to the evil one. Scripture attributes some evil to God. It's just that when God does it, we call it "justice" instead of "evil."

Again, when we consider the cosmos, are we going to attribute the "evil" throughout it to the evil one as well? The violent, destructive forces responsible for both the births and death of stars--are those God's doing or the work of some evil agent? The inevitable collapse of the cosmos some day--because of the creator or the destroyer?"

On the first paragraph, I agree because His commands that you consider "evil" are just.

On the second...How mant deaths have occured due to the "violent, destructive froces" in the Cosmos. Have you noticed the "controlled", Violent, explosive creation called the sun?

regards,
pat

Maggie,

"We are like the god we worship."
-----------
That is likely half true. If God is a sinner it is true,on the other hand if He is good, I suggest it is false.

The rich young ruler likely thought he was good only to here an answer that would surprise and insinuate, "there is none righteous or good, no not one"...but God.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Mk.10:18-22.

regards,
pat

The video is about the God of the Bible and His recorded actions and our stance toward Him and His actions.

I think it would be an interesting discipline to talk about that explicit topic, and save talking about the God we infer from nature and experience in another blog.

That way the moral issues brought up in the video do not get watered down and lost in the fog.

The video is very stark. It brings up very specific issues.

Are we up to discussing them without any "padding?"

No time like the present....

Just a suggestion.

Pat, it is circular reasoning to argue that God is good because the Bible says He is good. (It also says, inconveniently, that He does evil.)

I think, at this juncture in history, we all have to answer whether we, personally, can worship a morally incomprehensible god, indeed a god who would be considered a ruthless tyrant (or homicidal maniac) were he committing the same deeds today.

I am not saying I believe God is evil. I am saying that I don't believe the Bible, taken literally, is a "portrait of the character of God," as we've been taught.

The SDAs in Germany capitulated to Hitler.

This gets close to home.

"We are all responsible for the God we're willing to worship."

Thanks to Maggie for putting it so clearly.

Another way: Would you ever consider worshiping Satan? No? Why not? Is it just because God said not to? Because it would be a betrayal of the one you already worship? But maybe Satan's a better deal. How would you know? What I'm getting at is that I assume most readers would not worship Satan for a variety of reasons, among them being some of Satan's supposed characteristics, qualities that make him unworthy of worship. So, I ask you, what if your god had many of those same qualities. Or, what would god have to be like in order for him/her/it to be unworthy of worship?

Pat, it is circular reasoning to argue that God is good because the Bible says He is good. (It also says, inconveniently, that He does evil.)

Posted by: Maggie (not verified) | 09 September 2009 at 8:38

Ah... the source of the confusion. The bible doesnt say God does evil...you say he does evil.

Or...if you were unfamiliar with the Bible at all, and the name attributions were left off God's and Satan's exploits, could you tell them apart?

And...is this a problem?

"We are all responsible for the God we're willing to worship."

Which agrees with those who say "God created man, and man has forever after returned the favor."

I challenge anyone, someone, to answer the most incisive question yet asked by Maggie:

"if you were unfamiliar with the Bible at all, and the name attributions were left off God's and Satan's exploits, could you tell them apart?"

Please explain how we would relate to ANY human doing some of the many things reported to have been by God. Is it any wonder that there is nothing but utter confusion. Who is good--God or Satan, and are they merely interchangeable names we have given them. Did God ever personally claim to do the things he was said to have done, and did Satan ever claim the same. It is MAN--look in the mirror, who has both written the record in the Bible, and who now tries, unsucessfully to explain it.

Michael, you can google it. :)

The issue, I think, is, are human beings capable of moral development, and is it OK with God if we do develop morally.

Maggie,

It says he "creates good and evil"...he does not take responsibility for actions of evil. He does take responsibility for acting on evil. (However Zwingli reportedly did think God created evil as an action)

"Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Js.1:13-15.

PS. His people are to develop holiness according to what God says is moral and holy. The question might be reframed is man "more moral than God" in his own estimation and self righteousness.

regards,
pat

I gave the texts to show where ones sensibilities about others even family come relative to God.
Whats to wonder about? Seems pretty straight forward to me.

Posted by: Michael | 09 September 2009 at 6:38

******
Unfortunately it's not straightforward, which is why I asked you to clarify the lesson you've chosen to draw from the texts you posted.

Niemand asked "Can anyone here honestly tell me that you would sacrifice your child if you really thought God was asking? Or massacre an ethnic group? Maybe some here were in Rwanda..."

And then you posted the texts without commentary. What conclusion are you pulling from them that makes the texts a direct response to his questions?

Are you suggesting that it is appropriate to kill your child if you think God is asking because Jesus said "I have come to set father against son..."? Or to kill other ethnic groups if you think God has authorized you to do so? Is that what you think these passages teach?

This is why I say it is not at all clear. Many armies, groups, and people have stood behind interpretations like that. But how do you read them? That is what I'm asking.

Same applies to the Corinthian passage. Time has been short for 2,000 years; does this mean we now have a new ethic that changes our view of life and the value of it? What is that new ethic? Why do you think Paul's comment is relevant to this discussion?

Pat, there are conundrums aplenty, and I don't hold you responsible for all of them. :)

I have to wonder why, though, if "He Himself does not tempt anyone," Jesus felt moved to pray, as a model prayer for us, "lead us not into temptation."

How many hundreds of times have we prayed that God would not do what the Bible says He does not do?

And I'm sure there is some erudite explanation for why this should not be what it seems to be:

"But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee."
--I Samuel 16

Maybe Zwingli was right and God does engage in evil? Or the Bible writers didn't quite understand the nature of God? Or maybe we read everything too literally?

Pat said, "His people are to develop holiness according to what God says is moral and holy. The question might be reframed is man "more moral than God" in his own estimation and self righteousness."

Just a thought - perhaps such an authoritarian view of God is unwarranted?

After all, Jacob became Israel (lit. "contender with God") after wrestling with God, a most impertinent, if not downright dangerous thing to do, one would think.

For my part, I lean toward the understanding that God wants us to advance in our moral development and understanding of Him, and that the means to do so was built into the very cosmos, before the foundation of the world.

If, as Jürgen Moltmann says, the God of hope reveals Himself from the future, then we should never be satisfied with our present understanding of God (and the social order we have built from it) it seems to me.

BTW, I watched the whole God on Trial video on YouTube. Here is a more redemptive ending, if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iwQOOhdOa4

Thanks for that suggestion, Maggie. I think I'll watch the whole thing before commenting further.

Maggie, in answer to your question, there clearly was a tendency of the early Bible writers to attribute all causality to God, whereas later Bible writers had a better understanding of free will and of Satan as a tempter. No more dramatic illustration can be found than in the story of David's numbering the fighting men of Israel, contrary to God's specific command. 2 Sam. 2:1 states that God incited David to number Israel, whereas 1 Chron. 21:1 states that Satan incited David to number Israel. Obviously, at some point between Samuel and Chronicles, people figured out that Satan, not God, is the tempter. This is probably also the explanation for the language in 1 Sam. about "an evil spirit from God." No, not from God.

The man in the video could have made an even more damning case against God had he chosen to take literally the biblical phrase "God hardened pharaoh's heart." God would be preventing Pharaoh from letting Israel go, then punishing Egypt with plagues for the hardened heart that He caused. But we know that God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart; Pharaoh did that all by himself: "There was no exercise of supernatural power to harden the heart of the king. God gave to Pharaoh the most striking evidence of divine power, but the monarch stubbornly refused to heed the light. Every display of infinite power rejected by him rendered him the more determined in his rebellion." PP 268. In other words, the heart hardens by repeated rejection of the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Another example has God in Exodus "punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation" But Ezekial (Ch. 18) says Israel is never to quote the proverb that "the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge" because God does NOT punish the children for the sins of the fathers. "The soul that sins is the one who will die."

David Read said, "...God does NOT punish the children for the sins of the fathers. The soul that sins is the one who will die."

Then, in addition to your not believing God hardened Pharoah's heart, are we to assume you also don't believe that God slew all the firstborn of the land?

KM
It boils down to the IF. If God is this way I wont worship him etc. If one interprets the biblical passages in question as God acting badly then what is there to wonder about?

The origional statement was as if it was still unknown. If one has that mindset I dont see how it could be still an unknown.

The Cor. text basically takes whatever reality you have and puts it in the context of a hierarchical order if importance relative to faith in the broadest sense and the last days in the specific sense.

Or...if you were unfamiliar with the Bible at all, and the name attributions were left off God's and Satan's exploits, could you tell them apart?
Posted by: Maggie (not verified) | 09 September 2009 at 9:02

So the method of determining them apart cannot be knowing the context?
You want us only to look at the act themselves as some sort of a discriptor of who did it as if the act itself is a profile of the unsub?

Its a fallacy at best. Motivation is the greatest part of any act. Further there is also the weight of the evidence aspect where the totality of a personas acts are weighed against a specific act.
Tell me has Satan any miraculous healings to his credit or sacrifices or done even the smallest thing that was not selfish or motivated by a desire to put a monkey wrench in everything God created?

You and Elaine act as if the question actually deserved consideration.

As to the question of if humans can develop morally.
That question presupposes that humans have developed some sort of inate sense of morality in order to not only grasp the concept in the first place but somehow also assign "good" or "bad" to opposite ends of the spectrum.
Since the question also presupposes this ability doesnt come from God (my impression of reading it)then we must look at evolutionary processes to define and explain it.
Long story short. If people didnt percieve a realized benafit was at one end of the spectrum or other they wouldnt do either.
It also depends on ones position as to what options are even available. Terrorists act the way they do because they cant mount a serious military defense. Consult the techniques used by our revolutionary soilders verses the formal battlefield tactics of the british.
Hitler had power and used what we percieve as the bad side to solidify and boost his power.
These same techniques dont work well when one is vying for the attentions of a woman so different techniques are used. "Good" is used to ply a woman with narly a correlation with the man being actually "good" or "bad".
You may be old enough to remember the Star Trek episode of Mar. 7 1969 called The savage curtain.
see the episode here
http://www.tv.com/video/Uov29DwwNKBcz4UCQsiSfSpVCu5IBx9_/the-original-se...
A segment of the actual transcript here.
ROCK: You are the survivors. The others have run off. It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. However, you have failed to demonstrate to me any other difference between your philosophies. Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results. Do you have an explanation?
KIRK: You established the methods and the goals.
ROCK: For you to use as you chose.
KIRK: What did you offer the others if they won?
ROCK: What they wanted most. Power.
KIRK: You offered me the lives of my crew.
ROCK: I perceive you have won their lives.
______________________________________________________
The rock couldnt understand that what gives action their meaning comes from the motivations behind it. I see evidences in your questions that you dont see that either.

It is the motive that gives character to our acts, stamping them with ignominy or with high
moral worth (The Desire of Ages, p. 615).
Every action derives its quality from the motive which prompts it, and if the motives are
not high and pure and unselfish, the mind and character will never become well balanced
(Sons and Daughters of God, p. 171).
Page 13
In every act of life we reveal one or the other of the two antagonistic motives (Education,
p. 190).

Michael said, "Motivation is the greatest part of any act."

Please help me imagine a good motive for murdering thousands of innocent children in Egypt.

David just assured me that, "God does NOT punish the children for the sins of the fathers."

Thanks.

Michael, it's not that the texts necessarily describe "God acting badly"; we have not historically interpreted them as recommending the dissolution of family. The scriptures describe family abandonment as infidelity or idolatry, and Jesus made maternal care one of his last acts. Because we don't interpret these passages as pro-abandonment, we don't go further to interpret them as if they supported murder, fratricide, or any other kind of killing. Killing one's brother -- the crime of Cain -- is the action that people are suggesting is not supportable and not "Godly".

Since you are disagreeing, do you believe that it *is* supportable? If so, why do you think so?

You also asked about satanic miracles. The satan I grew up with could do just about anything God could do except imitate the second coming of Christ. Have his powers diminished since the 1980s?

KM
Since people were using the biblical acts as evidence of God behaving badly I simply asked if the biblical accounts show any evidence of Satan acting good. Is it not a reasonable question?

Michael said, "Motivation is the greatest part of any act."

Please help me imagine a good motive for murdering thousands of innocent children in Egypt.

David just assured me that, "God does NOT punish the children for the sins of the fathers."

Thanks.

Posted by: Maggie (not verified) | 10 September 2009 at 3:37

Perhaps you are suggesting that the smearing of the lambs blood on the lintel of the doors to ward off the angel of death was only known by the Israelites? Like it was a secret?
All the plagues of egypt were made known to the Egyptians prior to their occurance so as to prove that they came from God.

Michael, am I imagining it, or does your last post just keep growing and growing? How do you do that?

You quoted EGW, "It is the motive that gives character to our acts, stamping them with ignominy or with high moral worth. --The Desire of Ages, p. 615"

As I asked above, please help me imagine a good motive for murdering thousands of innocent children in Egypt.

David just assured me that, "God does NOT punish the children for the sins of the fathers."

As long as we're talking murder and mayhem, it's only possible to assign motive arbitrarily to God and Satan if we don't have an inner compass that tells us the wholesale slaughter of children is just wrong.

So you believe, a la Star Trek, that "good and evil use the same methods, achieve the same results," and that Captain Kirk saving his crew is analogous to God saving His Hebrews, and so passes the motive test.

If they didn't want their children killed, they should have put blood on the lintels.

That strikes me as a very tribal morality, but I guess that is what we're talking about, after all, isn't it.

But it misses the point of God inflicting gratuitous evil on innocent children.

Would it be morally acceptable for Captain Kirk to kill thousands of children to save his crew?

Since people were using the biblical acts as evidence of God behaving badly I simply asked if the biblical accounts show any evidence of Satan acting good. Is it not a reasonable question?

Posted by: Michael | 10 September 2009 at 4:03

*******
I'm sure it's a reasonable question for those who view satan as the antiGod, or the inverse of God, and so therefore one can know more about what God is not by determining out what satan is... as if God ends where his satan begins, or satan ends where God begins.

I don't go for that kind of dualistic cosmology myself, but for those that do hold that framework, yours would be a reasonable question and worth exploring.

You haven't yet addressed the question about justifying fratricide. It doesn't seem sound to use a misinterpretation of those scriptures to do so, but I still haven't heard an alternative explanation.

I watched the actor commentary on the PBS website and was struck by two comments:

"We have to constantly keep our heads clear and be critical to ourselves because otherwise we repeat those things... It's very easy for human being to torture another human being, to kill another human being. The varnish of civilization is very thin." -- Stellan Skarsgard

Another actor reminded us that the context for this movie, the genocide of Jews, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, and others -- that context has repeated with different groups since the 1940s. It's repeating today. Why should it not repeat? Is there nothing intrinsically unGodly about making "others" out of our brothers? That's the question. Thousands since Auschwitz have said no, there's nothing intrinsically unGodly about it.

What do you say?

Maggie, I do believe the destroying angel slew all of the firstborn of Egypt who were not in a house with blood on the posts and lintel. I do not believe God was punishing them for their parents sins. God was trying to get Pharaoh to let His enslaved people go. There was a great struggle between God and Pharaoh, and the firstborn sons of Egypt were casualties of that struggle. Despite God's doing everything short of that, and warning that he would do that, nothing short of that sufficed to get Pharoah to let his slaves go.

In this country, 150 years ago, there was a great struggle to force the southern slave owners to let their slaves go. And a great many innocents sons, men who had no part in the establishment of the institution of slavery, were casualties of that great struggle. A horrific war entailing many casualties was once again necessary to get masters to let their slaves go.

niemand,

My conclusion did not require much Biblical interpretation. Without that, I think that your option 4 is no different to my option 3.

It appears that your rebuttal has no issue with my conclusion. But rather your issue is with your own interpretation of God from the Bible which makes no sense to you?

The way I defined God, and Goodness, you did not say was wrong. But you did suggest a different interpretation, and then you disagreed with that interpretation. So, in a round about way, I agree with you that God is not a vengeful tyrant.

The difference is how we interpret God in the Bible.

KM
The question I was considering was put forth as between God and Satan. Can you tell who is good and who is bad by their actions.
I gave a complete answer to that question where I spoke of the different methods one uses to discern that. I mentioned motivation, past history etc etc.
Since the origional question included both God and Satan I used the same yardstick to consider both. Since we all know of Gods finer qualities I asked if anyone knew if Satan possessed any of the same qualities which he obviously does not.

When the question is put forth as "murdering innocent children" the issue is already framed as the accuser wants.
I object to the premise. So would any rational discussion or court of law. It has not been established that they were murdered or innocent for the purposes of this discussion.

When God gives 10 warnings of things that will happen if you dont let slaves go and then they happen who is responsible?
If you tell a child 9 times dont touch the hot stove and each time they do and the 10th time it happens it burns their hand off who burnt the hand off? You or the kid?

The question is poorly framed as if God with nothing else better to do with his time, decided to murder some innocent children in egypt.
God would have loved it if Pharoah would have let the people go with only the snake trick from Moses but No.
The mercy of God is even more impressive when one grasps that he went through all these attempts as solving the issue at the lowest level possible, all the while knowing the end from the beginning. It was because of the very question raised here, the perspective of murdering children, that he, knowing the end from the beginning, didnt just skip to the finish and go straight to plague #10 in the first place!
Only then would the question be worth considering.
Now read these quotes and consider and realize what going through the previous 9 plagues says about Gods character and motivations and why he didnt just skip straight to #10.

It is the motive that gives character to our acts, stamping them with ignominy or with high
moral worth (The Desire of Ages, p. 615).
Every action derives its quality from the motive which prompts it, and if the motives are
not high and pure and unselfish, the mind and character will never become well balanced
(Sons and Daughters of God, p. 171).

I have done my best. If I am not understood it is my weakness as a writer. I dont believe I can do any better at an explaination. Sorry.

Hitler and Stalin's massacres of people couldn't begin to keep up with God's "goodness"....

...presuming you believe the Old Test literally.

what do a few of Job's kids matter in the great cosmic wager?

what do thousands of innocent Egyptian kids matter?

and why not drown millions of animals and innocent children and babies when God feels sorry he made mankind and decides to kill most of them?

And asking a father to kill his own son to show faith?
what's wrong with that, unless, of course, one could read that tale as the ancients legendary way of saying how they graduated beyond the former ways of their ancestors who performed child sacrifice....

the bad news if you believe the Hebrew bible?

God appears to be the greatest mass killer in human history....apart from disease, pests, and drought, and old age, all of which which allegedly He controlled!!!

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-many-has-god-killed-...

even the Olde Debil has killed fewer people than God...
again, presuming you believe the OT literally and fundy-mentally.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2009/01/who-has-killed-more-sata...

but the worst is yet to come!!! cause the New Test which we once thought was all about love, joy, peace, and forgiveness threatens our loving Heavenly Father is not yet done with the killing!!!! possibly billions more to come!!! unless they listen to us and our 27-28 fundies.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-many-more-will-god-k...

so the problem is should we believe the variation of Truth as provided by EGW? or the one explained by Joseph Smith? or all the Popes? the most recent of whom seem to accept that the dog-eat-dog concepts of evolution may be how God made it all happen.

Why not believe Mohammed, who promised virgins in heaven to those who believe his version? tho I fail to see how that motivates the ladies in this life....or the next.

why, if its all true, and this loving heavenly father wants us all to be saved, why didn't He explain it better? and why did He let all the extraneous stuff get intertwined with the truth?
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/errancy.html

and why all the killing ascribed to Him? in a collection of stories He allegedly inspired His favorite tribe of nomads to
write down?

did our loving god really tell Moses in Numb 31 to command his soldiers to ....

"kill all the men, boys,and any women who had had sex, but to save the virgins"

...presumably for them to to "use"? raising lots of new half-Hebrews for soldiers, and bringing up the moral question about killing, stealing (their neighbors land), and the genetic dilution of their uniqueness which they and their God apparently overlooked.

or are all these kinds of tales not really about god, but more about the self described jingoistic nature of a small tribe of nomads in search of a defendable homeland? which they are still doing today?

if I want to teach my kids that God is Good, should I tell them NOT to read the Bible? and just take them to Disneyland?

I looked up your links and read about who has killed more God or Satan.
Below you will find a representative idea of the IQ level associated with the question.

"Steve Wells said...
You say that "everyone was warned or had the opportunity to believe and follow, those who died chose not to."

Did the Egyptian babies have a change to believe when God killed them all on the night of the Exodus? (Exodus 12:29-30)

How about the Amalekite women, children, infants, and babies? (1 Samuel 15:2-3)

It's time that you face it and admit it honestly. Your God is a monster. It's a good thing he doesn't exist."

So he hates God but then admits he doesn't exist. Just the types of geniuses we need on this issue.
It takes a real twisted personality to debate so vigorously the acts of a non existent person. LOL
He must have been thinking with his dipstick Jimmy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZQ_eTMHgHc

Some of the comments made show the total irrationlity and hyper-justification for the Bible texts in claiming that black is really white, and vice versa.

If Cain was a murderer for killing his brother Abel, why is God not a murderer when it's on a mass scale with no redeeming value.

If the Fundy-mentalists weren't so intent on believing everything written in the Bible is 100% true, rather than reflecting the human writers; and vainly trying, unscuccessfully to convince others that--"never mind, God is always just and right"--they just might be a tad more convincing. Failing to admit that anything written between its pages could possibly be a very biased view of the Hebrew writers' attempt to glorify their past, they become defensive if any suggestion is made that there might be guilt on the side of their god.

Defense attorneys is murder cases go to extreme efforts to prove the innocence of their client; this is expected. Defending God's actions is impossible, because 1) no one can clarify and explain His actions, and 2) does he need man's puny inability to understand the Almighty.

Putting all of one's faith and belief and trust in the Bible is no different than the Greeks believing as true everything written in Homer, Herodotus, or the Roman's belief in Virgil's tales. Why not
believe in those--and what makes the Hebrew story true in every respect while few believe in the factual accuracy of the Homeric Epics.

No one yet has answered Maggie: what was the motive for murdering the Egyptian children (assuming that it actually occurred, sans any secular account), or the murdering of probably millions of innocents in the Flood (also without any but older previous stories).

How long must we wait to hear the reason and motive for trusting such accounts.

Michael said: "It takes a real twisted personality to debate so vigorously the acts of a non existent person. "

However, we share this world with others and/or we grew up in the faith and retain an interest in its goings on. Besides, it really disturbs me that people can so casually accept such violence in their deity.

Anyway, I am not saying that god, whoever and however he/she/it exists as, is evil. I am saying that one cannot get a loving god from the OT, at least. I'm saying that one needs to move beyond the Bible and incorporate more ways of knowing in order to know a loving god. I, like Maggie, am saying that we are responsible for the kind of god we're willing to worship and that I desperately hope that there's a low correlation between the type of god someone worships and that person's character.

Michael

Is the Bible "real"?

Is the book "Ender's Game" real?

We can debate the morality, or lack thereof, of characters from the Bible just as easily as the characters from Ender's Game. Those that manipulated, taunted, or loved Ender don't have to be literal in order to debate the justness, morality, or love shown in their fictional acts.

Same with the characters in the Bible known as the God Most High (El Elyon) or one of his offspring Yahweh (Yah, Yahu, Jehovah, etc).

You believe in a character found in an old book. This character never shows up and does anything and rational people put the probability that this character actually exists at about the same as they attribute to the Santa Claus character.

I don't believe in the hebrew gods but I can most certainly debate the attributes of said gods which the nomads gave their deities.

The Adventist Church has long proposed the need for some kind of evidence-based trial that proves God is good, or that reassures the rest of the universe of the fact. We're also taught there will be a millennial flip through the records to help the redeemed understand God's reasoning.

Whereas many evangelicals say that Jesus of Nazareth was the ultimate clarification of God's goodness, Adventism tends to suggest that God's character is still an unresolved question.

For this reason, the set-up in God On Trial should be much less offensive to us. In no way should Adventists be calling it blasphemous as early respondents did unless they are also prepared to reconsider one of the denomination's most distinctive ideas.

For me, the nice thing about God On Trial is that it's not really God on trial; it's people's conceptions and misconceptions of God that sit in the dock and are found wanting. The sad thing about the film is that no one finishes the trial able to distinguish between their ideas and God Godself. Yet it's the conflation of perception and God that makes the trial necessary in the first place.

By Maggie:

David, where does it say that the Egyptians were forewarned about putting blood on their lintels? That would have defeated God’s purpose (of "multiplyng His wonders"), in any case, if they were warned to do that.

The Bible seems to say that only the Hebrews knew to do that:

Speak ye unto all the CONGREGATION OF ISRAEL….
--Exodus 12

When it comes to children, I’m at a loss to see the difference between “smiting” and “murdering.”

You said, “There was a great struggle between God and Pharaoh, and the firstborn sons of Egypt were casualties of that struggle. Despite God's doing everything short of that, and warning that he would do that, nothing short of that sufficed to get Pharaoh to let his slaves go.”

The Bible seems to imply otherwise, David.

Exodus 11:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; THAT MY WONDERS MAY BE MULTIPLIED in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 11:10 And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, SO THAT HE WOULD NOT LET THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL GO out of his land.

So, much more than “just trying to get Pharaoh to let His enslaved people go,” God was said to be multiplying His wonders in the land. This was to be an epic story to be retold generation by generation.

I really do not believe that the God of the universe, as described in the Bible, was so unresourceful as to have to resort to killing infants and animals to free His people.

No, this was high theater and the “great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more,” was an integral part of it.

The high irony of history, and of this particular thread stand out here to me:

In the God on Trial video, the characters discuss how the Nazis are trying to dehumanize the Jews so as to rationalize destroying them. Apparently, thousands of years ago, Philo used the same reasoning to rationalize God destroying the Egyptians.

__________
Quote:

Philo uses numerous techniques to describe the negative qualities of the Egyptians, particularly regarding their food, sex and religion, and concludes that they have degenerated in their perversity to the point that they may no longer be regarded as normal human beings. (De Decalogo 79-80)
--Remember Amalek!: vengeance, zealotry, and group destruction in the Bible, by Louis H. Feldman
__________

So that brings us back to KM's very pivotal statement:

__________
Quote: Posted by: KM | 10 September 2009 at 5:03

Another actor reminded us that the context for this movie, the genocide of Jews, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, and others -- that context has repeated with different groups since the 1940s.

It's repeating today. Why should it not repeat? Is there nothing intrinsically unGodly about making "others" out of our brothers?

That's the question.

Thousands since Auschwitz have said no, there's nothing intrinsically unGodly about it.
__________

Yes, KM, I believe that is the question of the hour.

By Maggie:

KM, your last post was truly excellent, IMO.

__________

Quote Posted by: KM | 10 September 2009 at 4:51:

For me, the nice thing about God On Trial is that it's not really God on trial; it's people's conceptions and misconceptions of God that sit in the dock and are found wanting.

The sad thing about the film is that no one finishes the trial able to distinguish between their ideas and God Godself.

Yet it's the conflation of perception and God that makes the trial necessary in the first place.

__________

Oh, but I think, in the end, they did distinguish, KM.

They pray.

They pray to the God of their hearts.

Oh, but I think, in the end, they did distinguish, KM.

They pray.

They pray to the God of their hearts.

Posted by: Maggie (not verified) | 10 September 2009 at 5:10

*******
You may be right, Maggie. I'm thinking about that youngest character, Moche (Dominic Cooper), who probably goes through the biggest transformation of all of them.

I think the film was well played and I've recommended. I'll be most interested in the response of a friend whose family was killed in Terezin.

for God to resport to....

...."resort to killing infants and animals to free His people.

No, this was high theater "

either that, or it was the Hebrews misunderstanding of natural events which may have occured in Egypt which caused/allowed a few of their ancestors go (later exaggerated to over a million).

Because, if God had really wanted to 'shew his wonders", why not have just overcome the drought in Judea which caused the ancestors of the hebrews to abandon their homeland allegedly settled by Olde Abe and his kids....

that way there would have been a paradise in the Hills of Judea which all the people of the area would see, and want to know more about this Hebrew God...

as an added benefit, there would have been no need for the hebrews to become slaves in Egypt, and later for God to kill Egyptian kids to free them.

of course, as long as monday morning quarterbacking is coming back into season, it might be interesting to speculate just why an all knowing God with foreknowledge would have called Olde Abe out of Ur in the first place... unless, the channel of the Euphrates river had meandered away from the town, leaving its docks (which have been hinted at archeologically) high and dry....
and Abe looking for another way to raft his goats to market.

So Olde Abe felt "called" to migrate up the Fertile Crescent and stopped in Harran, Turkey...again, next to a year round water supply...where agriculture still flourishes today...

just surf over to google earth, Harran, Turkey....and scroll right to the dusty hills, then back left to fertile, irrigated breadbasket plains where no drought has ever forced the inhabitants to leave. Zoom back out and check out some of the surrounding towns!!! their names reek of Biblical history!!!

if only Abe had stayed there (like Uncle Laben apparently did..remember, thats where jacob went back to find a wife "from his tribe"??? and bought the two sisters for wives by goatherding for 2 x 7 yrs, later cheating uncle laban with the magical goat breeding trick..with God's blessing, of course).

If Abe had only possessed the foresight to stay there, or if God had told him to, then the Children of Abe might not have been subjected to the cross roads of wars and droughts of their dry, dusty hills of Judea, where Abes God later would or could not help overcome the drought, forcing the Israelites to migrate to Egypt, make bricks, and blackmail the Egyptians for their silverware on their way out after they claimed their God killed innocent Egyptian kids for them.

In hindsight, so much of it seems more like storytelling than rational history.

But the tale does sound like quite an epic struggle for a small tribe of nomads to secure a homeland.....however borrowed, "created", edited, embellished, or exaggerated for effect during generations of telling around the family campfires.

Question is: upon close inspection, does their tale make the God we were raised to worship into the loving, Heavenly Father we thought we were getting? Or should we believe literally what the writers of the stories actually wrote?
that, for example, their God actually stopped the sun from going around the earth in order to provide more daylight to kill more neighbors?

Or should we graduate away from a literal interpretation of their stories and (like the LDS...) rely on our own legends and prophets to justify what we want to believe?

that God is Good, God is love, and that therefore we should be too? and don't forget to send in your 10%.

It should be apparent to any careful reader of these Bible stories that they were all told to reflect the goodness and virtue of the Hebrew people and the diabolical and inherent evil in all their contemporaries. None were ever lauded as being good.

The "God On Trial" concept has been ongoing since humans began attributing to God all things evil and good. This is so easily seen in the Bible where God sends the rain on the just and unjust and orders killing of innocents, all the while protecting His "chosen people" who are invariably the Hebrew people--who, after all wrote the stories.

Why are we not questioning why a people who wrote and claimed such things were true. Would we not question the Nazis story of their "good" reasons for eliminating the Jewish people, or Pol Pot for justifying his murders. Yet, we read the Bible as though it were the only true story of a people that even archeology is unable to give evidence for their exodus story. If, as the Bible record indicates, there were several million who lived in such a small and uninhabitable desert as the Sinai without a single trace, how and why do we cling to that story. Even most of the Jewish people realize it is their treasured myth, but not reality.
Christian fundys put much more faith in its literality than do descendants of its authors.

@Michael, if a child displays such obvious incomprehension at a parental order to not touch the stove, and the parent does nothing to protect that child (remove the stove, remove the child, etc), and the child burns off a hand...

that parent is going to be spending several years in jail for reckless child endangerment and neglect and abuse.

and rightly so.

the fact you think that such a parent is *GODLIKE* instead of criminal is... astonishing and disturbing.

Jemand
all efforts at re phrasing or using something as an example breakdown at some point. The point is to pick out the relevant aspects.

For instance where you rephrase my account as, "..if a child displays such obvious incomprehension at a parental order..."
you miss the entire point. Therfore your thought progression is flawed as well.

It wasnt incomprehension pharoah expressed, it was defiance.
Also likening it to a parental episode in that way negates choice that God allows.

I assume you are familiar with Parents making decisions for children especially in early childhood, where the wants of the child are given no weight.
Take something as simple as a nap. Children are many times put down screaming their resistance and continue on until falling asleep.
This is not the way God interacts with us now or in biblical times.

Michael, I apologize for calling you David in my next-to-last post.

No problem Maggie,
I was kind of wondering since your thought line was a mix of what more that one person had written.

So where you write;
Exodus 11:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; THAT MY WONDERS MAY BE MULTIPLIED in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 11:10 And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, SO THAT HE WOULD NOT LET THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL GO out of his land.

It is your contention that God removed Pharoahs free will? His ability to choose to let the slaves go so that he could kill all the 1st born of egypt?

I dont believe that.
Also Moses was known and loved by the average Egyptian. The average Egyptian believed what Moses was telling Pharoah to do. It doesnt require great leaps in logic to know that after 9 plagues that came like clockwork that the safe play was to do what the Israelites were doing.
How the Egyptians felt about Moses and the Israelites is in verse 3.
3And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people.

By Maggie:

John said: "'No, this was high theater'"

either that, or it was the Hebrews misunderstanding of natural events which may have occured in Egypt which caused/allowed a few of their ancestors go (later exaggerated to over a million)."

Quite possible. Also consider this - I just read that PET scans show that the process for remembering and the process for imagining are quite related, which makes memory an iffy proposition, at best.

Memory is malleable.

"I assume you are familiar with Parents making decisions for children especially in early childhood, where the wants of the child are given no weight.
Take something as simple as a nap. Children are many times put down screaming their resistance and continue on until falling asleep.
This is not the way God interacts with us now or in biblical times."

Oh, you think none of the amalakite children were killed while screaming their resistance? None of the moabite women? The egyption children had a choice? Where? Promising to throw us kicking and screaming into hell?

Some choice. Love me or I'll shoot you is the mark of abuse, not kindness.

By Maggie:

Michael said, "It is your contention that God removed Pharoahs free will? His ability to choose to let the slaves go SO THAT he could kill all the 1st born of egypt?"

No, I'm saying that's what the text indicates.

The Bible says God wanted to show His wonders, so He made a big production of the Exodus, so that "My wonders might be *multiplied*."

The text indicates that God used active agency, rather than passive foreknowledge to accomplish this: "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, SO THAT he would not let the children of Israel go...."

The debate on theodicy has extended since the beginning of time, or at least since humans believed in gods that were in charge of everything.

The Hebrews' god was thus endowed by them, and in some respect, with Christians also. The problems with the Hebrews' view is greatly enlarged with the insistence that the God of the Hebrews is the same as the Christian God--Jesus. Combining the two deities into one, with such disparate personalities and actions, as recorded in the Bible, causes schizophrenia--another ailment common to many Christians as amply demonstrated here: attempting to view both as the same and both explaining and justifying behaviors that no loving parent would ever follow--else criminal charges, or worse, could be filed. How differently we judge God than mere humans! Rather than expecting a much higher standard from a god to be worshiped, (s)he is a murderer, conniver (Job) and causes all sorts of terrible natural disasters. But--you better love him or risk a barbecue!

By Maggie:

===============

Quote posted by: Elaine | 10 September 2009 at 9:15:

Rather than expecting a much higher standard from a god to be worshiped, (s)he is a murderer, conniver (Job) and causes all sorts of terrible natural disasters.

But--you better love him or risk a barbecue!

===============

Good intro for what I wanted to bring up, Elaine. :)

===============

Quote by Jared Wright:

The book of Job is all about theodicy.

===============

From KM's very thoughtful lips:

===============

Quote Posted by: KM | 08 September 2009 at 6:51:

Our contemporary sense of justice is not always just. So I'm reluctant to make it an absolute standard for anything, especially the Creator.

That said, if something fails even our variable good sense, it's worth taking a closer look at why. Our sense is not perfect, but it's what we've got so let's use it! ...

What I respect about Jewish commentary on both the Shoah and the Job story is the fact that these sources acknowledge and sanctify our wrestling with pain.

Sometimes our wrestling uncovers not THE answer but AN answer, and that answer helps us reframe our lives (e.g. Ezra: "We went into exile because we failed to keep the Law. Let's recommit to this way of life, all of us.").

Sometimes the destructive proves constructive (Joseph: "You thought you were destroying me but God knew better."). It doesn't always, at least from our perspective.

Job's greater wealth and "twice as pretty" set of daughters might be in bad taste but at least he got something out of his experience. Overall, his story does not provide listeners with an answer, and this is not its weakness but its point of value because it doesn't end our discussion... it opens it.

The Adventist Church has long proposed the need for some kind of evidence-based trial that proves God is good, or that reassures the rest of the universe of the fact.

Posted by: KM | 10 September 2009 at 4:51:

We're also taught there will be a millennial flip through the records to help the redeemed understand God's reasoning.

Whereas many evangelicals say that Jesus of Nazareth was the ultimate clarification of God's goodness, Adventism tends to suggest that God's character is still an unresolved question.

===============

I suggest that Adventism says God's character is an unresolved question because Adventism is crucial to that "millennial flip" you speak of that I think we've so misapprehended, KM, mistaking the green fruit for the ripe.

I believe that God's character will remain an unresolved question, but that faith will transcend that question, as it did for Job, in the midst of his agonies, and as the God on Trial video suggests the characters of the Jews accomplished through their honest discourse before death.

Time for dinner, but consider this, if you've a mind to:

Job: A Theodicy and Lawsuit Drama:

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/12566.htm

Maggie and Others,

I dropped out of the discussion simply because I believe it will remain an unresolved issue for many that will not be solved by "soundbites."

While disagreeing with Alden T. on issues, I believe I heard him say once that if we lived at the time under the conditions God dealt with we might better understand what He did. I agree.

God was developing a nation...church and state together. There had to be protective actions/ force at times for a nation and society. Do you really expect in this "free will" argument God would intervene each time on His own? Do you really feel satan was simply passive in his efforts against Israel's success?

He/God was establishing His laws and covenant...and put it in writing with His character on the line. I value that! Have you seen satan's covenant or law or is He always just a critic,anarchist or simply "always evolving truth?"

I can also imagine the first annual "cultural committee" that would educate children on the religious practices of their parents and their need to have the opportunity to practice them...just a thought that some would call resonable. They were warned however to drive them out or they would become a thorn/stublingblock... which they did.

Signing off this strand.

regards,

Elaine, you're way off base with this statement, "It should be apparent to any careful reader of these Bible stories that they were all told to reflect the goodness and virtue of the Hebrew people and the diabolical and inherent evil in all their contemporaries. None were ever lauded as being good."

In fact, one of the arguments in favor of the accuracy of the Bible stories is that they are so merciless in revealing all of the sins of the patriarchs and the Israelites. Abraham lied about Sarah and allowed her to go with Pharaoh, who was warned in a dream and properly scandalized about Abraham's lie and the sin Abraham almost caused him to committed. Gen. 12. There's a story that emphasizes both Abraham's faults and the morality of an atheist king.

And then right after the Exodus, the Israelites fell into gross idolatry and worshipped a golden calf. And the Israelites rebelled against God repeatedly after the Exodus and during the time wandering in the wilderness. And even after the conquest of the promised land, during the period of the judges, they wavered back and forth between idolatry and the worship of Yahweh. And then during the period of the kings, the Bible records and often comments on the manifold sins and shortcomings of Saul, David, and Solomon, and their descendants. The Hebrew Bible records all of this without fear or favor.

Whatever one thinks of the Hebrew Bible and its accuracy, it certainly is wrong, and almost exactly backward, to say that it is a whitewash of the Jews.

Maggie says, "I really do not believe that the God of the universe, as described in the Bible, was so unresourceful as to have to resort to killing infants and animals to free His people."

Well, when you get to be God, you can do it your way.

It isn't just with the Bible stories that we can second guess. We can do it all throughout history. I do not believe that President Lincoln should have had to resort to ordering Gen. Sherman to destroy everything within a 50 mile wide swath from Atlanta to the sea to break the will of the South to resist. But Lincoln and Sherman obviously saw it differently. I don't think that allies should have had to resort to firebombing Dresden, incinerating 25,000 civilians, to break the will of Germany to resist. But the allied commanders thought so. I don't think President Truman should have had to authorize the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and their 250,000 civilian inhabitants, to get Japan to surrender. But President Truman thought he did.

When it comes right down to it, it is amazing how much destruction it is necessary to wreak on people before they change their minds. But I'm glad that you, Maggie, would have known better than God how to free the Israelites. I'm sure that, had you been God, you would have handled it alot better than that crazy Yahweh.

@David Reed.

From the stories, it doesn't look like that would be hard at all.

Even without superpowers.

Niemand,

"I am saying that one cannot get a loving god from the OT, at least. I'm saying that one needs to move beyond the Bible and incorporate more ways of knowing in order to know a loving god"

I think that plenty of Jews would disagree. And as Christians we do have the benefit of the fuller revelation of God through Jesus Christ, which helps us reassess the OT. As difficult as it is, I can assure you that I don't take it casually. I confess that sometimes, I feel like Luther, who would prefer to throw out that which does not seem to be inspired by the same spirit.

But in doing so I have an issue, and that is if God truly is actually God, omniscient etc, and if God actually did those things, then it is impossible for me to judge (either way), because I am not omniscient.

So, I reserve my final judgement on such a difficult topic. If the stories were really embellished for the sake of the Israelites, I honestly would not fall over. It doesn't seem so precious to me as it does for others. But, at this stage in my understanding, I feel it worthwhile looking for the good in it, despite the difficulties.

I readily accept that people do have difficulties with it and they do not see the value in finding the worth in it. I do not insist that others have to understand it the way I do. But, I see little respect and acknowledgement coming from those who don't assess it the way I try to.

Elaine,

How can you be so judgemental without satisfactorily describing the difference between God allowing sin, and God causing sin? Your criticism is that we attempt to combine the two ways of looking at God. I am guilty as charged. I do not really understand the difference in a coherent way. I don't know if we can, or if we have to understand it either?

Do you think that God allowing sin 'necessarily' means that God is not good? I do not think that is a 'necessary' conclusion, without me knowing the end from the beginning.

Pat and David, I fear I have personally offended you. That was not my intention, and I sincerely apologize if I have.

"How can you be so judgemental without satisfactorily describing the difference between God allowing sin, and God causing sin."

Are you willing to describe the differences, and on what basis can it be judged that God either allows, or causes sin.

We are limited by our reasoning ability, which God gave us, and are not omniscient, as the claims made for Him, nor were the Bible writers who described His actions.

The only judge we have is based on our moral intution to recognize wrong from right. We should not abandon that unique moral provision that only humans have been given. If it looks like killing, lying, stealing, humans recognize it and attributing such things to God--as the Bible writers often did, would most certainly not be accepted today in any court of law in a nation where we wished to live.

Maggie,

No offense. Each is expressing their view. This is the place to do it.

regards,
pat

Thank you, Pat. I hope you change your mind, since you also were expressing your view, and..."this is the place to do it." :)

Did you have an opportunity to watch the whole video? It's quite powerful, I think.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/godontrial/index.html

David? We OK?

Yes I did. It was moving. I would definately have doubts if I were going to the gas chamber. I would like to think that I would understand that at times unbridled humanity has to be seen properly also...and God is good. I have experienced that in the Father, His Son, and the HS.

regards,
pat

Maggie, you have not offended me, and I hope it is mutual, as some folks find my style of argument abrasive. I apologize if I've offended you.

Pat, yes, God is good. All the time. I can't prove that, but I believe it. :)

David, heavens no, you didn't offend me, but thanks for asking! :)

Sometimes I'm abrasive, and I know it.

I want to express myself honestly, but I don't ever want to run roughshod over anyone's faith or personal feelings.

Please, anyone, tell me if I'm coming across that way.

Thanks.

Maggie
It is good to dialogue with a person such as your self.
You have a great heart and your selflessness has been an inspiration to me.
I also want to apologise if I have caused you any grief.

..."I'm glad that you ...would have known better than God how to free the Israelites. I'm sure that, had you been God, you would have handled it a lot better than that crazy Yahweh"...

prevention might have been best in the first place...that is if anybody involved had the foresight to make it rain in Judea so that Gods best friends would not have had to emigrate to the nile to become slaves and require magic and miracles to later free them.

even better, why shouldn't an omniscient all knowing God with foreknowledge simply have told Olde Abe to stay in Harran and irrigate his crops and goats from the Euphrates.
surf over to maps.google.com and enter this:
36.937819,39.228745

However, if the mistakes have already been made, and your friends are slaves in Egypt, why wait over 400 years no less!!!

to liberate them, it would seem more prudent and effective to attack the leaders holding them, the ones in charge who have the right to let your friends go....than to harm the peasants and their animals and kids who in no way can influence the leaders.

What are we, Nazis? or islamo terrorists? should we as Christians harm the innocent to motivate the guilty?

Why not simply Waterboard the pharoah...maybe threaten his beloved pyramid with a quake? how bout just giving him painful stomach cramps from some bad chinese until he relents to let the people go. And when he does, then try not to harden his heart so that he changes his mind!!! unless, of course, you're cooking up some really bad mojo to put the fear of God into folks, to "shew your works", like killing innocent kids!!

interestingly, since there is no Egyptian or other secular record of this ever happening.... maybe it didn't.

same with other "massacres of the innocents"...especially the one around Christs birth, where the legend was posssibly resurrected by a gospel writer along with the "flight into Egypt" to aggrandize His divine birth and align the story with what the Jews already believed.

otoh, if the hebrews had been writing the story to aggrandize their own status in their corner of the flat world, it might be understandable how this story of ..

..."My-God-is-a-more-powerful-killer-than- your- god" ..

might have been designed to inflict terror in the minds of the neighbors the Hebrews were planning to massacre to take back the land their ancestors had abandonned because their God could not or would not solve the drought problem.

and because over the millenia, the Hebrews taught their own kids that their seemingly bipolar God sometimes loved them, sometimes hated them, that He might take care of them, (or not), and that they were special (sometimes), and that at one time, God even stopped the sun for them....is it not understandable that on the way to the Brausebade with no help coming from their God that at least a few of the victims would question the very existance of their God and become athiests in gas chambers?

Are you willing to describe the differences...

Why do you ask, when I just stated that I can not in a coherent sense? I think it is not necessary. Why is it necessary?

and on what basis can it be judged that God either allows, or causes sin.

All I know is that sin does exist! And I believe in an omnipotent God. The corollary of combining these two propositions is usually one of God either allowing or causing sin.

Are you asking me why I believe in an omnipotent God? I'll have to think about that for a while. I don't see any good reason not to - but I know that is a non-answer. Honestly, I don't know yet how to put that belief into words adequately.

I am not trying to convince anyone that God exists. The question in this topic, is God good, kind of assumes that God exists already. It's just the type of God that is being discussed. Otherwise, what was the question really meant ask?

I'm not asking anyone to accept a tyrannical view of God. I'm not asking anyone to put their sensibilities aside. If that is honestly the only view of God that they can understand, then I can respect that is the way it is. All I offer is that it is possible for some to see it differently, and I ask for respect for a different perspective.

A court of law would likely not accept the proposition of an omniscient and omnipotent God on trial in its court? Just like the conclusion of that video, at the end of the 'trial' when asked, "what do we do now", the answer was, "we pray!"

Yes, I understand that we do not accept the terrorists excuse, that they believe they are killing for God. That's a good point too. So the question is, why do we accept it from the Bible? Like I've said before, I am not sure why we do. I do understand your question.

Michael, I appreciate talking with you too! You haven't caused me a moments' grief, so don't worry a bit. But thanks for caring if you did cause pain - I sense your heart also.

I just want to thank Jared Wright for starting this rich topic.

I watch the video (several times now), and I see myself in every character. It's like a conversation between my many selves.

And I also see it as a parallel to our conversation here. So many personalities! So many view points! Every voice needed!

But in the end...

Peace

God

Time for dinner, but consider this, if you've a mind to:

Job: A Theodicy and Lawsuit Drama:

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/12566.htm

Posted by: Maggie (not verified) | 10 September 2009 at 9:53

******
Maggie, thanks for this. I just read it. The way all this is going Job might be one of my next studies. :)

If the temporary solution is to defer judgment, to allow the Defendant to say "An answer's coming, wait for it... Wait for it... [a few millennia later]... Wait for it..." then we die waiting. We die waiting like our ancestors have. If we hold that God has not answered and will not answer until we die, how does this non-answer affect our spiritual experience now?

Is trust possible if you've come to no conclusion on Another's character, reliability, rationality, or benevolence? What depth of relational commitment is possible if you've deferred judgment on that Other instead of judging or prejudging in either direction? Imagine a spouse saying to his/her partner, "You're looking really shady, and I reject shadiness. But I'm not sure whether you're shady or not. I think you should explain." Yet the partner doesn't explain. Is that a healthy context? Does an interim explanation come via some other source, like otherwise consistent activity over time?

Is the evidence of personal experience as cited by Chris and Pat the only answer we can have for now? (I might also cite such "proof.") Yet these personal experiences hold no currency outside our own heads; they're non-transferable and inconsistent with each other. My experience can never become your experience, not in full, and some experiences are barely communicable anyway. So until the expected Final Judgment when "Wait for it" becomes "Because," do we have any commonly accessible evidence of Goodness?

KM,

"You're looking really shady, and I reject shadiness. But I'm not sure whether you're shady or not. I think you should explain." Yet the partner doesn't explain. Is that a healthy context?

Yeah, I agree, trust needs to be established and earned. The longer I am with my wife, the more I trust her, I give her the benefit of the doubt because of past experience. Same for me with God.

I also relate to the struggle with faith and tangibility. I can only provide a character reference and share my faith, but I can not develop your faith, that is up to you. I can not transfer faith like copying a file.

do we have any commonly accessible evidence of Goodness?

I didn't understand this question until I realised that you capitalised the G. (Plato's Euthyphro dilemma - to capitalise the G or not?) I believe that God is the source of goodness, rather than is Goodness alone, and God provides other things too. I think it's like information theory where information can not exist without data, and data can not exist without a medium to exist within. But also, I add does information exist without meaning? The human experience does not exist outside of the controversy between goodness and sin, unless you believe along the lines of Nietzsche's nihilism.

What is it about the human condition that God doesn't understand?

What is it about Divinity that we completely understand?

God has taken or permited many actions that raise questions about His character. Yet He gave us the Christ event to quell doubt, fear, and foreboding. Just like David, many is the time I have asked God: Why? Then I read Psalms 73, and 77. and Romans 5.

Yes God is good, but He is also past finding out. Tom

I like this article: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/09/defending-genocide.html#comments

an excerpt: "I don't want to sound like I'm praising myself too highly, so let me make it plain that I don't claim any superior moral virtue for myself. I make mistakes and sometimes use poor judgment, like everyone else. But I think I'm basically a good person, and one of the ways I can tell is that I don't find myself making excuses for genocide. Granted, this is not a very high standard - which makes it all the more shocking that so many Christian apologists don't meet it.

There's a moral cliff here, and the apologists have walked right off the edge. No matter how you got to this point, no matter how slippery the slope or how reasonable your arguments seem, if you've come to the position of defending genocide, that ought to be a clue that you've done something wrong. The conclusion that genocide can be morally justified ought to be a reductio ad absurdum against any argument that you used to get there."

" if you've come to the position of defending genocide, that ought to be a clue that you've done something wrong. The conclusion that genocide can be morally justified ought to be a reductio ad absurdum against any argument that you used to get there."

Posted by: jemand (not verified) | 11 September 2009 at 4:16

When we have reached the place where we attempt to justify the Holocaust, or similar murderous events whereever found, and particularly in the Bible, we have become what we justify.

Do we believe the parent who tortures his child, eventually to death, who claims it was "only for his own good."

I can only provide a character reference and share my faith, but I can not develop your faith, that is up to you. I can not transfer faith like copying a file.

Posted by: Chris Plewright | 11 September 2009 at 10:50
reply

*******
Exactly; that was exactly my point. In arguing that the only possible proofs are individually accessed and nontransferable, we end up with very limited common ground.

__________

"do we have any commonly accessible evidence of Goodness?"

I didn't understand this question until I realised that you capitalised the G. (Plato's Euthyphro dilemma - to capitalise the G or not?) I believe that God is the source of goodness, rather than is Goodness alone, and God provides other things too.

Posted by: Chris Plewright | 11 September 2009 at 10:50

*******

I understand. So the answer is no? I view God as source as well. But our controversy is about perceptible evidence of God's nature. The assumption is that if it were perceptible it wouldn't be so easily debated, and the consensus in the thread so far has been that we have to wait for resolution because we don't have resolution yet. I'm exploring these assumptions.

Tom's response today re. the Christ event is what I referred to a few days ago. A lot of evangelicals view Christ as _the_ emphatic and definitive closed-case evidence of God's goodness, and yet there is such a gap between what goods we have ascribed to God (or at least are willing to justify as good) and the goods that Christ advocated and demonstrated Himself.

i *just* saw this!

"kb.
If God were playing with David's perception, than that was lying. If god lies, than how do you know you aren't going to hell? God could be playing with your perception as you're reading what you think's a promise of heaven.
Posted by: jemand (not verified) | 08 September 2009 at 3:17"

sorry i missed it. my response is simply that, whether or not the child in reality suffered, God is not lying. He doesn't have to!
He explained the difference between good and evil, and the consequences of both. the consequences of david's sin did, in fact, come about. he lost his illegitimate child.

But in terms of the child having to actually suffer, no, it really isn't necessary in order for the consequence to continue on its course, and wreak due havoc along the way.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD." Isaiah 55:8

i can understand questioning God. i can understand losing faith at times, or being upset with Him, but never will i presume that i, not anywhere near being a god myself, will ever while on this earth completely understand His ways fully until heaven. you ask how do i know that heaven itself is not a lie?
so far everything else He has promised has come to pass (especially regarding signs of the end), so I have yet any reason to not believe Him in this.

i know that He loves the human race.

"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 1 John 4:8

that He hates sin.

"However I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, “Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate!” Jeremiah 44:4

and that while He does forgive us, He also needs to punish us just the same.

For whom the LORD loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:6

david made many mistakes, but each time that he had to wade through the consequences, he was a better man for having done so.

there is not doubt in my mind that i will one day understand the whole picture.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:1-3

i'm not surprised if this way of thinking doesn't work for you, but remember, the Bible also tells us

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

don't ever stop asking or seeking because

"....He will never leave you nor forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

and i doubt i'll be coming back to this particular topic. to paraphrase someone from earlier, it's hard for all of us to come to an understanding by a couple of sound bites.

By Maggie:

KM said, "If the temporary solution is to defer judgment...."

Oh, I see. You're looking for a SO-LU-TION to life? Why didn't you say so!

Sorry. Can't help you. :)

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,

And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations

And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

T.S. Eliot

KM,

Yes exactly :), now that I know we both agree that faith is required, I weren't sure where you were going with that. For example, I can share with you my belief that 1+1=2. But, if you were not willing to believe it, no matter what I said, it just would never happen.

But I disagree that there is no evidence. That was what I meant to indicate in the first part of my post, regards to my comments on the growing relationship. The amount of faith builds up, but the evidence is solid and accumulates in our knowledge over time.

If it was truly non-transferable then why do different people come to the same belief? Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that it is real, it just proves that faith is somewhat transferable, it can be shared - but it is up to the recipient to accept it in their own time. I can not make someone accept my faith.

In some of your latter responses to Maggie, I am seeing a better picture of where you were coming from with that.

I am enjoying your thoughts.

Maggie,
Beautiful work. Thanks.

To those who think the genocide argument is a strong one. I suggest look at the final BBQ in Revelation. Isn't that a stronger one, or have Christians completely missed that point? Even that aside, what about the fact that almost every single created creature will die. It's not genocide, it's not species extinction, its planet wide annihilation. I think you might have a stronger argument there. But that of course is on typical Christian territory anyway, so good luck.

Start with this one first, explain how God can allow sin in the first place, and then work down to smaller things like genocide.

I know, that sounds like I am trying to justify genocide. I am not. But, I can't stop God from allowing us to die anyway, or is it causing - no one explains the difference.

I know that sounds a bit tongue in cheek. Just thoughts that cross my mind about the usefulness of the argument.

Science tells us life will ultimately end, whether by being frozen into oblivion or being embraced by the ultimate big crunch; so, the universe has a built-in "use by" date. Even everlasting life on earth would exist on borrowed time. Did God build this transience into His creation? Is this creation only a phase in a grander process? Is death only a phase in that process?

Ultimately we don't know what we're talking about. We balk at the idea of an evolving earth because it requires pain and death. We can't attribute such brutal forces to God's creative processes; yet, we tentatively accept the pain and death involved in maturation process of the soul. Is corporal pain and death part of the process to ultimate salvation - the birth pangs of a redeemed soul? Creation was catastrophic by our standards - is redemption just as catastrophic? Is the cross a symbol for the life of our souls?

Sirje,

Maybe! I have a lot of respect for different theodicies. I understand what you mean about how that applies to evolution as well.

Reality sets in. I think you have helped me understand Tom's post a bit better. Do we need to understand God at that level? Or is the more relevant question about our response?

Trialing God's goodness does not change God's goodness, it only changes our perception of God. Is it possible for us to actually pass sentence on God? God's trial is for our benefit.

My response, my faith is that our ultimate benefit is in His interest. What does it matter ultimately after all this pain and suffering has ended, when God resurrects and recreates everything. When the birth pains are finished, sin ends and God sustains the new universe against it's current transience. When we inherit eternity with Him in peace and perfect harmony. When we are finally grateful for the gift of free choice, instead of blaming God for giving us free choice, the ability to love. If this is part and parcel of my belief in God, then I can not judge God anything other than good.

I do know what it matters to us now, it really hurts. I feel pain too. I'm not saying that pain is insignificant to us. I'm just exploring what we think the 'problem' of sin ultimately is, and wondering how can we pass sentence on this concept of such a God, it's beyond me.

*forgot to include this one at the end before and so had to return to include it....

proof all answers will be revealed to us at the end of time. one day we will see the whole picture. this is why i don't twist myself inside-out trying to understand God's ways when they are not my ways:

"Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?...Do you not know that we shall judge angels?..." 1 Corinthians 6:2,3

possible simple choices to the complex problem.

the Old Test says David sinned..adultry, and murder.
so God killed his kid.

painfully

despite David's pleadings.

David is later called a man after God's own heart.
meaning God is like David, a killer?

what was the question again? is God good?

possible conclusions from the David story:

1) God IS not GOOD...
HE KILLED AN INNOCENT KID TO PUNISH THE GUILTY GUY

a similar type of thing God did with protecting Cain, who was a killer.

a worse child killing? 42 kids killed by bears sent by God!!!

a worst child killing? the Egyptian legend of the massacre of the firstborn.... later reflected in the Herod tale.

the worst killing? God becomes "sorry He made man", and tried to drown everybody.... in a flood for which there is no philosophical or moral justification nor any scientific evidence.

only other possible conclusion if one wants to deny all the atrocities above? and continue to hope there actually exists a Hebrew God, who is GOOD?

2) the Hebrew stories are not true.

simple, but unavoidable conclusion:

the Old Test must be reinterpreted as scientifically ignorant, superstitious campfire tales told to their kids to aggrandize the Hebrews place in history....
and not historical facts.

the only way to save Christianity from the horrors of the Old Test is to reinterpret the ancient horror stories, if not divorce from them completely.

By Maggie:

John said, "the only way to save Christianity from the horrors of the Old Test is to reinterpret the ancient horror stories, if not divorce from them completely."

God is the nest we build together.
--Gene Wolfe

Maybe this involves more than "saving Christianity," John

Maybe we need to start being mindful of the materials we put in our nest, and their social consequences, which have had ample time to manifest and be studied.

Maybe we need to start thinking of saving our children from our past ignorance, and creating a nurturing nest for them.

Surely God will be pleased.

By Maggie:

Sirje said, "the universe has a built-in 'use by' date."

Maybe!

The entropy problem might be solved if the universe is a quantum computer, as M.I.T.'s Seth Lloyd suggests.

Quantum mechanic Seth Lloyd says we really are controlled by a computer

Wired: Would it be fair to say the universe is a mind?

Seth Lloyd: You could use that metaphor. And if you did, then you and I and my cat are its thoughts.

But the vast majority of the universe's thinking is about humble vibrations and collisions of atoms.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/play.html?pg=4

Nature is, at bottom, digital.
--Seth Lloyd

Sirje said (in 2005):

"Maybe the objective is to have a perfectly sinless universe, rising out of free will."

Maggie,
Looks like you're already hooked into that quantum computer. My husband says he remember nothing of what I said in 2005, and I minimally. :)

But, Sirje, it was so memorable!

You should pay more attention to yourself, and so should your husband.

Tell 'im I said that. :)

SETH LLOYD is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and Director of the W.M. Keck Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory (xQIT).

He works on problems having to do with information and complex systems from the very small — how do atoms process information, how can you make them compute, to the very large — how does society process information?

And how can we understand society in terms of its ability to process information? He is the author of Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos.

http://www.edge.org/documents/life/lloyd_index.html

Every physical system registers information, and just by evolving in time, by doing its thing, it changes that information, transforms that information, or, if you like, processes that information.

Since I've been building quantum computers I've come around to thinking about the world in terms of how it processes information.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lloyd2/lloyd2_index.html

possible conclusions from the David story:
1) God IS not GOOD...
HE KILLED AN INNOCENT KID TO PUNISH THE GUILTY GUY
Posted by: john alfke (not verified) | 12 September 2009 at 3:38

This is a perfect example here.
John claims God made an atrocity here.
Whereas
Mormons believe if I child is killed, that they were too pure to have to go through this life and they just came down here to get "their Body".
Would a mormon percieve Davids son dying as an atrocity?
Dont waste your time commenting on how mormons are wrong in their beliefs and consider the pertainant question.

It seems very few have commented on the part that our own sensibilities play in defining how "bad" God has been.

Everyone is complaining of God killing a child to punish the father, but we've created a society in which any woman can kill her innocent unborn child for any reason or no reason whatsoever. She can kill her innocent unborn child solely for her own convenience, and to avoid inconvenience. And one of our two main political parties is far more passionately committed to preserving a woman's right to kill the innocent unborn than it is to any other political issue, including universal healthcare.

By Maggie:

Michael said:

"It seems very few have commented on the part that our own sensibilities play in defining how "bad" God has been."

I think we've commented, Michael. It seems to me you've devalued our human sensibilities as measures of moral behavior, which is fine, of course, but it bears discussing.

Post-conventional thinkers do value human sensibilities as a moral compass, hence the talking past each other, I think.

Kohlberg is just a start:

KOHLBERG'S STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Level 1 PRECONVENTIONAL

1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)

2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)

Level 2 CONVENTIONAL

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/good girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

Level 3: POST-CONVENTIONAL

This wasn't carved in stone, or anything - just a conversation point.

David, if Egyptian babies were expendable, why aren't American babies expendable?

Of what intrinsic value is a newborn baby?

Good Maggie,
I understand how it works. Isn't the point that it is far from an empirical method? If you pour information in at the top is the answer coming out of the bottom always the same? Will everyone come to the same conclusion if they use the method?
I think not.
And yet the accusation is made as is if was an absolute fact, like gravity or something.

It kind of reminds me of how Social security spending was supposed to go up by 3% and the Democrats yelling about how it was a cut.

A 3% increase is by any sane standard an increase but they call it a cut. Why? They were wanting 6%. So relative to their wants or expectations it was a cut to them even though they appeared as if they couldn't even add up 2+2=4.

If we were examining the most brilliant diamond ever created trying to understand it and we were using an old coke bottle a glass tile and a telescope to see it better, what would we learn about it that would even approach comprehending it?

If I have devalued our human sensibilities it is because none are up to the task. Not only that, human sensibilities are not universal either.

Further the process described is assuming things continually get better. I'm sure this is not the biblical account.
The biblical account is Eden to Armageddon and not the other way around.

So which is it? Do we all just get better and better till we become Gods ourselves, living as pure energy with no need of a physical body? Or do we continue to degenerate until God comes? I'm sure you have read the relevant texts that discribe all of this.

By Maggie:

Michael said:

Isn't the point that it is far from an empirical method?

If you pour information in at the top is the answer coming out of the bottom always the same?

Yes, that is exactly the point. It is not always the same.

If you want things to always come out the same, see Stage 2: Conventional Morality above. :)

Information in this cosmos is always complex.

Quote by Seth Lloyd:

What is this feature that is responsible for generating complexity?

I would say that it is the universe's intrinsic ability to register and process information at its most microscopic levels.

http://www.edge.org/documents/life/lloyd_index.html

Every moment is unique. Every being is unique.

That's why every moment and every being are sacred, I believe.

By Maggie:

Michael, I see you added to your post above since I read it last:

If we were examining the most brilliant diamond ever created trying to understand it and we were using an old coke bottle a glass tile and a telescope to see it better, what would we learn about it that would even approach comprehending it?

If I have devalued our human sensabilities it is because none are up to the task. Not only that, human sensabilities are not universal either.

I assume if someone gave you that diamond, you would not leave it on the dashboard of your unlocked car in downtown L.A.?

Neither would anyone else of normal sensibilities, with or without Coke bottles.

By Maggie:

Oops - you added still more! Could you please just make a new post - less confusing.

Thanks. :)

Michael further said:

Further the process described is assuming things continually get better. I'm sure this is not the biblical account.

The biblical account is Eden to Armageddon and not the other way around.

So which is it? Do we all just get better and better till we become Gods ourselves, living as pure energy with no need of a physical body?

Or do we continue to degenerate until God comes? I'm sure you have read the relevant texts that discribe all of this.

Yes, I have read the texts, and those are good questions, in my opinion.

Oh greenly and fair in the lands of the sun
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew
While he waited to know that his warning was true;
And longed for the storm cloud and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and the red fire-rain.

James T. Dennison, Jr.

There shall be no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

Ah, but the Gentiles must die! It is written!

Maggie, all i'm saying is pick a lane. If American babies have no value, then you can hardly be upset at God for the Egyptian children, or for David and Bathsheba's. But if you're going to be mad at God, then to be consistent you have to be upset about the regime of abortion on demand.

I assume if someone gave you that diamond, you would not leave it on the dashboard of your unlocked car in downtown L.A.?

Neither would anyone else of normal sensibilities, with or without Coke bottles.

Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 12 September 2009 at 11:51
Depending on how dirty my coke bottle was, how would I even know it was a diamond?

Oh Maggie
If you register you can edit your posts for spelling etc and for fleshing out a thought. a bit at a time with 6 posts on different aspects in between kind of gets lost and disjointed.

David, I am heartbroken about abortion.

Michael said, "Depending on how dirty my coke bottle was, how would I even know it was a diamond?"

Precisely, David.

I'm going to let some other people talk for awhile--enough of that Maggie character!

Shabbat shalom.

I called you David, Michael. Time to go....

Have a great evening Maggie!

Thanks, Michael - I understand. I tried to register - they haven't sent me a password.

Thanks, Michael - I understand. I tried to register - they haven't sent me a password.

Good talking with you guys. :)

Thanks for the reference to Kohlberg, I enjoyed reading through that.

In Post-Conventional thinkers, the moral center of gravity is internal.

Internal, as in written on our hearts? This reminds me of when we understand the second covenant. Whereas the first covenant was written in stone. This progression of us learning of morality sounds like very traditional Adventist theory of the covenants? The difference in the covenants being where they are written, rather than when. The first describes sin, the second describes forgiveness and requires a deeper faith.

Each of Kohlberg's stages seems to involve a deepening internal faith in the progressive external nature of goodness.

Kohlberg's proposal of a seventh stage intrigues me. "Transcendental Morality, or Morality of Cosmic Orientation". For any individual to reach Kohlberg's seventh stage, to integrate that with ones own personality, wouldn't one have to become God-like? Wouldn't we need omniscience?

As long as one feels the burden to literally interpret the Bible and, consequently, urged to excuse violent biblical historical context with some kind of 'providence' (just to prove he/she is 'bible believing christian') - He or she will never be able to provide any answer put forward in this movie in defense of God.
...As someone put it earlier in this thread: :It is not God on trial here but rather our perception of God.. Same could be said of defense presented in many of the comments. Most of the time it is our private adventist heritage that we are apologetising about not God Himself.

To those who think the genocide argument is a strong one. I suggest look at the final BBQ in Revelation. Isn't that a stronger one, or have Christians completely missed that point? Even that aside, what about the fact that almost every single created creature will die. It's not genocide, it's not species extinction, its planet wide annihilation. I think you might have a stronger argument there.

Posted by: Chris Plewright | 12 September 2009 at 10:35
-------

Hey Chris. No one was more surprised than me when, while reading the Bible over, I rediscovered the OT slaughters and the doctrines of a coming barbecue and found I couldn't just breathe deeply and move on. So I compared Jewish, Protestant, EO, and Catholic explanations of the concept to each other, to my experience, as well as to the theologies of the original cultures, and said to myself "This is an almighty cockup." :-)

It can be hard for Adventists to review annihilation's merits and deficiencies because (we feel) it is so superior to eternal torment that it needs no interrogation itself. Of course it's better to die twice than to be frozen in the process of dying and have no relief.

So there are very good reasons for abandoning ET as a viable afterlife explanation. I also think that abridging ET as we do in annihilation doesn't address those concerns. We expect annihilation will bring us restoration, but we rarely bother to ask how destroying the pieces on the board restores them. (There are several options for this, but as a collective we don't entertain any of them because we view destruction as the end of their story.)

If eternal torment is being stabbed forever, annihilation is only being stabbed to death. Thus, a finite stabbing is as far as we can conceive. I'm vaguely aware of the spiritualized stabbing where all the trauma happens at a psychological/existential level, or where God acts on no one but people sort of disintegrate of their own accord. Ty Gibson's book "See with New Eyes" (Pacific) took this route.

Finite or not, the whole thing is a rather low afterlife target to shoot for, especially because it feeds back into our approach to present living... Auschwitz, Darfur, 9/11, Mumbai. It might be "efficient" and "kind" to kill lots of people "quickly" (?), but it's also a completely unimaginative response given what we have grown accustomed to doing as separated brethren. It is in fact more of the same old story, just expanded and amplified: Kill the folk we didn't kill before, and "Behold I make some things new. The rest won't come to mind."

For most of my life I heard the restoration/resolution model of "When we are finally rid of those people, then we will possess the land." But this is not a cure-all. It's not even a cure. It's only a little better than the model that avoids all engagement with "those people": "Keep all our frankensteins alive -- just quarantine them in District 9." That said, I do know there are a million ways to approach this and am looking forward to seeing how my approach changes in the next few years. I never saw this particular twist coming and just have to laugh about it sometimes.

As for death in this life, the cycle is happening outside my window: every few days a big strapping tree drops more of its leaves on the ground. They're supposed to degrade into the soil in a "give back" kind of way, just like I expect to one day. I will die, contribute my body to nature, and make way for more humans and more life. I have a lot of respect for this process.

But humans killing other humans because of their background or to co-opt their stuff is in no way comparable to a leaf falling to the ground in September. God set us up with our respective backgrounds and has no need for our stuff. It's simply not coherent for any killer to ascribe their action to Him. God herded no one into Auschwitz; humans did that. When you come at me with a knife I'll be challenging you, not God. You have the knife and the intention; you get the challenge. (You might also get the smackdown. ;-))

I think we have a long way to go before our theology goes quantum; it's barely out of the Newtonian era right now. Might be a truism to say that our theology and our sociology are codependent. I also agree that the 7th Kolberg stage feels consonant with the "no one will have to teach his neighbor" stage that the prophets predicted. It certainly represents a much, much, much broader and deeper perspective than we're presently inclined to, because it is predicated on a sense of interconnection.

KM,

Thanks for connecting and sharing your experience. Much respect. When my view of God does not bring me faith and comfort, then I fight too.

Newtonian era? Leibniz' theodicy adds nothing substantial over Job, and nothing to my limited knowledge has addressed the issue in any more coherent or thorough manner since Job. Job may be a candidate to fit Kohlberg's 7th stage :).

With regards to God's character I have seen nothing that surpasses Christ. My mind is not closed to new light, but I don't really understand what you mean by Newtonian or quantum era?

Quantum theology! Try 1st John. I had a brief read and watched the video on that Seth Lloyd link. To me, he's sprouting the same old stories told for millennia, just with a new language. My background is also Mech Eng and IT, so at first I thought he might provide something new, or something that I might connect with, but I was disappointed. He actually goes against scientific principals that have provided for my bread and butter. Infinity does not fit into a binary system, yet he says that the universe is a binary system and it is infinite. Strong faith statements. I better cut short my thoughts about that for the moment!

You share your hope for a better future understanding. I will pray for this as well, as we can all do with a better understanding. For me, I want to learn how to share the peace that faith brings.

You guys brought up exactly where I went with Kohlberg-- including Newtonian, Quantum, and "no one teaching his neighbor."

Carol Gilligan & Domain Theory must be mentioned also:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/overview.html

Chris said, "Wouldn't we need omniscience?"

1 John 2:20: But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.

What might that mean?

I'm actually going somewhere with Seth Lloyd. This will take time. IJ & DNA involved. :)

Meanwhile, controversial physicist Julian Barbour and The End of Time: the next revolution in physics:

Quote by Julian Barbour:

This is what I'm really thinking about; how to reconcile the fact that the world seems to be classical, we seem to have unique past, things seem to be in definite positions, and have a definite future — that's what it seems to be like, but quantum mechanics tells us that it is different — not like that at all.

The aim is to try and find a description of the entire universe that is quantum mechanical and understand how it nevertheless can look like the classical world that we actually see and experience.

I came into it quite by chance by reading a newspaper article about the attempts that the great Paul Dirac, one of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, was making about 40 years ago to bring it together with Einstein's general theory of relativity.

He'd come across a rather surprising fact and this led him to question whether the picture of space-time that was the whole basis of Einstein's theory really was as fundamental as people had thought.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/barbour/barbour_p1.html

http://www.platonia.com/

Going back to snooze mode. :)

Oops - forgot to add Fowler:

FOWLER'S STAGES

Faith is seen as a holistic orientation, and is concerned with the individual's relatedness to the universal:

Stage 0 – "Primal or Undifferentiated" faith (birth to 2 years), is characterized by an early learning of the safety of their environment (ie. warm, safe and secure vs. hurt, neglect and abuse).

Stage 1 – "Intuitive-Projective" faith (ages of three to seven), is characterized by the psyche's unprotected exposure to the Unconscious.

Stage 2 – "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children), stage two persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic.

Stage 3 – "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence) characterized by conformity

Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for their beliefs and feelings.

Stage 5 – "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems

Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment".

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

I fear this comes across as horribly elitist and off-putting.

What to do?

I can think of one way your last list is entertaining my cerebrum.
We often hear of children being indoctrinated etc as if the teaching method was all important or all responsible.
Its interesting to note that the stages of faith themselves are characterized as to the type of faith. For instance stage 3.

A second point of interest is Christs admonition to become as little children. I dont have any idea what phase of faith that would be but it is quite possible that it is a different one than Fowler sees as the most enlightened.

Posted by: Michael | 13 September 2009 at 7:04

A second point of interest is Christ's admonition to become as little children. I don't have any idea what phase of faith that would be but it is quite possible that it is a different one than Fowler sees as the most enlightened.

Interesting point!

Back to Job. Apparently, Job became "more perfect" through His ordeals. He was certainly more childlike, it seems to me--laying his hand on his mouth, deferring judgment, etc.

I would venture to say that, at the end of his long faith journey, he was enlightened.

He had quieted himself as a weaned child. He had sucked honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock.

I'm glad you were entertained rather than offended, Michael--Spectrum is a great place!

I really should add Scott Peck:

http://www.escapefromwatchtower.com/stages.html

And this wouldn't be complete without Dr. John Testerman in Adventist Today:

The Stages of Faith

March 15, 1995 - John K Testerman

How are people in all these faith stages supposed to coexist in the same church? To those in any given stage, the next stage looks like a loss of faith, and the previous stage is repulsive.

To people in Stage 3, Stage 4 looks like giving away the store.

To those in Stage 4, Stage 3 looks like unthinking traditionalism, and stage 5 like mystical mush.

The problem is worsened by some Stage 3's who engage in witch hunting at the first scent of heresy, and Stage 4's who gleefully bait or ridicule their Stage 3 colleagues.

How do we provide for diversity without losing community? This is not an easy problem, and historically we Adventists have not done especially well at solving it.

All the stages of faith are important and valid expressions of faith, and people in all stages have a right to serve and be served by the church.

--John K. Testerman

http://www.atoday.com/magazine/1995/03/stages-faith-0

Signing off for the day....

Mystical-mushily yours,

Maggie

If those SDAs who rely on the Great Controversy for their foreknowledge of the end, what can one say about those lost, who at the end will finally bow and recognize Jesus as Lord. No "deathbed" conversions there. IOW, even though they admit Him as savior, it will be too late. How is that Love.

Fantastic and appropriate quote by Testerman.
His description of
"To those in Stage 4, Stage 3 looks like unthinking traditionalism, and stage 5 like mystical mush.

The problem is worsened by some Stage 3's who engage in witch hunting at the first scent of heresy, and Stage 4's who gleefully bait or ridicule their Stage 3 colleagues."

seems more descriptive of perspective rather than faith.
When ones faith changes does ones perspective also? Testerman says yes it would seem. Now consider it in reverse. If your faith stops growing does your perception stagnate as well?

By way of example, Elaine. She has less faith than just about anyone as most of us define it IMO. If Testerman is right and faith stagnates how can one ever be enlightened?

From the paper by Testerman.
"Stage 2 collapses when teenagers use their newfound power of abstract thought to deconstruct their previous concrete understanding of the world. If they are not provided with a Christian peer group and adult level religious teaching, they will now be at high risk for rejecting their religion as childish, and identifying instead with the surrounding secular culture."
Sounds quite a bit like a large section of Spectrum.

..." high risk for rejecting their religion as childish,"...

in addition we are told to become more childlike...

and pretend to believe stuff like

a giant fish swallowing a guy, keeping him breathless underwater for daze!!!

philosophically lecturing snakes

Moses rod turns into a snake....
even better, the Egyptian guys rods turn into snakes too!!!

conversing donkeys who can see angels before they use their startrek controls to decloak

bears sent by our lovingGod out of the woods and divinely killing precisely 42 kids...three sets of 14, where 14 itself is double the divine number 7, which represents the 5 planets visible with the nakkid eye plus the sun and moon.
Doesn't any of that sound more figurative than factual?

people living for "40" daze without food or water

a mountain top so high that one can see all thekingdoms of theworld...not possible on a round earth!!!

and then after we get beyond belief and suppress all common sense in order to accept the above, then we have to figure out how to believe in a Good God...who kills David's kid in order to punish david....

who kills Egypts kids in order to motivate the Pharaoh,

who trys to drown the entire world, including innocent kids and animals, just because He had become "sorry He had made them"

its hard being a kid and believing all that with any IQ above room temp at all.
************************************

..."If Testerman is right and faith stagnates how can one ever be enlightened?"...

these two are inversely related...one goes up, the other goes down.

the more you are around donkeys and snakes, the more enlightened you become about their inability to converse, and faith in ancient campfire tales slowly turns to questions, then disbelief.... only when one finally admits the "legendary" nature of much of theBible can one begin to re=-accept it along with the moral of the story, whatever that is.

otoh, the more you deliberately develop your faith, and try to believe that the earth is only 6-10,000 yrs old, the more you need to reduce your enlightenment by wilfully ignoring the overwhelming evidence.

so when they tell you to "keep the faith", they are actually suggesting that you should not look too deeply into anything with disagrees with that faith.

And the problem at La Sierra where apparently evolution is being taught more correctly than some want, those who oppose its teaching are saying, faith is enuf...forget the enlightenment.

Unfortunately, those who admonish us to have faith that God is good, may not have thoroughly read the Bible's listing of some of His less "good" purported actions.

Cain killed Abel...so God protected Cain instead of punishing him?

Jacob cheated his uncle Laban by a genetically unscientific method of reproducing goat blems,...all with God's help!!!
God helps a guy cheat his uncle...by overcoming the laws ofgenetics!!

God stops the sun to give the Hebrews more time to massacre their neighbors..in order to ethnically cleanse the locals from the land the Hebrews had left over 400 yrs earlier...but now claim their God gave it to them.

a really GoodGod, who had both omnipotence and clairvoyance, should have forseen the drought problem and corrected that before His friends had to migrate to Egypt...

a really helpful god who had complete foresight, might have told Olde Abe to stay in Harran, next to the Euphrates, and never again suffer drought, instead of inspiring him to move his family to the dry, dusty hills of Judea where they would constantly be subject to drought and warring neighbors.

as a child...we all used to believe such material...

now as adults, and with the world of information at our fingertips, should we still be spinning these tales as literal for our kids?

How do we provide for diversity without losing community? This is not an easy problem, and historically we Adventists have not done especially well at solving it. -- John Testerman

*******
This was the part that struck me, not least because of the science threads currently running both on Spectrum and on A-Today. And several other high-pitched discussions the church has had in the last 10 years.

As I said in Loren's thread about IPC, we do some things exceptionally well. This is a gifted church. When we wish to do something, we do it. Start some hospitals? Develop independent publishers? Bring together a couple thousand children under budget without disaster? When we don't wish to do something, we don't. We don't ordain women as ministers, for instance, not because we can't do it, but because we don't have the will to. [I take the "we" here as world-wide, not congregation-wide, conference-wide, or division-wide.]

And we aren't good at community not because we can't be, but because we don't have the will to be. I just finished reading a comment from someone who said that he didn't join this church for community; he joined the church for a very specific belief... and so anyone preoccupied with community rather than with such belief should go join a(nother) club.

We don't have the will to be good at community.
Given our starting point, this may be somewhat understood. Adventism began as a cart on a schism rail: apart from the world, apart from Rome, apart from the daughters of Rome, apart from those who disregarded the 1840s date-setting, apart from those who disregarded the secondary explanations of the 1840s dates, apart... apart ... apart...). I think this remains the church's primary orientation.

John wrote:

"If Testerman is right and faith stagnates how can one ever be enlightened?...

these two are inversely related...one goes up, the other goes down."

BINGO! It is always true: when more knowledge is introduced, beginning in childhood, the "enlightenment" begins.

When learning becomes dangerous to faith, that ultimately means that it is much better to cling to one's faith than dare to enlighten one's knowledge. It is always a hazard: just as a new college student begins to experience the larger world of questioning previous concepts, he will inevitably become changed and can no longer believe many things that before were taken as true. Staying ignorant and unlearned, allows the "faith hucksters" and preachers to milk millions from gullible, undiscerning folks daily. "A little learning is a dangerous thing:--for all beliefs religious.

Treating faith and enlightenment as opposite on the see-saw doesn't match my observation of those whose enlightenment teaches them to perceive in an increasingly inclusive way. Enlightenment does not necessarily mean abandonment. It may, but not necessarily.

For me it is like the complementary teachings to boot such-a-one out of camp, and to leave the 99 behind to seek and reclaim the lost sheep. We, impatient as we are, quit at the booting.

Chris, I didn't say earlier: thanks for your kindness.

KM,

It's a pleasure.

"Enlightenment does not necessarily mean abandonment." I appreciated this statement. Does Nirvana have value? I guess faith in Nietzsche's nihilism may be an example of faith that leads to abandonment.

Does enlightenment require faith in transcendence? Is there any value that is truly transcendent?

Maggie,

The book of Ecclesiastes comes to mind, as a case study regards progression of Solomon's faith. Maybe Lamentations fits in there as well?

Chris said:

I guess faith in Nietzsche's nihilism may be an example of faith that leads to abandonment.

Does enlightenment require faith in transcendence? Is there any value that is truly transcendent?

Does a baby have faith in transcendence when he pulls himself up and takes his first step?

Maybe respecting, allowing and nurturing natural development is the highest value and study.

Regarding Nietzsche, perhaps a power worldview itself leads to nihilism? Or...perhaps nihilism leads to a power worldview?

Parenting? Inheritance? Illness? Aperspectival madness? It didn't end well, but...dunno.

I can't feel that Nietzsche's inner being developed to its fullest, brilliant though he was. But, who am I to prescribe his destiny? He did admire Hitler...but...so did Jung....

Just to stir the pot, I'll throw in chakras...and Ken Wilber. (And then there's Spiral Dynamics....) :)

Quote by Ken Wilber:

I will simply define the chakras as: (1) matter; (2) biological life force, prana, emotional-sexual energy, libido, elan vital; (3) lower-mind, including power and intentionality; (4) higher-mind, including reason, and higher emotions, including love; (5) psychic opening, creative vision, nature mysticism, early stages of spiritual and transcendental consciousness; (6) subtle consciousness, gnosis, genuine archetypes, deity mysticism; (7) radiant spirit, both manifest and unmanifest, the Abyss, the empty Ground, formless mysticism.

The point is that we can rather easily classify types of worldviews according to the chakra or the level of the worldview itself, and numerous theorists have done exactly that.

To give a few examples that the various theorists have suggested, we have: materialistic worldviews, such as Hobbes and Marx (chakra 1): vital and pranic worldviews, such as Freud and Bergson (chakra 2); power worldviews, such as Nietzsche (chakra 3); rational worldviews, such as Descartes (chakra 4); nature mysticism, such as Thoreau (chakra 5); deity mysticism, such as St. Teresa of Avila (chakra 6); and formless mysticism, such as Meister Eckhart (chakra 7).

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev8_intro.cfm/

I tend to think that the "faith that leads to abandonment" is a result of a lack of cultural support, a lack of Elders, if you will, to facilitate these risky initiations into deeper soul states.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on Lamentations and Ecclesiastes.

Correction - Nietzsche influenced Hitler - of course Hitler didnt influence him.

Senior moment. :)

KM said:

"We don't have the will to be good at community."

Who is we?

The people participating in this thread?

The people participating in the other Spectrum threads?

The "official" church?

Every single SDA in the NAD? In the world?

How many does it take to make "we?"

Michael, I'm still thinking about what you said about perspective. :)

"We don't have the will to be good at community."

Compared to what other communit(y)(ies).

By Maggie:

I asked "who is we," after KM said:

"We do not have the will to be good at community."

I suppose that sounded pretty dense after KM had already said,

"I take the 'we' here as world-wide, not congregation-wide, conference-wide, or division-wide."

But I have to ask how 17 million people develop the will to do anything?

How would 17 million people develop a consensus on anything, far less become a cohesive community?

And Elaine asked a good question, I think--community compared to what?

Compared to the Armstrong group which split over the Sabbath, Adventism is a pretty cohesive group, considering the considerable stresses on the social system, it seems to me. I really don't expect Adventism to split. So it is cohesive in some strange way, whether that equals community, I couldn't say.

Well, I just watched the God on Trial video again. It haunts me.

I have to ask, were the men in the barracks a community? Did they ever arrive at consensus?

Does consensus equal community?

And when at the end they prayed together, were they just regressing out of fear, or were they truly repairing to the God of their multifarious hearts?

Was Baumgarten, the judge who'd never heard the Torah before the Nazis took him, part of their community? The French physicist? The thief? The Blockaltester?

You're right: it really just takes two to be a we. Of course, Adam was a we, and we don't get too far into their story before they have dissociated.

I was agreeing with the Testerman quote, and speaking of "we the church" in reference to our willingness to hold and respect differences of opinion, conviction, action, and form. This church has remained cohesive because it has a working purging mechanism, and because it has been willing to sacrifice diversity to maintain one collective posture on a number of issues. Worldwide, it grows quickest in territories that maintain a narrow category of "acceptable belief and practice."

No, I don't believe consensus means community. I was quite excited when the org was pushing "Unity in Diversity" during the 1990s, though. It sounded like it meant something, but I don't remember us working out precisely what that something was.

Do you think 6 billion people have agreed on anything? For the sake of the human family, and for the sake of the planet, what do we need 6 billion people to agree on? Let's hope that list of things is short. Or, if not, that we can get away with a compliant critical mass. Perhaps a few of the most necessary things are hardwired.

Wonder where we learned that we had to work up the will to love other people. When we have to work up the will to eat, breathe, or express affection, we know something's wrong. A bit slower on the uptake in other areas.

I think we have to accept the various thinking styles/perspectives/spiritual stages as a given.

That's the beginning.

If it doesn't come as naturally as eating and breathing for people to see things a certain way, it just doesn't.

Maybe these aren't "stages" we're talking about- maybe they're just normal ways of being, different ways of perceiving, and we flatter ourselves thinking we're "beyond all that."

So who is more responsible for creating an atmosphere of community, those who have doctrine to defend, or those who frame things in a broader way?

I am still aching inside from reading the poignant pleas from David and others on the La Sierra thread that we just go away and leave them alone. Let them have their Adventism.

I'm so inclined to honor that, deeply, from my heart. I truly feel the part of me inside that felt that, and must still feel it, I think.

But so many people have been hurt.

I don't go to church and ask loaded questions. When I go to church, I am quiet.

These things must be talked about, sometime, somewhere.

But we must do it in the framework of community, or risk mirroring the dogmatic thinking we have supposedly "transcended," it seems to me.

I have many faults in that area.

For me, believing God is good entails believing in the processes of life itself - believing they are meaningful and they go somewhere.

Believing God is not good would leave me suicidal.

..." believing God is good entails believing in the processes of life itself - believing they are meaningful and they go somewhere"...

wish I knew how to post pics here.... the one of the Great White shark tearing up a cute seal...and the videos? not just eating them, but playing with them, throwing them around before chowing down and putting them out of their misery.

of course, those seals probably had made their living by killing and eating thousands of medium sized fishes...

which, of course, had probably eaten millions of smaller fishes...

which of course, had eated beyons and beyons of algae, plankton, and tiny marine animals, and eaten them before they had a chance to die, drop to the bottom of the sea, and under pressure of more layers of dead life being laid down , evolve into, ah, excuse me, "create" either oil, or limestone so that we can use the hydrocarbons to drive to our friends services and carve "stone" monuments to their lives.
**************************************

..."Believing God is not good would leave me suicidal"...

then either quit reading the Old Test, or apply logic, common sense, and the new understanding that it is NOT to be taken literally.

either God, the Olde Debil, or Darwin created the current processes of life....

we cannot change any of that...other than maybe rewarding the sharks for their part in the eco system by cutting off their fins for soup for us, proving we are still the top of the food chain if not the center of the universe anymore.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGNUG44zROYVePVMCHXC40...

and as far as suicide? not for you, Maggie, or me...there's way too much to learn, to do, to see... too many people to help, memoirs to write, too much learning to pass on to the next generations for any of us to even contemplate a personal final solution until our own bodies or Obama's new (expected)health care limits tell us its time to step off the Great Mandela.

so, for the time being, its " Wheel in the sky keeps on turning.....I don't know where I'll be tomorrow"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez-lRQAklV4

http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/66757/

I think I remember being at a Journey/Heart concert last Sat night...
what's that, you say? I can't hear you!!

putting "Great" and "White" together seems wrong for an ex fundy who was taught to believe everything White was Right... but here is the story of nature.....

hard to see the goodness of God here....

tho Darwin's survival of the fittest sure is on display,
along with a devil of a fish...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5eJkjMLIRM

John, thanks for the links. I'm out in the boonies presently & will have to trek to town to a WiFi spot to watch them.

You said:

"either God, the Olde Debil, or Darwin created the current processes of life...."

That's why I asked Jared if we could put off talking about the forces of nature until we talked about the specific intense issues in the video first.

Posted by: Jared Wright | 08 September 2009 at 3:39

"The point is that violent, destructive forces of nature are not confined to our "sin-marred" planet.

It seems as though any responsible theology must grapple with such existential quandaries. This video provides one way to deal with the evidence. There are others."

I see religion as the human attempt to relate the parts to the whole, and that it is as native a drive as eating and breathing.

I think this innate drive to relate the parts to the whole has produced both science and religion. Religion serves survival, IOW (which Freeman Dyson suggests). I asked Richard Dawkins about that, but he never got back to me. :)

"Science and religion look at the same reality through different windows."
--Freeman Dyson

You said:

"but here is the story of nature.....

hard to see the goodness of God here...."

It's been a life-and-death struggle for me to see the goodness of God in nature and the Bible, and I'm not the kind of person who can just put "existential quandaries" aside and think of science, sports and politics.

At first, as a child, I was a nature mystic, and was horrified at death, but still entranced by nature. Then I got older and started trying to think about things and got into a terrible impasse, which coincided with the Adventist Great Bereavement, and that made it all the more perilous a journey for me, since I was so dedicated to Ellen White's ministry.

I might not have lived through it, but I did, and I feel the experience forged some structures in me that could have come about no other way.

Now, though I have far, far to go, and only dimly see, I do identify with this:

Dante:

O abounding grace, by which I dared to fix my look on the Eternal Light so long that I spent all my sight upon it!

In its depths I saw that it contained, bound by love in one volume, that which is scattered in leaves through the universe, substances and accidents and their relations as it were fused together in such a way that what I tell of is a simple light.

Maggie

"This church has remained cohesive because it has a working purging mechanism, and because it has been willing to sacrifice diversity to maintain one collective posture on a number of issues."

One must ask if that price has been worth paying. If, at the end of purging and emerging with one posture, how many souls have, inevitably, been cast aside.

Perhaps this enlightenment will help.

1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
5 who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
6 who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
7 who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
8 the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
9 the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.
16 to him who led his people through the desert,
His love endures forever.
17 who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
18 and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
19 Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
20 and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
21 and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
22 an inheritance to his servant Israel;
His love endures forever.
23 to the One who remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
24 and freed us from our enemies,
His love endures forever.
25 and who gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever. PS.136:1-26.

Maggie -- "Adventist Great Bereavement"? What are you referring to? The plagiarism wars?

Elaine -- I think the costs have been too high and the gains too small.

Pat -- thanks for coming back.

"He gives food to every creature," including to John's great white sharks. The biosphere is awe-inspiring and there are those times when I feel much more grounded in a park than in a pew.

I agree that religion has the capacity to grant us a more holistic or systemic perspective, drawing us into communion with one another and with the rest of creation and with the Creator. As I read last night, though, the common languages of religion do not *require* us to develop a common understanding; they simply make that possible. Those who come together as a community can just as easily make peace as they can a Babel tower and a nuclear bomb, but without some common language neither outcome is possible. Right now we have several towers and several bombs instead. Beats me how that's something to pat ourselves on the back for.

TO LOVE, the mandate delivered by Jesus, includes coming out of ourselves and focusing on another, whoever stands before us at the time. Christianity, however, as it's practiced within the confines of Adventist theology at least, zeros in, onto the self. Even the "good" that it produces is tainted by the idea of "sanctification", not of the other, but of the self. It's therefore, not surprising that we are searching for the goodness of God, as it relates to us personally - have all our prayers been answered in the affirmative - are we living without pain? Even our concepts of nature and the world are wrapped in a cloud of niceness where the lion always lays down with the lamb. Is that the measure of God's goodness? It certainly is Jewish. Their entire religious system was based on behavior that brought, either blessings or curses; and since the basis of our theology is the Old Testament, we, also, bog ourselves down with measuring God's goodness based on our own lives. WE SHOULD HAVE BLESSINGS, we, the remnant, who "keep the commandments of God".

Maybe growth into maturity comes with pain. Change means something is replaced by something else. There is always a looser. That's painful, but it's also good. Maybe God's goodness doesn't always bring the absence turmoil and pain.

I do remember why I said (in 2005), Maggie, that "maybe the objective is to have a perfectly sinless universe, rising out out free will." Maybe, until we experience the consequences of sin as it pains the innocent, we can't earnestly pray for it to end. Not until we see the lamb slaughtered by sin, can we really hope for it to end. Maybe our own lives are filled with happiness and blessings as promised God's people in the Torah; but not until we see those lambs can we truly understand what needs to happen.

...."10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever."...

and this is sposed to convince the masses that God is good?

killing innocent kids?

God spare us that kind of love!!!!

John,

Don't blame me, I'm just a messenger. God is Love..."Love" is not God.

pat

"Even our concepts of nature and the world are wrapped in a cloud of niceness where the lion always lays down with the lamb. Is that the measure of God's goodness? It certainly is Jewish. Their entire religious system was based on behavior that brought, either blessings or curses; and since the basis of our theology is the Old Testament, we, also, bog ourselves down with measuring God's goodness based on our own lives."

How can it be denied that Adventist doctrines are straight from the OT--often contradicting, or ignoring that radical changes were made in the NT. "It was said of old, but I say unto you..." The very radical changes made by the first Christians: abrogating the oldest and ultimate sign of Judaism: circumcision; and with it the obligation of absolute adherence to the Torah.

Yet Adventism "resurrected" the Law, made it paramount, and made the Fourth Commandment the one around which shone a great light and emphasizing that it was more important than all the others, because it had been "ignored" by all Christians until "God raised up the Adventist church" to show that the other churches were Babylon and the great whore and anyone worshiping on the substitute day had accepted the dread Mark of the Beast dooming them to eternal fire and brimstone.

These are historical facts that cannot be denied. And most Adventists of the first half of the 20th century can recognize them as being the "peculiar marks" of the "remnant church."

In all this, there was neither the love of God, nor toward our fellowman demonstrated--but in condemning every Christian who did not heed the "Sabbath Truth," nor readily accept that the Second Coming was on a specified date and all others would be outside the "shut door."

All churches have a history; but Adventists have largely focused on the deeds of other Christian churches, especially the oldest--which is like calling your mother a "ho" all the while adopting most of the benefits: the NT was compiled and called "inspired" by that church; the major doctrines of the Christian church were decided by that church, and adopted by nearly all others; and much of the ritual and liturgy also became similar in all the Christian churches since the major schism in the 15th century. How soon we forget the history and re-write it for our own benefit!

By Maggie:

KM said: "Adventist Great Bereavement"? What are you referring to? The plagiarism wars?"

Arthur Patrick:

Near the climax of what may be characterized as the era of Seventh-day Adventism’s "Great Bereavement" (1970-1982), Neal Wilson observed in the church’s "General Organ" that change is "a constant factor in Adventism."

Beginning in 1970, wave after wave of new information broke over the church, meaning that many Adventists were bereaved from an earlier "Great Assurance" about their spiritual identity, their religious distinctiveness, and the encyclopedic authority of their prophet. While the processes of change in this period were similar in kind to those of previous generations, the new information which powered the change was so important and so pervasive that the church is still struggling to implement it into coherent patterns of belief and practice.

http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/white/patrick/egw-teachers.htm

During the last two decades, many in the church have experienced a form of bereavement due to the breaking of their long-held and cherished picture of Ellen White and the consequent attenuation of a pervasive yet valued source of authority in their personal lives and in the church.

All the classic symptoms of grief have been painfully evident in the church, including, in particular, denial, anger, and depression.

The history of this period demonstrates our slowness as a church to create a coherent alternative to the traditional picture of Ellen White; thus we have prolonged the problems associated with the "Great Bereavement."

There was an urgent need to provide sensitive pastoral support to ministers, teachers, and members. For those of us who led the church to provide this, we needed to quickly grasp the implications of the evidence and give constructive leadership in the discovery and adoption of viable new patterns of thought.

The lapse of time allowed the already-mentioned extreme responses to flourish: reversion and alienation/rejection. The first of these responses claimed that the new research and discussion were evil, that they raised questions which should not be asked, and thus such investigations should be prevented or discontinued.

Alienation/rejection, on the other hand, claimed that the new evidence exposed Ellen White and her ministry as a great deception, a cause for disregarding her writings or leaving the church entirely.

http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/white/patrick/egw1.htm

I sensed this thing coming before the news was out and it fell apart inside me before there was any outward "explanation" I could give, which was a very excruciating thing to go through.

I experienced a total loss of personal context, followed by people telling me that Satan had my mind followed by sixteen hours of being exorcised by an SDA ex-evangelist for my conference, followed by people talking about me so much that I wouldn't even go to the same grocery store twice in a row, hoping to just disappear into the woodwork, somehow.

Some people experienced it as the "plagiarism wars," others of us experienced it as the bottom dropping out of our worlds, and being "separated from the herd," without the developmental skills needed, with no hope in sight, for years on end.

Ron Numbers family went through a lot also.

Ellen White and SDA Historians
by Arthur Patrick

At the core of Seventh-day Adventism is the call to live as authentic Christians in the contemporary world and simultaneously to look for "that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."

Our church has millenarian roots, but it cannot fulfill its mission if it is frozen into its nineteenth-century apocalyptic understandings.

Nor can we proceed coherently if we ignore what Isaiah would describe as the quarry from which we were hewn.

In more practical terms, Adventists cannot proceed with integrity unless they know how God did and did not lead their community of faith in the past. Thus the church should nurture a symbiotic relationship with its historians.

Agony we may have had, ecstasy may have largely escaped us, but our profession has much to offer the church as it contemplates its identity and mission in the immediate future.

Thanks, Maggie.
And also, am sorry to hear about the trauma you went through.
Am happy to have you around now. Or is this Maggie v.2? :)
I enjoy you.

Wow Maggie!
Do you mind if I ask how old you are and what area of the country this happened in? I'm really sorry for your trials and pain.
I sometimes wonder if I grew up in the perfect area of the country or if It was those I was around while I was growing up. I wish I could give you my experiences growing up as a substitute for yours.
But what do I know? Maybe you would hate my experiences.
I wish you the very best.

PS I just read it again. WOW! An exorcist? WOW? Was this with your permission? I thought you were interesting before but your experiences are truely epic!

Maggie is an old internet friend to some of us from former SDA forums. Her experiences are unique, but not too different from many SDAs. The more you "swallow" everything you were taught in your religious sytem, the more traumatic when you finally realize that the emperor has no clothes. IOW, the "True Believer" suffers much more than those of us who really couldn't buy it all.

Those are the painful results of the church's coverup (since 1919 and before) and the desire to "protect" the children (read--the can't handle the truth). And like all "secrets" they eventually are discovered, and with it the loss of confidence in any who were involved in telling such lies--and yes, there were lies told!

A backward look at the heaps of "graves" of discarded beliefs, disenchanted members, and many of the finest theological minds in Adventism, never apologized for or restored, is still with the church. When the church speaks of "forgiveness" it rings hollow when the corporate church has never apologized for some of its egregious actions in defrocking so many clergy, and the eventual loss of many members. How can a church prosper when it fails to recognize and amend its mistakes?

You guys are wonderful. Thank you. :)

I always swallow hard when I tell stuff like that, because I know I must look like an blithering fool (and people aren't shy about telling me that I do on SDA forums), but Ryan Bell came along and synchronously made it easier by telling us that Jürgen Moltmann's theology is "largely biographical."

Whew--thank you, Ryan (and God)!

I've never heard anyone say anything like that before, but that's what I've been trying to say, various ways, here: that we have to have a way of looking at God that breathes and bleeds and weeps and thrashes through sleepless nights, and not just the conceptual theology that Adventism excells at. I think we need the concepts, of course, but they need to be informed by our stories--all of our stories.

There's a great Shadow Church which, according to Tom Norris, is as large as the NAD, and that Shadow Church is the people who have left Adventism, including me. They are buried in shallow graves.

There are a lot of stories there, in those shallow graves, which God is "carrying and bearing," to use Moltmann's words which need the kind of compassionate witnessing you dear people just gave me.

Michael, are you trying to make me cry or something? Nobody has ever said they wish they could exchange experiences with me, ever. What a beautiful heart. OK, now you did make me cry.

That impulse to "exhange experiences" is exactly, I believe, where Adventist theology/eschatology is heading, which is why I could never go to another church and feel at home, so...please hold that thought, OK? You've got the Pearl of Great Price, friend.

You asked about my age & where I lived. I'm 62 now, and I started falling apart in Washington where my husband taught at Auburn Academy. My husband and I had our SDA missionary licenses, and all the belongings for us and our four small sons were packed in sea crates in San Francisco, waiting until our visas came through for Brazil.

I was praying radically for guidance, because at that time I really had no "voice" and couldn't just say that I wasn't missionary material (and that I was doubting EGW), and desperately felt I couldn't go. Just could not say it. To anyone.

And then...everything just fell apart. Brazil stopped issuing visas because they were mad at the Wycliffe people for something, and so we were in limbo - living in an empty dorm with no kitchen, no job, no house, nowhere to go, $1600 in debt to the church for supplies bought for six years in Brazil, and four little kids--one a nursing baby.

I pretty much disintegrated. I got so I had to concentrate on how to walk because it felt like nothing at all was holding together for me, and it felt like I'd somehow forgotten how walking was supposed to work.

Not everyone would, or even could, get as dependent on Ellen White as I was.

I came from a background of severe abuse and neglect, and so Adventism was a true port-in-a-storm for a little Stage 0 waif like me. She was my exoskeleton, and I loved her fiercely, oh so fiercely. She made my world make sense.

And living on an Academy campus was also much-needed support for me, such that I could almost feel normal, at times.

But that was all over, and I rapidly came unraveled.

My sister-in-law said, "Send her to Tyler, Texas to talk to Brother John," a non-denominatonal pastor. So I was packed off to stay with shirt-tail relatives there and talk with Brother John.

I told him I didn't know what happened--I'd prayed to God and told Him to "possess me," and then it all fell apart.

He said, "Sis, settle in to suffer." I'll never forget that.

So I was going to his Bill Gothard church on Sunday, and the Tyler SDA church on Saturday, where, as Providence would have it, David Koresh (Vernon Howell, as I knew him) also attended, and we became fast friends. I was able to sort of reconstitute towards Ellen White again for awhile because he was so strong and zealous for her, but it didn't hold.

I made the mistake of speaking about my doubts to people, and that's when I started getting labeled evil, and told that Satan was possessing my mind.

The pastor told me I was going to hell and taking my children with me. I cried hysterically for two hours after that happened.

I got very suicidal and made several serious attempts. My poor, poor children. They had no mother.

And then Elder Hoffman, my old Washington Conference evangelist, whom I respected, came to town doing exorcisms.

An older woman friend from the church thought that was just the thing for me, and...what did I know...I couldn't even remember how to walk straight, so I allowed it. I had no idea what was wrong with me or what to do about it.

Of course the Bill Gothard church was telling me to "get under my authority," my SDA authority, that is, so I didn't know which end was up. The other church had me spanking my poor children with a quarter inch dowel. I totally had no sense.

Later, a friend described me as "a rag doll in a hurricane." Pretty apt.

Fast forward to 2003. My youngest son, Robbie, father of a three year old little girl, disappeared into the mountains of Colorado, never to be seen again. He told a friend he was going to jump off a cliff.

A note in his car said his religion made him crazy, and that he dreamed of making a epic movie where the religiously abused united and saved the world from religion.

I identify most strongly with the character Lieble in the God on Trial movie. He's the one who lost his three sons, but not his faith.

He wanted there to be a beautiful ending.

Maggie,

As a 4th generation SDA, It was about 1978 when I decided that as much as I appreciated some things that EGW said there were other areas in which I felt she was amiss and that she would have to defend herself.

That's when I began to believe sola scriptura.

regards,
pat

Magge,thanks so much for sharing your very, very sad story. We need to "unburden" when there are kind, compassionate listeners, and they are rare. Isn't that the NT model?

There are countless thousands like you, hopefully none quite as sad, but they deserve a hearing, and the church, above all, needs to hear and listen to the damage such an abusive religion can do irreparable harm to people, many who are unable to recover. How anyone so abused could ever have a warm feeling to such an organization responsible is impossible to believe.

I dont have words to express how I empathize with you Maggie.
My experience is completely different and yet I can somehow understand where your coming from. Probably from your ability to express yourself in such a fine way.

I am SO glad you didn't get back in with Vernon Howell. The thought that you could have taken a different course and been involved with Waco I dont want to even contemplate besides which, it would mean I never would have gotten the chance to talk with you and hear your story.

It pains me beyond measure to hear about your son. I cant imagine how one can deal with that and yet in your posts you are so caring and concerned with other peoples feelings. You perceive something might be offensive and apologise when this is as far away from the truth as the east is from the west.

From your story, I perceive you have always needed structure and safety, probably from your early childhood experiences. It takes a unbelievably remarkable woman to be willing to give up everything to go to Brazil with 4 children knowing that the structure of an academy and the safety of a home of your own are not part of the equation.
Even the mental security you received from your strict reliance on EGW was slipping away.
And yet as much as we see others turn bitter and reject religion and the church with much less cause than you have, you still looked to Christ to bear you up. I think he has through the years though you might not have realized it. Its the only thing I can think of when I see your kind spirit and attitude through the trials you have faced.

I'm kind of like a reverse baked Alaska. Cold and sometimes abrasive on the outside and warm on the inside. I'm more facts and figures and sort of a rational pragmatist in some ways.
I'm beginning to see its not so much where I was brought up but who I was around that shaped me the most. Maybe those are actually the same thing I dont know.

I perceive that Vernon Howell wouldn't have felt comfortable in just any SDA church and so I would surmise that there was a climate in the Tyler church that while not as far out there as he was, was at least congenial to his way of thinking.

As people our age know things were different when we were kids. There were still hot issues in the church but they were trivia compared with what passes for right and wrong as hot issues today.
I grew up watching 2 factions in the church. Obviously one on the left and one on the right. I observed the ones on the right dabbling in the right ditch while cautioning against the left ditch and the left sometimes dabbled even more in the left ditch while cautioning about the right ditch.
Each side giving the other just enough ammunition to make valid points in perpetuity.
In hindsight I grew up thinking that the narrow path was in the middle of the road.
Long story short, because of that, I didn't build my house on the 1919 conference, I didn't build it on the Davenport scandal and I didn't build it on EGW. I didn't build it on anything that could fail me. I've observed people over the years upset about davenport and left the church. I never understood that.
All of us flawed people are the "church" its true, but as we each fail we are not the "church" we're sinners. I perceive the church as what it should be, what it ought to be, what it jerkily or haltingly strives to be. I haven't yet found a problem that the "Church" caused. I've only found problems we sinners have caused.
I pray that you will soon be blessed with the start of a beautiful ending that will last for your lifetime and beyond.
I am sorry I took up so much space everyone.

Maggie, thanks for sharing yourself this way. This is the kind of thing I have in mind when I say that the costs have been too high.

Lieble's story was haunting; I haven't watched it again (though I plan to) but I can still see his facial expressions as he talked about his boys. "Which one should I have chosen?" What a question.

I want a beautiful ending too. Hope in almost all traditions is about beautiful endings and resolutions, reconciliation and denouement. I still am looking out for that, and perhaps also trying to pull some of it into the present. Don't know if I'm wrong for that subversion of tomorrow, but it's one of the reasons why I bother to forgive those who've wronged me today -- because I expect the final Tomorrow to be a heck of lot better than today, but also because my tomorrows are always built out of my todays.

If we expect a house of change tomorrow, don't we have to start building foundations today?

I see some of that building in your posts and current orientation, Maggie. I'm looking forward to seeing where it leads you.

Thank you all for your kind comments. I'll sign off this thread after this.

So many of these circumstances seem like just accidents of fate. Yet, I think each of us has been given a part of the puzzle to solve, and all of us together get to complete the puzzle.

My part has been very confounding for me. I told you that story above after processing it for many years. The lived reality of my reactions was grim.

I had a wide-margin Bible that I basically had made into an Ellen White interlinear in tiny handwriting covering a good percentage of the pages. The writings of Ellen White were completely entwined in my Bible, and in my mind, and I had absolutely no reason to think they shouldn't be, according to the teaching I had received, and according to the testimony of my own heart.

She was God's prophet, His mouthpiece. Would I question Moses? St. Paul? And she wrote so beautifully and made so much sense. And, most importantly, I had transporting early dawn experiences with her and the Bible each day.

No. She was real, and so was God. The Bible and Ellen White flowed seamlessly in my mind. With great joy I got out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to read and contemplate. It was never a burden. She fed my soul, as did the Bible. I soaked it all in. That morning world was as perfect to me as any world could be.

I think I grew spiritually at her feet. I know I did. I almost think she is the reason I grew enough to question her, almost like becoming an adolescent and questioning your formerly all-knowing parents.

Parents sometimes are good parents to young children, but become threatened when natural development drives their children to start thinking for themselves.

I think Ellen White may have been that way, and certainly her followers have been, in my experience.

It's hard for some parents to allow their children to move on and individuate, because their own development was so thwarted, it seems to me.

When natural drives to individuate are dammed up, chaos ensues in the thwarted person. Nature, when not allowed to flow in proper channels, becomes destructive.

Of course I was angry. How could I not be? I was angry with the people who I thought were being dishonest, but mostly I was very angry with God. Because I knew He was real. I never doubted He was real.

Once I drove my car out in the country, stood on the roof of the car and shouted at God. After all those blissful mornings, how could it come to this? I told Him exactly what I thought of Him in whatever language I felt like using. How could He, HE deceive me like this? Was He some kind of con artist and I His fool? If He struck me down for it, I didn't care. He was all I had, and I knew it.

I expected to go to hell for that. Strangely, a warm feeling of acceptance came over me. I had a picture of myself as a two-year-old kicking my Daddy in His shin, and He looking on compassionately.

It didn't put my mind back together, but it was a marker, a lighthouse, to go back to, to contemplate over time.

But, mostly, my experience was that the fountains of the deep had opened in me, and Leviathan had raised its head. I acted out the role assigned to me helplessly, it seemed, for years, harming myself and others egregiously. I have no trouble calling it sin, and I have asked forgiveness many times over.

I have blamed God, the Adventists, my parents, and most of all myself for all of this, at various times.

I have spent 24/7 for decades, it seems, trying to get a conceptual handle on my experiences.

It seemed for so long that I should not forgive myself, that I should punish myself in perpetuity for being so blind, weak and evil.

But, if I didn't have compassion on myself, all I was left with was bitterness and blame, for myself and everyone else. And no life.

Lieble was the only character in the God on Trial video who realized that he had choice. Oh, I know he said he didn't have choice--"Where was my choice?"

But, whether he realized it or not, he exercised choice.

His compassion for his sons colored his whole world.

He allowed himself to feel the sun's warmth in the spring.

He allowed himself to see "so much beauty."

He allowed himself to defer judgment.

He allowed himself to see a beautiful ending.

He was ravaged, but whole, like Job.

So what I want to say is, I am not wanting anyone to feel guilty for any of this, far less feel pity for me.

Compassion is panacea. Compassion doesn't single out any favorites--it heals us and all others at once.

Compassion is quantum entanglement at its finest. :)

Quantum entanglement, also called the quantum non-local connection, is a property of a quantum mechanical state of a system of two or more objects in which the quantum states of the constituting objects are linked together so that one object can no longer be adequately described without full mention of its counterpart—even if the individual objects are spatially separated in a spacelike manner.

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

Adventism doesn't need to put on sack cloth and ashes and repent in the dust for harming people, as some are demanding.

Opening to Compassion takes only the slightest inner gesture, and the river of Compassion that is always flowing will fill every space.

The church can "go quantum" in the twinkling of an eye.

Thanks for listening--I appreciate you all so much.

Opening to Compassion takes only the slightest inner gesture, and the river of Compassion that is always flowing will fill every space.

The church can "go quantum" in the twinkling of an eye.

Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 17 September 2009 at 12:32

*******
Thanks, Maggie. I think this is a good spot to say amen. :)

Catch y'all later, and bless you.

Wow, Thanks all. There is a wealth of experience, I really appreciate the genuine sharing.

MaggieB,

Regards to the question, "I am interested in hearing your thoughts on Lamentations and Ecclesiastes."

Their themes resonate with sections of this thread. And the OT is interwoven in the discussion, so I was recognising value in the OT.

Lamentations - the pain of identifying as God's people. Reflected well the video. The despair without apologies, just matter of fact.

Ecclesiastes - an answer to nihilism, and Solomon's record of his journey of faith in God. Reflecting on progressions of faith. Not so analytic as in 6 steps, a dynamic personal journey.

I feel connection to their experience. And now also with your experience, thanks so very much for sharing. It is affirming and reassuring. Identifying. This connecting and sharing is community as I understand it. And, it is something that I cherish.

Michael,

I often see things in the same light as you present them. We are sailing parallel and so we don't often communicate directly with each other. I feel guilty of only acknowledging you directly when I disagree with you. But I want to say thanks for your voice on many things. I do identify with you.

We all have so much to learn, and one of the easiest and best ways in the ability to listen, really listen, to others.

How many people do we "know" even in our own circle who may be experiencing the terrible trauma that filled too much of
Maggie's life? We will never know unless we're willing to first be a friend and then listen to them. People are longing to be heard.

That's why this forum, and other like it, offer such an opportunity: faceless, and anonymous except for a name, there is something about the freedom of exchange of the internet that allows people to open up in a way that would never occur face-to-face. We should be ready to LISTEN.
The church either cannot or does not listen, but individuals always can. We should allow others here to be free of recrimination or insults no matter what they say, as long as its civil and with kindness, as it can be a wonderful place for healing.

Thank you, Chris. Our spiritual biographies have made us all who we are, and we can't truly understand a person's beliefs unless we know the story from which they grew, I think, for there is always a story that shapes a person.

So I'm glad Ryan Bell emphasized the importance of biography in Moltmann's theology, and all of our theologies.

My last elaboration was partly in response to Pat who said:

As a 4th generation SDA, It was about 1978 when I decided that as much as I appreciated some things that EGW said there were other areas in which I felt she was amiss and that she would have to defend herself.

That's when I began to believe sola scriptura.

It was in 1978 that I was really in deep trouble. Our experiences totally diverged.

Pat didn't express any angst about shifting her outlook. Apparently no one told her she was demon possessed and going to hell. And it seems she wasn't dealing with the developmental deficits I was, nor was she so attached to Ellen White as I was, so she might not have been traumatized if they had raked her over the coals. I would venture to guess her church, and maybe her background were more liberal.

All of our histories make up Adventist history, and I think Arthur Patrick speaks well for the importance of that history:

In more practical terms, Adventists cannot proceed with integrity unless they know how God did and did not lead their community of faith in the past. Thus the church should nurture a symbiotic relationship with its historians.

Agony we may have had, ecstasy may have largely escaped us, but our profession has much to offer the church as it contemplates its identity and mission in the immediate future.

I just wanted people to know that this is what can happen and has happened in the vulnerable population in Adventism. There's really nothing to prevent the sort of experiences I've had from recurring in other at-risk people in conservative communities. As Elaine said, I'm not the only one who has had these kinds of experiences. Adventist evangelism, of which I am a product, doesn't always net sophisticated, educated people.

Elaine, if I'd had you to talk to, it would have been a far different story for me. I remember thinking that I didn't have any sane people in my life to talk to--like I fell down the rabbit hole and couldn't get out. I think our Finnish friend could have used a listening ear too--his story was particularly barren and sad.

It's so important to be ready to LISTEN, as you said. That can make all the difference.

Thank you! :)

MaggieB,

Not that it matters but I am a 64 y.o. male. I am from Atlanta,Ga. My parents went to the "First Church" near Grant Park and when this church closed for a "growth plan" some went to Kirkwood and others to Beverly Rd, we the latter.

I wouldn't call any of them "liberal" but Beverly Rd. perhaps more "moderate" in it's members views of EGW.

My mother for example fixed "clean meats" as part of our diet and would occassionally take we three boys to a "drive in" movie. She sent me to public school when it became apparent that our school scholarship was inadequate in the 8th grade. I discovered that wonderful Christians existed that were non SDA's. I had a very nourishing mother and grand mother for which I will always be grateful. My grand mother had been "put in her place" by my SDA great grand father for wearing a "feather in her hat" perhaps from "Testimony" council. While not always a church attendent, I would notice her reading her Bible every night I spent over at their home...and boy could she fix Thanksgiving Turkey!

To the point. It was difficult to take EGW off of her pedestal in my life but my resoning was to take her advice that the scriptures were our final authority. That seemed to be simple enough rather than wait for the next explanation of "difficulties" to come out of the EGW estates vault. I decided not to feel the need to be her apologetic. She could defend herself and I would agree when compatible with my understanding of scripture.

I read all authors including Luther and Calvin with the same attitude. I am content that all is ok with God with this position.

Sola scriptura, Sola gratia, Sola fide, Sola Christus, Soli Deo Gloria is my default mechanism that nourishes my faith.

Blessings on your journey…God is good.

regards,
pat

Pat--you're a he! I'm sorry, I didn't even think of that possiblity--I guess all the Pat's I've known were Patricias, not Patricks.

Thank you for sharing your story. I'm glad you, and most others, were hardier souls!

Blessings.

Maggie

We too seldom remember that each of us is more the product of our birth heritage than any other contributing factor in producing the outcome. If one is born in a more open environment as Pat, it is those formative years that has shaped him; just as for Maggie, while both were brought up in Adventist homes they were like from Venus and Mars in their differences.

This is why openness and pluralism is more important than all the Great Controversy theme preaching or the D&R prophecies, state of the dead, Sabbath observance--all is worthless if there is not first acceptance that each human is different. God must have created us that way otherwise She could have merely cloned an earth already populated. Each child is unique in so many ways. Why can't we appreciate and enjoy the distinct qualities of others
rather than trying to make them conform to some "official beliefs"?

This should be etched in our memories; as well as the cogent comment: " Adventist evangelism, of which I am a product, doesn't always net sophisticated, educated people."

It's almost the reverse: those attracted to the TV and Revelation Seminar-types of evangelism nearly always attract such people. How many intellectuals do you invite, or attend such seminars? Shouldn't that tell us that we are using bait to attract one kind of fish while hoping for another. If intellectualism is denigrated, why do we then want all new converts to attend, or send their children to SDA schools for a good education?

Elaine, Asking questions is going to get you in trouble someday.

Thank you for sharing your story. I'm glad you, and most others, were hardier souls!

Blessings.

Maggie

Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 18 September 2009 at 8:40

I see you as a hardy soul Maggie, may be its us who are to weak to have trod your path!

Yes, Donna, it already has--with the Fundies! Check out AToday's blogs for how such questions are viewed.

Twouble is Ewaine's middle name. Ain't that right, Ewaine?

Michael, you're so sweet. Trust me, I'm a little bundle of phobias, a cream puff, wimp, chicken, crybaby, weakling, sniveller, chicken, volaille, milksop, mouse, doormat, wuss, irresolute and let's not leave out...WISHY-WASHY!!!

And that's on a good day!

But God loves me anyhow. :)

Did I mention chicken?

Maggie
Lets stick with WISHY (because its positive and hopeful)and let God WASHY our sins away!

Preach it, Brother! :)

I really am signing off this thread now.

Really. I am. Signing off.

(It takes for-ever to load on dial-up--we're so talkative!)

Donna and Maggie,

Yes, mental stimulation is said to be good for the brain. Some of us look for it, others crave it; for others, they run from it.

4) Visited at least 1/4 of all the countries in the world (approx. 50 countries).
http://www.case.info

The final statement is true, He has made another covenant with someone else. The missing part in the film is the Jews recognition that they crucified the Messiah, that is why the dispersion and the persecution. That is a HUGE missing part here. Romans 11 talks of regrafting of broken branches back into the Vine, IF they accept the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the stumbling block to Israel. God wishes to save all, if they accept Him. What a glaring, missing part in this video, the hope for all of them individually.

God is still good, and offers eternal life to those who accept.

Rondo said:

The missing part in the film is the Jews recognition that they crucified the Messiah, that is why the dispersion and the persecution.

So it follows that when the character in the movie said that Hitler was in God's employ, so fighting Hitler was fighting God, he was...correct?

So the 800 pastors in Germany who joined with Dietrich Bonhoeffer were fighting God, and the 14,000 other German pastors who capitulated to Hitler (including the SDAs) were serving God?

So, as an SDA, you support SDA collaboration with Hitler in Germany?

Did I jump the track somewhere?

I tried to sign off, but, well...

Seventh Day Adventists

by Corrie Schroder

Nazi Germany was a horrible place for small denominational churches because there was no religious liberty. One small denomination that survived was the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. When Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, the German Seventh-day Adventist denomination (hereafter referred to as Adventists) believed it was time for a strong leader in Germany. Hitler seemed to be the best candidate because of “his personal dedication and his abstinence from tea, coffee, alcohol and meat, practices shared by the Adventists, [therefore] he was welcomed as a savior.”[1]

I hope to point out, because of the willingness to compromise the decent of the German Adventist denomination from the moral issues listed below, to where they ended at the end of World War II.

They ended in compromise, loss of personal integrity, and denominational integrity, splitting of the denomination and were racially damaged as a Christian organization because they were unable to hold fast to the tenets of their beliefs.

They tied the denomination to the German State giving up their religious freedom in attempt to survive through compromises. This position of compromise brought shame upon the German denomination as well as the worldwide denomination after the end of World War II.

http://ftrsupplemental.blogspot.com/2003/01/seventh-day-adventists.html

From a 1939 Adventist Morning Watch:

"Trust in his people has given the Fuhrer the strength to carry through the fight for freedom and honour of Germany.

The unshakable faith of Adolf Hitler allowed him to do great deeds, which decorate him today before the whole world.

Selflessly and faithfully he has struggled for his people; courageously and proudly he has defended the honour of his nation.

In Christian humility, at important times when he could celebrate with his people, he gave God in Heaven the honour and recognized his dependence upon God's blessings. This humility has made him great, and this greatness was the source of blessing, from which he always gave for his people.

Only very few statesmen stand so brilliantly in the sun of a blessed life, and are so praised by their own people as our Fuhrer. He has sacrificed much in the years of his struggle and has thought little about himself in the difficult work for his people.

We compare the unnumbered words, which he has issued to the people from a warm heart, with seeds which have ripened and now carry wonderful fruit."

http://boards.history.com/topic/History-Of-Christianity/The-Moral-Failur...

Liberty Magazine:

Adventists in Nazi Germany

The Silent Church, Human Rights, and Adventist Social Ethics

It is ironic that while Adventists had insisted upon religious liberty, they did not raise a voice against the persecution of countless Jews.

Instead, they even disfellowshipped those of Jewish background.

At a time when German Adventists were publishing the religious liberty magazine Kirche und Staat (an outside observer noticed its primary purpose as being the opposition to the Sunday laws), they kept quiet about the 1933 purges when hundred were murdered, and they said nothing against the persecution of Jews or about the occupied territories.

Although some individual Adventists apparently resisted the Nazi temptation, Sicher has shown from contemporary publications that 'no active official opposition to the inhuman Nazi regime seemed to have existed nor even to have been permitted among Adventists.

Sicher's is an unfortunate but honest portrayal of German Adventism in the first half of the twentieth century.

http://www.adventistas.com/janeiro2003/iasd_hitler_liberty.htm

Maggie, evil can come to those God wishes it to come to. The vechicle is usually a willing vessel. No I am not saying it was OK to persecute the Jews for retalitory reasons, I am saying God has His ways of punishing, and predicting that scattering and punishment. Read the following verses and tell me what the Jews chose? They can still be saved individually, but as a nation they rejected the one sent to save the world and were punished for it, with the use of many vechicles:

Deut 30:15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Rondo:

I know this thread has run its course, but I can't let your comments pass.

"Vehicles", such a banal term used to describe 1900 years of millions upon millions of Jews suffering at the hands of "christians". They were murdered by every demented method known, raped, tortured, humiliated. Millions of men, women & children slaughtered, persecuted by God's selected "vehicles". And you use Hebrew scriptures as the explanation & justification. Your god is my devil!

Jeris E. Bragan

Bragan, the video did not tell the who story about the ancesters crucifying Christ. It did not tell how even in that concentration camp they can accept Christ as the Messiah. I am not condoning or justifying any of what Hitler did. You apparently haven't read the cavilier respons of the Jews in Matthew 27:25, sometimes you get what you wish or ask for. The story teller in the video, never told this important part of the story.

Rondo, you're embarrassing yourself with such blatant rationalization for murdering and/or persecuting Jews. This line of reasoning isn't that far removed from the Protocols (sp?)of Zion fiction out of Russia. You don't generally appear to be a vicious person, so I'm guessing you've got a blind spot here.

Blessings on you,
Jeris E. Bragan

The story teller in the video did get one thing right and it is found in Hebrews 8:13. But Jews don't read the New Testament, they reject the Messiah. The Jews have nothing to offer if you are turning to them for Salvation. Your accusation to me is misplaced. Study your Bible. The Jews brought the destruction of Jerusalem on themselves and the destruction of their whole way of life as not having any salvific value, whether you wish to have it different or not. Romans 11 wants all Jews to be saved, if they accept whatever other person must accept, Jesus. The broken branches laying on the ground in Romans 11 can be grafted back in to the Vine, but they must accept the Messiah. We here in America went to rescue the Jews from the concentration camps, American blood was spilt for them, don't give me my God is your devil, how disgusting a remark.

Rondo, you're also wrong on your history. The American government knew all about the concentration camps & made no effort to save Jews/liberate the camps until the war was virtually over. I stand by what I said: If you actually believe what you write; i.e., this thinly veiled approval of murdering Jews because a few Jewish hack politicians talked the Romans into executing Jesus, then what's disgusting would be your god, not my pointing it out.

Maggie,

as you can remember, for about 30 years the problem of theodicy has been a stumbling block for me.

Just recently I've started to realize that there is no problem, if one is able to disbelieve one of those two presuppositions (i.e. God being all-good AND omniscient).

IMHO there are at least two aspects in being omniscient:

- knowing in advance
- feeling in advance

SO,

in cases like

"Then he sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but he changed his mind and said to the angel, 'Stop! That's enough!' The angel was standing by the threshing place of Araunah, a Jebusite."

and

"And the LORD repented that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

one could think that on one level God knew how humankind would do and how He would do

- this knowing at factual level

but He was not able to know at emotional level, how He would react.

So I'm not ready to cast overboard the divine foreknowledge in its entirety.

But the all-good-ness, it is much easier to discount.

After all,

the much maligned deity Molech seems to have been a much benign god that Jahveh.

In my estimate Molech demanded only children to be offered and in addition to that, probably Molech himself was not doing the demanding but only his priests. And the number of those child sacrifices has not been very big.

But the victims demanded by the 3 generally known monotheistic religions have been of every age, from fetuses to 100+ year old people,

and the number of the victims during the last 3000 years is staggering.

So, if one's starting point is that the JC God is either inherently evil or at least an unpredictble mixture of evil (as understood by us humans) and goodness (as not comprehended by us humans), one is prudent when expecting all sort of misfortunes caused/allowed by Him.

By that way all the good things one happens to meet during one's life are refreshing surprises, like a bonus.

This point of view has offered me plenty of consolation.

Pauli

The Crux is here

The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are reversed. He is the judge; God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: If God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the bench, and God in the Dock (C.S. Lewis, from “God in the Dock”).

Pauli, I'm glad you've found a measure of consolation.

Never one to leave well enough alone....

What theodicy do you come up with if you don't necessarily read the Bible literally, say, if you consider that perhaps the ancients simply anthropomorphized natural catastrophic powers and attributed them to God?

IOW, what if God isn't like that at all?

Michael, what if we don't acquit God? What then?

Maggie,

Good question.

God acquited himself at the cross.

Is he in need of our Grace or we of His? The former is foolishness and we become God.

regards,
pat

"God acquited himself at the cross."

How does one not have cognitive dissonance between the god represented in the OT and the one represented in the NT? It's like comparing a monster and a saint. Please help us understand how one can avoid diagnosing a bipolar god?

"Definition

Bipolar, or manic-depressive disorder, is a mood disorder that causes radical emotional changes and mood swings, from manic highs to depressive lows. The majority of bipolar individuals experience alternating episodes of mania and depression."

Elaine, if this your attempt to be peer reviewed you are failing miserably. To suggest God is bipolar because you do not read context well, only puts you in the "dunce's corner".

Definition of:

Dunce:

a slow-witted or stupid person

With all due respect, no offense intended. Did you mean to offend God for His Word as it was given???

Rondo,

I'm guessing English is not your primary language. Perhaps, where you come from, disagreeing with a person requires a disagreeable personality, and disagreements are settled with clubs, knives, poison.

Whatever the case, please have the courage of your bad manners. In the context of your Post, "With all due respect" clearly means "with no respect at all." Of course you intended to be offensive, although you tend to come across more as boorish.

Just Paul's premise..........

"Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? 4 May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written,
“That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words,
And mightest prevail when Thou art judged.”
5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) 6 May it never be! For otherwise how will God judge the world? 7 But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? 8 And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written,“There is none righteous, not even one;"...

21"But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the PRESENT time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Rom.3:1-10,21-26.

Maggie wrote:

"What theodicy do you come up with if you don't necessarily read the Bible literally, say, if you consider that perhaps the ancients simply anthropomorphized natural catastrophic powers and attributed them to God?

IOW, what if God isn't like that at all?"
***
Maggie,

is your first question a rhetorical one?

In case it is not,

I repeat that IMHO there is no theodicy whatsoever, if one of the two premises is faulty.
Remove one side of a triangle and you have no triangle anymore...

Actually it is not very important to know, which one of the premises is incorrect.

Just know I am ready to give up the notion of God's goodness, as defined by human terms.

But I think I understand even those people who compare God with a good-natured bull in a China shop (i.e. God could be good but His ability to predict the consequences of His actions leaves room for improvement).

RE:

reading Bible too literally. That is the most important problem I had in my mind when I stated that I wished that Elaine and you were able to help me.

The dilemma could be formulated as follows:

As those who have diligently done their biology/chemistry/physics lessons - just to name some topics - and have used time enough to ponder over the conclusions and do the mourning job on the ruins of brainwash given them while they were gullible/underaged enough,

one (i.e. persons described in the previous lines) cannot take the Pentateuch very literally.

OTOH, as a person who has made considerable investments in religion, I hope that there were more material in NT to be taken literally, more when compared with the situation of OT.

But the question remains:

where is the line of demarcation - if any - between the non-literalistic books and the more or less literalistic books of Bible?

Or is there no such line at all?

In other words: are those persons right who think that the whole Bible is intended to be taken figuratively, every story, every line, no exceptions allowed?

..."I hope that there were more material in NT to be taken literally, more when compared with the situation of OT"...

there probably is, Pauli.... more good stuff in the New than the Old....

but the figurative is still there...

either that, or continuing superstitious, unscientific error....

the story is told that Jesus allowed himself to be teleported to a very high mountain, where the devil could tempt him, by showing him all the kingdoms of the earth....

this is NOT POSSIBLE on a round earth, unless the devil used Hollywood computer magic....

so either the writer of that story

A) misunderstood how a round earth works, or
B)thought that he lived on a flat earth, or
C)believed that his readers would understand the analogy since many of them believed in a flat earth, or
D)an actual miracle happened..... the laws of light defraction were modified for this occasion, and Jesus was able to see around the earth..over the horizon....

there seem to be only three obvious possibilities to explain all this:

an actual miracle occurred.... which is impossible without changing the laws of the universe,

or
it was a figurative story...concocted to prove some good moral point...sometimes we explain these inexplicable tales as "parables";

or
it was just a good story which the superstitious people of the day would accept based on their scientific ignorance.

then you add the tale of one gospel writer trying to prove that Jesus was the Messiah by having him ride two donkeys at the same time, and you are forced to understand the real (and sometimes unreal)nature of even the new Test.

meaning the walking on water part may likewise have been exaggerated....

leading to....omg!!!! questions about the resurrection?.....
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/lect...

the ultimate problem is that if God had really wanted to inform us about His will, and His plan to straighten us all out, why did He leave the explanation of it all up to fallible humans?... and then threaten to BBQ any who couldn't see things His 27-28 ways with the information provided?

why doesn't He come back today, have a beer with Obama, speak at the UN, or appear on CNN with Larry King and explain it all? and get it right this time? hopefully all around the world...at the same time!!! and on a Sabbath just to emphasize its continued importance...

but wait...due to the round earth, and the international date line which was chosen by those fallible humans, even that's not possible!!!

if He really wants everybody to be saved, why is He waiting?

Sorry, Pauli, but the message seems to be:

"If it is to be, it's up to me or thee".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed

the first items of the creed:

in English:

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

In Latin:

Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae,

In Finnish:

Minä uskon Jumalaan, Isään, Kaikkivaltiaaseen, taivaan ja maan Luojaan,

Some must have wondered - and quite justifiedly - my previous dealings with theodicy.

It occured to me about 1 hour ago, that you, who have English as your 1st language, must be confused on my intentions.

Blame the languages (English being my 4th language)!

Namely - if I do not err - there cannot be essential differences between almighty (in English version of the creed) and omnipotentem (in Latin version).

But,

unfortunately those who decided the choice of words in Finnish version, chose the word 'kaikkivaltias', which according to dictionaries usually is translated 'almighty', but actually has connotations not identical with 'almighty'.

A better choice would have been 'kaikkivoipa', but it has a not so pompous ring as 'kaikkivaltias'.

The difference is similar as found between the words 'autocrat' and 'all-able'.

In secular contexts one can be the absolute ruler of the only superpower in the world and still an absolute jerk. No special case comes to my mind, so stay relaxed.

Correct me, if I am in error, but I have assumed that when/if you recite the Apostles' creed, when saying 'almighty' you include in that word that the God in question is not a jerk but in addition to being able to do anything (inside self-imposed limits), He is all-knowing, too.

Had the translators chosen the word 'kaikkivoipa', that would have covered the knowing/not knowing aspect.

What I just try to explain, is the fact that IMO in the problem of theodicy the almighty-aspect is so common knowledge that mentioning it would insult your sensibilities. But as I in these times think in Finnish,

the theodicy is actually a quadrangle:

IOW,

1) if God can DO whatever He wants
2) and if God does KNOW, what happens now and in future
3) and if He is love
4) why all the suffering?

John,

I appreciate the effort demanded in making your comment!

In addition to those viewpoints you mentioned, there are some more.

One of them are the Gnostic gospels.

No, by them I do not mean those gospels usually called Gnostic, such as gospel of Thomas

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

but the view that those four common gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) actually were Gnostic gospels, too

and therefore almost all their verses should be intrepreted by a Gnostic way we ordinary mortals are unable to do.

Of course there are some persons, few and far apart, who are able and worthy to decipher, what actually happened when

Mark 6:1 tells "And he went out from there, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him."

Very boldly they tell that no actual, literal traveling happened, but the text tells of some spiritual development.

Pauli

Heipauli,

Is there "free will" which allows the possibility of sin or a "created being" which can not sin? Sin and Peace can not coexist.

You can not have it both ways, now can you?

I suggest the proper question is twofold: was it worth it to create such a being and how long will God's longsuffering last that "all may repent of their autonomy from God and not perish."

God's Wrath in the NT against sin has not gone away nor is God "Bipolar", it has merely been postponed. After His righteous judgment there will be no sin and suffering. "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who will render to every man according to his deeds...Rom.2:4-6.

The "good news" is that having been justified by Christ's blood we believers shall be saved from God's wrath in Christ. Rom.5:9

regards,
pat

Pat,

obviously I'm too tired to understand what you intend to convey with the two first paragraphs of your message.

Maybe I am more successful some other day in near future?

But at least the tone of your message seemed to be friendly and the text written with Christian charity.

And the charity is just the center of this discussion.

IOW, should God exhibit Christian charity?

If the answer is an affirmative one, what would the charity be like?

Or is the mental problem due to different dictionaries (ours vs. His)?

"God's Wrath in the NT against sin has not gone away nor is God "Bipolar", it has merely been postponed."

If "postponed" means that His wrath will be experienced in the future, isn't that like Mother promising "You'll get the whipping you deserve when your Father comes home"?

Postponed does not mean it will not occur, only that at some later date it is assured.

That God's wrath was immediate is demonstrated repeatedly in the OT. Now, Christians claim that the God of the OT is the same as the God, represented in Jesus in the NT. If that trait were to be found in humans, it would be properly diagnosed as bipolar. What is another definition for the "Two Faces of God" as shown in the entire Bible?

What is another definition for the "Two Faces of God" as shown in the entire Bible?

Posted by: Elaine (not verified) | 22 September 2009 at 6:15

How about dementia? Some only percieve an unchanging God as having two faces. Perhaps it better reflects their puny attempts to define him since they cant grasp God doesnt change as well as other things like all issues concerning the same God being the God of Christians AND Jews.

An aspect of the mild mannered Christ of the NT.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 “Consequently you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 “Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell? 34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 “Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. 38 “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! 39 “For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Mt.23:29-39.

"“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out." Lk.13:27,28.

It isn't that we are to relish this day of "darkness" but we can not act as if it doesn't exist. We should not overstate or understate what scripture says...I suggest.

Regards,
pat

Who, then, is the real God? If He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, how does that explain the variety of actions and emotions given him by many writers? If it is only their ideas, that is one explanation; but if He is presented as always consistent, then who of the writers is correct? Or, perhaps none?

By Maggie:

Pauli, I'm going to be traveling for awhile. I'll be thinking of you.

Posted by: Heipauli | 22 September 2009 at 9:02

But the question remains:

where is the line of demarcation - if any - between the non-literalistic books and the more or less literalistic books of Bible?

Or is there no such line at all?

In other words: are those persons right who think that the whole Bible is intended to be taken figuratively, every story, every line, no exceptions allowed?

Where does your heart put the line, Pauli? That is the only line that counts.

Your heart. Your line.

But the line isn't really the issue.

There are two kinds of suffering, tame and wild.

Tame Suffering occurs when one chafes against the lines others have drawn.

Wild Suffering happens when one tries to confront one's inner disunities and are dismembered thereby, beyond all hope.

MACROSCOPE is an amazing science-fiction epic which starts out technological and ends up archetypal.

The quest of the book is to find the one being who can look into and master the "macroscope," a clairvoyant telescope-microscope fabricated by an earlier, highly advanced civilization.

This remarkable device not only allows one to peer into any corner of the physical universe, but contains, ultimately, unfathomable depths of universal knowledge.

As one looks into it, the mind is led to follow a simple sequence of symbols which grows increasingly more complex, the logic of which is however inescapable.

Following the sequence helplessly, the mind eventually boggles; the ego disintegrates.

As the story unfolds, there are more and more blown-out superscientists and mathematicians wandering around.

A search is instituted for the ultimate genius, the one being capable of perhaps assimilating the awesome knowledge of the macroscope: a man named Schön.

From here the story really gets interesting.

What has been needed all along is not some intellectual super-genius, but someone with feeling, intuition, and compassion.

The makers of the macroscope knew full well how destructive its awesome knowledge could be in the wrong hands. Hence they built in this little safety device, which short-circuits any mind that tries to penetrate its mysteries without willingness to undergo transformation--to meet with the archetypes.

Intellect is not what is required, though it may be helpful, but rather feeling and intuitive sensitivity as well.

Our inner adventure may be a dialogue as well as a struggle, a penetration of mysteries which, because they unfold within us, most profoundly change our view of who and what we are.
--Stephen Larson, The Shaman's Doorway, pp. 181-2.

Also see C.G. Jung on the Transcendent Function:

Transcendent function

A psychic function that arises from the tension between consciousness and the unconscious and supports their union. (See also opposites and tertium non datur.)

When there is full parity of the opposites, attested by the ego's absolute participation in both, this necessarily leads to a suspension of the will, for the will can no longer operate when every motive has an equally strong countermotive.

Since life cannot tolerate a standstill, a damming up of vital energy results, and this would lead to an insupportable condition did not the tension of opposites produce a new, uniting function that transcends them.

This function arises quite naturally from the regression of libido caused by the blockage.

The tendencies of the conscious and the unconscious are the two factors that together make up the transcendent function.

It is called "transcendent" because it makes the transition from one attitude to another organically possible.
["The Transcendent Function," CW 8, par. 145.]

http://www.nyaap.org/index.php/id/7/subid/60

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

"if He is presented as always consistent, then who of the writers is correct? Or, perhaps none?"

Or..."perhaps all" telling of His attributes and activities under different times and circumstances as guided of the Spirit.

I was about to suggest the same thing Pat.

If God was discribed as a intersection of two Platonic solids such as the icosahedron with 20 6-sided faces and the dodecahedron with 12 5-sided faces.
What would he be?

You might study Euler's formula to have a clue, which relates the number of faces, edges, and vertices of a solid. You might need a working knowledge of terms like vertices and tetrahedron's, Semiregular tessellations, Archimedean Solid's which alone are divided into 13 possible forms which nine of the Archimedean solids can be obtained by truncation of a Platonic solid, and two further can be obtained by a second truncation. The remaining two solids, the snub cube and snub dodecahedron, are obtained by moving the faces of a cube and dodecahedron outward while giving each face a twist. The resulting spaces are then filled with ribbons of equilateral triangles.

For sure you wouldnt just take the couple of polygons you have a rudimentary grasp of and say you know the form the geometry I discribed would produce and yet people do.

God must be A or B they state, as if they had a clue.
In fact, using this construct God would be composed of 32 different Facets of 2 different types and this is considered one of the more rudimentary shapes.

I specifically chose this example for the 2 different base facets since people often say the God of the OT is different than the NT whereas God is God which means he is both. God of the NT and the OT.

1) if God can DO whatever He wants
2) and if God does KNOW, what happens now and in future
3) and if He is love
4) why all the suffering?

Posted by: Heipauli | 22 September 2009 at 4:13

The above is the classic formulation, although stated a little differently in English. The argument then is: at least one of the statements has to be false if the others are true.

The only way I've been able to work this through logically has to do with the word omnipotent. It appears that people take that word to mean: God is all-powerful & can do whatever S/he pleases. In fact, there is one thing God cannot do--what's undoable. God can't make a square circle, not because God lacks power but because square circles, round triangles, etc., is un-doable nonsense.

When people pose questions like this: Why did God allow the Jews to be slaughtered in WWII & similar evils, their question, I believe, is rooted in a flawed premise. God didn't allow this; human beings, with their freedom to do good or evil, did.

The existentialists argue "We're condemned to be free." God can't create (whatever creative strategy used) people to be free & then stop them from acting on that freedom.

I believe the above (radically condensed) to be true. I alo know from personal experience that it doesn't help much when life batters one about. There's a point where answers either aren't meaningful or available. Like Job's outburst of defiance, in the face of evil he didn't understand, we can only clinch our fists & mutter "Blessed be the name of the Lord!" That's our refusal to accept evil and meaninglessness as the last word.

Jeris E. Bragan

P.S. You communicate very effectively in English.

By Maggie:

Pauli, I'm going to be traveling for awhile. I'll be thinking of you.

Posted by: Heipauli | 22 September 2009 at 9:02
***

Happy traveling for you, Maggie, and a safe journey!

Just curious, might "awhile" in this case be days, weeks, months or years?

I understand that you are not hinting at a no-return journey!

Pauli

Pauli, thanks for the good wishes. I'm not planning to disappear forever, no--just another of my vagabond journeys. :) I'm just getting ready to go right now, so not a lot of time. I'll be gone several weeks, but probably will check in during that time.

I appreciate what Jeris and Michael said above, and I'm really glad Michael brought up geometry. Surely God is polishing us all as jewels to reflect aspects of His infinity.

This life is not a linear, purely intellectual journey to a "solution" with mathematical precision that can be expressed in declarative sentences, at least in my experience.

There is no "solution" to suffering that can be spelled out. Only an alchemical transformation suffices, I believe.

But there are several ways to relate to our intractable existential situation, I think (of course I oversimplify).

Hedonism
Fundamentalism
Intellectualism
Mysticism

With hedonism, one just gets what one can while the gettin' is good. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

With fundamentalism, God said it, I believe it, that settles it. People still have the ability to suppress/rationalize cognitive dissonance in this stance.

Intellectualism is an option until emotional dissonance becomes too great. I think people can become intellectual fundamentalists also. Science said it, I believe it, that settles it.

Religious and intellectual fundamentalists love to slug it out, I observe, but there is a lot to be said for both stances also, I believe.

Mysticism only becomes necessary when nothing else is working, and the painful lack of meaning in life becomes a critical, consuming issue.

In that case, settle in to suffer.

True, one can dabble around with crystals and fairies for a long time and suppress the pain a while longer, but the pain is still there.

Sooner or later (or maybe never) one comes smack dab against the wall of pain and realizes that it must be processed internally.

I think the Bible is a kind of "macroscope" if pursued long and deeply. It will first build and then break one's linear thinking and render one helpless before Omnipotence, like Job, because it has that short-circuit, that ring-pass-not built in:

Hebrews 4:12: The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of the heart.

But, life itself is a macroscope, I believe, with the same ring-pass-not:

The makers of the macroscope knew full well how destructive its awesome knowledge could be in the wrong hands. Hence they built in this little safety device, which short-circuits any mind that tries to penetrate its mysteries without willingness to undergo transformation--to meet with the archetypes.

Intellect is not what is required, though it may be helpful, but rather feeling and intuitive sensitivity as well.

"What we see are our own judgments...until we are clear."

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Helpfully, what Jung calls the Transcendent Function is built in so that suffering, patiently borne, yields insight, and eventually wisdom.

It's just devilish difficult to bear suffering patiently though, even for five minutes.

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. :)

There are lots of resources available to help one lean into pain. Breathing is absolutely key. Somewhere in my attic is a compilation of EGW's remarks on breathing. I'm working with The Presence Process right now. Dr. Haleakala Hew Len's Ho'oponopono process is extremely powerful, in my experience. Dr. Candace Pert says our body is our unconscious mind--I totally believe that.

It's a long journey, but hope will not disappoint.

Isaiah 54:11: O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.

Good stuff Maggie
Safe journey and a soon return!

Thanks Michael
Blessings from my heart to yours!

Hurry back, Maggie, we miss you!

Thanks, Elaine. :)

I'm going now, but wanted to add to the above that the sooner we let go, the less suffering there is [she reminded herself, yet again].

It's hard to do that because it feels like our story we're letting go of, and it ends up being a wild struggle.

But our story is much bigger than the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Everything is entangled, so our story is as big as the universe. Breathe with that!

If we could let go immediately, and rest in awareness, we could grow with joy at all times.

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."
--Rainer Maria Rilke

Love you guys.

Entanglement: The weirdest link

New Scientist vol 181 issue 2440 - 27 March 2004, page 32

Thomas Durt of Vrije University in Brussels also believes entanglement is everywhere.

He has recently shown, from the basic equations that Schrödinger considered, that almost all quantum interactions produce entanglement, whatever the conditions. "When you see light coming from a faraway star, the photon is almost certainly entangled with the atoms of the star and the atoms encountered along the way," he says. And the constant interactions between electrons in the atoms that make up your body are no exception. According to Durt, we are a mass of entanglements. (...)

But these problems may be nothing compared to the bombshell that Caslav Brukner of the University of Vienna has just dropped. As if our current understanding of entanglement between widely separated particles were not sketchy enough, Brukner, working with Vedral and two other Imperial College researchers, has uncovered a radical twist.

They have shown that moments of time can become entangled too (www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0402127).

This entanglement between moments in time is so bizarre that it could expose a hole in the very fabric of quantum theory, the researchers believe.

The formulation does not allow messages to be sent back in time, but it still means that quantum mechanics seems to be bending the laws of cause and effect.

On top of that, entanglement in time puts space and time on an equal footing in quantum theory, and that goes sharply against the grain.

Our story is big, I tell ya.

In the light of all that, I especially like Chuck Scriven's line,

"We are nobody's and everybody's."

Beautiful vision, Chuck. Godspeed.

Hi Jeris and Heipauli,

I agree with Jeris, Heipauli your English is very good to read. I feel that you organise your thoughts very well. I really admire that in anyone, it is something that I look for because it is something I am trying to get better at.

I want to share different thoughts on ways to resolve this apparent logical contradiction.

I do believe that God is not restricted to our type of causality and so is not limited to our logic. It is only our perceptive ability and understanding of cause and sequence, how our brains categorise what it is able to perceive, that limits us to not-understand a square circle.

You can make a square, circle triangle. I made one out of wood, and put it onto a projector, depending which way you place it, it projects as a circle or a square or a triangle. The same object, all three in one, which appears contradictory to explain it on lower 2D dimensions, but with higher 3rd dimension it makes sense.

God spoke, and created us within a limited perception of reality. We are limited by our brains ability to perceive. Why can we only readily perceive about 4 dimensions? Why is there ever only as many dimensions as are required to make the theory work? Why can't we view time from a 3rd angle? Why are we stuck inside it? He could speak again, and flip it up-side-out and inside-down. Do we think that our perception of the types of causality are all that there is?

Leibnitz's theodicy - The world (our perception of reality) actually is the best possible of all possible worlds (perceptions of reality.) God allows sin and suffering, ultimately for the greatest possible good. That takes quite some faith!

I don't mind that approach, except it can lead to the conclusion that God actually wanted sin and suffering, and it is very difficult for us to accept that is for the ultimate good. We feel that is a contradiction, but it might not be necessarily. Maybe all we need for this is to be a glass half full sort of thinker. Sin sucks, but do we have to give up? Is giving up really giving in?

Job's approach. We don't need to justify God. I like this, because we can not create a logical conundrum like this without first defining the cause of sin. And we can not fully understand God. The theodicy I think is that sin came from a different type of causality, it originated from outside our limited perception of reality, so our sequential logic is not necessarily applicable. Therefore we can not draw any reliable conclusion about the original cause of sin. So, how can we judge God without even understanding the original cause of sin?

So, instead of questioning what God can or can't do, these approaches question our ability to even conclude about the (in)compatibility of the existence of sin with the two attributes of God (loving and omnipotent). The necessity of the incompatibility is not maintained as soon as we allow God a third attribute - omniscience, something that we do not have.

If I want to train my dog to do tricks...bring me the paper, deposit his own exhaust in the woods instead of the driveway, show me love and devotion when I return from work each day, then I need to communicate with him in the ways and "language" which he understands.....not in some 4th dimensional divine pentagoneese which he cannot fathom.....

and if I were to display my bipolar personality by alternating between showing him love, and wacking him around, I bet my poor pooch would not know what to do other than hide... as most of us would tend to do.

intrinsically I know this...and I didn't create my dog, nor did I create his personality...nor am I omniscient. But I can tell the future if I'm mean and wack my dog around: he won't love me or behave anymore!!!

Surely a "GOD" who wants all his creatures to be happy if not "saved", being both omniscient and clairvoyant according to the story, except for that time He couldn't help the Hebrews defeat the plains people who had iron chariots, surely an omni-everything God should have taken better precautions in how He presented His story and His 27-28 rules to train us as His pets than to leave it in the hands of a small tribe of scientifically ignorant nomads, lying, cheating, and killing their way thru the desert in an effort to secure a homeland by butchering all the current inhabitants, including any women who showed signs of having had sex, but saving and using their virgins...

just picture, if you will, Dr Mengele at Auswitz checking for intact female parts.

how is it our fault if we don't understand and believe it all? especially if the message was not presented in a way which is concise, coherant, comprehensive, and completely convincing*? to say nothing of "loving", or "good".

* first God creats light, then only gets around to creating the source of light..the sun a few daze later. Then He puts up a dome over the earth, to hold up all the waters above, but leaves windows to let down the rain...

good so far, right?

but then a talking snake starts it all? the smartest animal of the animalkingdom, allegedly created by this omni-everything God. This sinfully smart snake deceives a poor, innocent, inexperienced, confused Eve with the truth that God is NOT telling them the truth: they will NOT die that very day.....which they don't.

but unfortunately for us, Paul later will claim that this one
Miss-Eve-take will require that everybody thereafter die....
we are to be punished for our great, great, great...grandparents Miss-take of the Apple.

then the story goes downhill from there!!!

an angel decloaks for a donkey to lecture a prophet?

a guy survives for daze in the belly of a fish.. underwater?
before Cousteau made it possible.

Moses survives on a desert mt top for the obligatory magical mystory tour of "40" daze? as many daze as two unlettered goat herders can count on their combined fingers and toes

no food...no water...no cable...
but somehow he's got divine WiFi up there cause he condenses the Egyptian version of Hammurabis many rules into just 10.

a dead guy touches a prophets robes and is resurrected...

Jacob got goat-rich by having God help him cheat his uncle and overcome the rules of genetics...so manybe it does pay to cheat...tho what goes around comes around, since he himself got cheated into marrying the sisty ugler after "7" yrs, and had to work another "7" yrs for the cute one.

David is called a man after God's own heart after raping his
hot neighbor, and sending her husband off to be killed on the Russian Front.

God rewards David by forgiving him, but KILLING the innocent resulting kid...after the mystical, divine number 7 daze of pain...despite David's pleadings.

God sends bears to kill 42 kids for kidding a bald prophet..that's three sets of double 7. which itself results from the 5 visible planets and the sun and moon which many thought were Gods.

Once upon a time, God wagers with the devil and being the gentleman He is, honors His Startrek prime promise not to interfere while the devil huff's, puffs, and blows down the house, killing Job's innocent kids in the process!!!

God actually stops the sun's journey around the earth to help His friends kill more of their neighbors...take their land and virgins....

unfortunately, displaying a Bipolar decade in the '40's,
God stands by and watches Hitler claim "GOTT MIT UNS" while der furher massacres 6 mil of Gods alleged friends...

earlier, God Himself tried to kill everybody!!! even innocent children and animals!!! in a flood, leaving behind no good scientific evidence of it? and despite its alleged world wide nature, sparing the pyramids nearby. and the reason?

the really hot women were marrying space aliens?

lets redouble our efforts to try to convince/convert the world to believe this stuff:

quote
(CEV) Genesis 6:1 More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted. 3 Then the LORD said, "I won't let my life-giving breath remain in anyone forever. No one will live for more than one hundred twenty years." 4 The children of the supernatural beings who had married these women became famous heroes and warriors. They were called Nephilim and lived on the earth at that time and even later. 5 The LORD saw how bad the people on earth were and that everything they thought and planned was evil. 6 He was very sorry that he had made them, 7 and he said, "I'll destroy every living creature on earth! I'll wipe out people, animals, birds, and reptiles. I'm sorry I ever made them."

why should we ask people to believe the Hebrew story that our God we inherited from them is the worlds biggest mass murderer in history?

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-many-has-god-killed-...

And while we all support the sermon on the mount (or the plain, depending on which gospel you choose), http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/mountain.html
the New Story itself could use some updating.

Jesus sees all the kingdoms of the (round) WORLD from a high mountain? meaning even He believed the earth was flat?
or does this mean that it never happened, and simply the teller of that tale didn't know the world was round?
or is this just another morality teaching parable which we once mistakenly thought was literal?

Why and how did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on two donkeys? http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/ass_colt.html
to prove something which people in those daze didn't believe? and that's why Matt gerrymanders Christs geneology different from Lukes?

too many qustions.
not enuf time or good answers.

so my question is:

if we are to believe, and if God is omni-everything, why didn't He/She get it right in what is claimed to be the instruction manual?

why are we to be killed, painfully, in a divine fire, just because we cannot agree on what the message is?

Just today I discussed with a person dear and near to me.

The person in question told me that "you know nothing about real suffering; in addition to that, your genetic make-up and your Adventist upbringing make you unable to understand anything divine".

It was a long sermon and after having listened to it from beginning to the end without interrupting the lay person, who delivered the sermon,

I - to my surprise - began to feel some kind of elation.

So no hard feelings with God anymore, at least from my side. Just blame my parents who had to distribute their peculiar genes and the SDA denomination, which had made me unable to deal with religious issues. So why bother with Bible and questions related to it?

As regards sack and ashes, they are suprisingly difficult to procure in this city. So a trip to some nearby farm is needed?

Heipauli
Even your humor translates well!

So, Pauli, I see you have observed yourself feeling the delicious relief that blame always gives, and the inevitable concomitant guilt that is always paired with blame.

Excellent!

Now, if you please, who, exactly was observing that blame and guilt?

Only if you please, because if you're happy on that see-saw, I'll never tell you to get off. :)

Actually, I'll never tell you to get off anyway, but I give away my punchline....

Maggie wrote:

"So, Pauli, I see you have observed yourself feeling the delicious relief that blame always gives, and the inevitable concomitant guilt that is always paired with blame.
Excellent!
Now, if you please, who, exactly was observing that blame and guilt?"
***

Actually I'm not sure at all, whether I understand the gist of your message, namely the blame/guilt connection.

As I have written, about 30 years I have had intellectual and emotional confusion and irritation due to the theodicy problem.

Now the problem seems to have disappeared.

As long as I do not expect any special love from the divine side, there cannot be any disappointments related to JC God. The less expectations, the less disappointments.

There is a saying (at least in Finnish) telling that one can get nothing even without asking. So, why bother?

During the written history there have been gods/divine beings ranging from very benevolent ones to extreme violent ones.

And the history of deities seems to tell that the more cruel a god is, the more worshippers s/he has.

It stands to reason.

If one's god is easily provoked, it pays to be very careful with s/he.

OTOH, if one's god is benevolent and long-suffering, there is no reason to live in constant worry and fear.

And if there is a battle between deities, it is easy to guess, which side will emerge victorious.

The old pagan Finnish deities were IMHO too benevolent and they had not changes when confronted with the JC God and His supporters.

Lines written above may cover the relief aspect, or not, as the case may be.

As regards the blame, the lay person in question blamed me for too optimistic expectations.
So far so good.

But just now I cannot blame anyone else.

My parents did not choose their genes.

They chose adventism but they did it after having received incorrect information on SDAism.

Had they know all the facts I know about adventism, they might have chosen differently? Who knows?

After all the denomination gave my father a rapid way of social improvement. And my mother got an immense feeling of superiority when she compared her religion with that of her environment.

But the viewpoint of guilt remained obscure IMHO.

Who is guilty? Who should feel guilt and why?

Maybe sometimes when your trip is over, you can elucidate that issue in detail?

In the meantime have a good time!

And thanks for the effort.

By Maggie:

Posted by: Heipauli | 24 September 2009 at 4:07

I - to my surprise - began to feel some kind of elation.

So no hard feelings with God anymore, at least from my side. Just blame my parents who had to distribute their peculiar genes and the SDA denomination, which had made me unable to deal with religious issues. So why bother with Bible and questions related to it?

Posted by: Heipauli | 30 September 2009 at 5:40

But just now I cannot blame anyone else.

My parents did not choose their genes.

They chose adventism but they did it after having received incorrect information on SDAism.

Had they know all the facts I know about adventism, they might have chosen differently? Who knows?

Pauli, I wasn't criticizing you for blame and guilt, I was just pointing out the universal working of our minds, which is to assign responsibility for unfortunate outcomes ("made me unable to to deal with religious issues") to others ("they did it after having received incorrect information on SDAism").

And though I realized you meant the following humorously, still, I didn't think you pulled the thought out of thin air:

Posted by: Heipauli | 24 September 2009 at 4:07

As regards sack and ashes, they are suprisingly difficult to procure in this city. So a trip to some nearby farm is needed?

The way it came across to me was that, "I, Pauli, am abandoning my SDA-induced angst with great relief, but I realize there is a price to pay for that impertinence, hence the search for sack and ash."

I realize that was tongue-in-cheek, but, well, you said it.

And, I think you are right - there is a price to pay for abandoning our upbringing, in the normal working of our minds and culture.

The point I was really making though, and I understand it is obscure, is that there is a part of your mind that is above these polarities, that observes these polarities, untouched by them.

The real Pauli was never touched by Adventism.

Is that too much of a stretch?

In the meantime have a good time!

Thanks Pauli!

Yesterday I went to Rocky Mountain National Park. The aspens seem to be lit from within, and I got to stand twenty feet from a bugling elk and his harem. That wildest of wild sounds is transporting to me.

In luminous moments like that, it is easy to feel united with all-that-is.

What I'm learning is to feel united with all-that-is in all moments.

All moments are lit from within, if we have eyes to see.

The real Pauli was never touched by Adventism.
Is that too much of a stretch?
Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 30 September 2009 at 3:32

******
From my perspective, both the transcendent and the material are real. Former-Adventist-Pauli is no less real than Observing-Self-Pauli. But it's definitely nice to be able to see beyond the madding crowd and see a larger context.

---------

In luminous moments like that, it is easy to feel united with all-that-is.

What I'm learning is to feel united with all-that-is in all moments.
Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 30 September 2009 at 3:38
*******
This might just be the holy grail! Abiding in the vine is not so much going somewhere new as it is being more aware of relationship where you are.

Enjoy CO. Had missed you. :)

Posted by: KM | 30 September 2009 at 4:18

From my perspective, both the transcendent and the material are real. Former-Adventist-Pauli is no less real than Observing-Self-Pauli. But it's definitely nice to be able to see beyond the madding crowd and see a larger context.

The transcendent and the material are absolutely real from my perspective also.

The transcendent Maggie feels all the pain, confusion and suffering of the material Maggie with great compassion.

Compassion is panacea, and compassion doesn't need to be "reached for," it is the ground of Being, as I see it.

It truly is the Holy Grail, the Abiding in the Vine.

Whom does the Grail serve?

"The real Pauli was never touched by Adventism."

Maggie, that touched a chord with me. I believe that describes me.
I could never allow myself to believe the doctrines of the Adventist church, and although I learned them from the cradle and all through 12+ years, it was merely rote drilling with nothing that touched my inner soul.

So, unlike you and others, it was not so difficult to make a clean break from something that never really touched me. Eliminating from my life the guilt that others wished to place on me for every little infraction, or for not believing, took a huge burden from me and trying to live in a way that would be acceptable to my church friends and families. Like Pauli, I feel freer now than was ever possible when in the closed, exclusivity of Adventism. It had to be closed to prevent young minds from seeing and learning anything outside that might raise questions. In having a closed educational system, Adventism attempts to "keep" the young.
They have not been too successful. With the rapid spread of communication today, it is impossible to escape the "evils of the world" which we taught to avoid, always.

"I could never allow myself to believe the doctrines of the Adventist church, and although I learned them from the cradle and all through 12+ years, it was merely rote drilling with nothing that touched my inner soul." -- said Elaine

I've become increasingly interested in whether the 28 stem from perfect universal principles, but have arrived in highly-distorted material forms.

If so, the challenge is arriving at progressively useful forms by coming into relationship with the principles they stem from.

For me, this produces the simultaneous experience of caring deeply about all of the 28, and being entirely detached about their survival. From this perspective, the question of whether I “believe” in them comes from a circle drawn too small. The better question is what I can know because of them.

Ariel
That is a very interesting and intriguing thought! I think I like it very much!
Thanks

It truly is the Holy Grail, the Abiding in the Vine.

Whom does the Grail serve?
Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 30 September 2009 at 4:28

*****
I think the abiding serves all of us, Maggie: "Without me ye can do nothing." I read that both at the individual and collective levels: we weren't made freewheeling. Made in context and best able to thrive in connection.

Elaine, I'm glad you and others were able to stay in touch with your own soul through your Adventist experience, painful though it was.

I did, and still do, find much in Adventism that touches my soul, so sorting things in my mind seemed impossible.

I don't believe my conscious mind could ever surmount that task, in fact, because my conscious mind is "a circle drawn too small," to borrow Ariel's phrase, and so I, in my own way, have also come to a place of "detached caring" about things Adventist, through a process of "disciplined desperation."

Disciplined by desperation, we discover the Deliverer. :)

KM said, "Made in context and best able to thrive in connection."

And the context is so very, very large, way beyond the human sphere.

As Thomas Berry said:

The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.

That is whom the Grail, the matrix of Compassion that is the ground of our Being, serves, I believe.

PS: KM, that sense of "detached caring" is the way I meant the transcendent self experiences the material self.

The transcendent self holds all disparate elements, at once, in the womb of compassion, and new life takes hold, without one judgment ever being needed.

That, I believe, is the secret.

"Disciplined by desperation, we discover the Deliverer. :)" -- Maggie.

Nicely done, Maggie.

Totally agree that the context is way beyond our small circles and "all of us" doesn't just include all of us humans.
When you open up to that... wow. :)

I understood what you said about detachment. Love without ego.

That "disciplined by desperation" phrase dates back to my "settle in to suffer" days. I can't find who said it on the Net, but I read it somewhere, and it stuck.

...the context is way beyond our small circles and "all of us" doesn't just include all of us humans.

When you open up to that... wow. :)

One lifetime scarcely suffices to "open up to that," huh?

Deep breaths, deep breaths.... :)

That's right Maggie -- enjoy! :)

Gulp!

Maggie wrote:
"The real Pauli was never touched by Adventism.

Is that too much of a stretch?"
************

I dunno. An idea I've never pondered.

But it there ever was a "real Pauli", who was never touched by Adventism,

I've never met him, have no idea what he would be like, and maybe I'm a little scared to become acquainted with him.

Because it seems to me that I was immersed in adventism, dyed-in-the-wool. What peculiar choices it made me to make! I'm embarrassed even thinking them.

And lines in this message are not written tongue-in-cheek.

I dunno. An idea I've never pondered.

When an idea comes to you, where does it come?

Maggie,

the "real.." made my mind wandering.

About the real ... whomever:

If one is never touched by Adventism, what s/he is touched by? Some alternatives are compulsory.

Some kind of environment one has to have, don't you agree?

In the ideal case, would my parents have been Lutherans, Pentecostals, Catholics, Agnostics, Atheists?

Which alternative would have produced the real Pauli?

Or is the real Pauli an ideal, seen only by God, a person raised in heaven and never tarnished by influences of the corrupt humankind?

Or perhaps you have in your mind an image of persons, who never in his life made wrong choices, a person who lived his life to the fullest, limited only by his genes/epigenetics??

"Because it seems to me that I was immersed in adventism, dyed-in-the-wool. What peculiar choices it made me to make! I'm embarrassed even thinking them." -- wrote Pauli

Those choices were perfect for where you were. Now you live in a larger circle and can observe the difference between where you are and where you were. But the former is inclusive of the latter.

You are still not able to observe anything outside your new ring. Expand it more, and you will be able to observe new territory.

Pauli, your are a creature with inexhaustible potential living in an inexhaustible universe(s) flowing from an inexhaustible God. God AND you are good.

Enjoy where you are and have fun expanding into where you will be.

Pauli, the word "touched" was probably a poor choice for what I meant. What I was trying to convey was a timeless, unchanging essence, not an insensate automaton inexplicably lurking somewhere inside you.

The perceiver does not consist of the perceptions, but the perceptions do shape the conscious mind, and create a sense of limited personal identity because we've never been taught to rest in pure, spacious awareness, it seems to me.

That's why Adventism still touches my soul, because that "rest" is so integral to SDA thinking, if not experience!

And another key emphasis of Adventism is the Holy of Holies, where the Presence rests on the golden Mercy Seat. That is such rich symbolism, and right beneath our noses too!

That Shekinah was pure, merciful, spacious, timeless Presence.

This rest is pointed to in many religions, but, in truth, needs no religious trappings to experience.

So what I'm saying is that our essence, being made in the image of God, is pure, merciful, spacious, timeless Presence.

You, me, everyone.

Yeah, Ariel - what you said. :)

When an idea comes to you, where does it come?
Posted by: MaggieB (not verified) | 01 October 2009 at 12:54

------
In these days most of them have come from you, MaggieB.

The exact days and exact time to the minute are stamped to your messages...
So no denial is possible. You are the sender.

I could tell other names, too. None of them in a negative way.

Pauli

"I could never allow myself to believe the doctrines of the Adventist church, and although I learned them from the cradle and all through 12+ years, it was merely rote drilling with nothing that touched my inner soul."
....
Posted by: Elaine (not verified) | 30 September 2009 at 4:31

Elaine, what you wrote testifies of your superior intelligence.

In the age 10 - 12 I was in an opposite situation. I had been taught to possibly be slaughtered sometimes in the same century for my being an adventist.
I admit that EGW did not teach that just every adventist would die in the hands of the persecutors,
but it seemed to me that those Catholic rascals would not be able to tell that I did not belong to those fortunate "one of twenty" who could trust to be rescued anyway, and therefore the mob could let me be undisturbed in my own misery.

Of those "19 of 20" there was no clear doctrine available, at least not in Finnish. So they were kept in some kind of doctrinal and futurological limbo.

So if my experience does prove something on me, that may be summed up with words "extreme gullibility and incredible naivety". Another practical lesson is the power of systematic transmission of beliefs.

There is a saying in Finnish, according to which "if one has been given spoonfuls, one cannot give back with a ladle".

Regrettably,

Pauli

I do not mention any names,

but the majority of you seem to be soaring in such heights that in this life I cannot ever reach the same altitudes.

I can image the feelings of a young person studying in junior high school, who accidentally has lost his way and is sitting and listening to a lecture given to advanced students in some university.

The experience I'm going through is shocking, but not entirely depressing. It at least points out that there is intellectual life in upper atmosphere and in addition to that, a change in my literary diet could be wholesome.

Pauli, whether it was superior intelligence or just "guts" for some reason I could not make myself believe all the stuff associated with Adventism when I was growing up.

Like you, although it might have been different in your country, there was a fear taught of Catholics and to avoid "outsiders" at all costs: to keep ourselves separate from "the world" and we associated only with other SDAs. Going through the motions is acceptable, because young people aren't ever questioned about what they really believe, but if you want to get by in an SDA environment, you must live by their rules. At times I rebelled in my own way: retreating in solitary woods behind the boarding academy in my teens for hours just to be alone. In a small dormitory, 3-4 to a room, one could never be alone and I have always relished solitude, but still am considered sociable--but when I choose.

Once, I was severely chastised by the dean of girls for skipping prayer meeting on Wed. night and was reading (horrors) The Ladies' Home Journal instead! Another time (at another school), when a former male friend, Not a boyfriend, visited me from the nearby army fort (this was during WW II), he and I sat together at church, and because the sexes were to sit in separate rows at church and chapel, I was severely reprimanded for doing so! Imagine, sitting by a male friend in church! More of these sorts of rules were so idiotic, IMO, that I was glad to escape.

All the while raising my children, I was a regular church goer, and an officer, just because it was exepected. Once you're raised to always appear "proper" it is hard to shed that.

After spending much time in the early 80s studying the NT, especially Paul's letters, I became convinced that what was always
SDA pillars, had no biblical support from the NT, which was the last word to Christians, NOT the OT--which was the source for the unique doctrines of Adventism. Realizing that the NT seem to be overlooked, preferring the OT for SDA doctrines, I gradually realized I could not profess something I could no longer believe. Once I made that decision, I submitted my letter of resignation to the pastor and have never looked back in regret. On the contrary, I have been more convinced each day that it was, for me, the right decision.

In these days most of them have come from you, MaggieB.

Pauli, you totally crack me up, and I mean that in an affectionate way. :)

OK, allow me make myself obscure whilst once again trying to explain myself.

The ideas you are getting from me, with my return address stamped on them, who is getting them?

Do you perceive yourself to be nothing more than a motley collection of your past perceptions and experiences? I don't see myself that way, and I certainly don't see you that way, friend!

There is no "altitude" involved here - none whatsoever! This is all down-home stuff, Pauli. There is no intellect needed. Honest!

When you looked in the mirror as a preverbal toddler, who looked back?

That same person is looking back today, and none the worse for wear either, I might add! I'm doing a little dance in anticipation of your grokking that. :)

BTW, I love your Finnish sayings. :)

Pauli, to illustrate how prosaic this process is, I'll just give you an example from today.

I had a cashier's check issued to me from a certain bank. I went to that bank to cash that check. Seems pretty straightforward, right?

Well, they almost wouldn't honor their own check. The cashier was on the phone and computer for 45 minutes trying to verify that check from a bank where I had an account.

So I sat there and practiced letting everything just be, AS IS, without elaborating on it.

I listened to myself make up stories of my victimization to regale others with later. I listened to myself imagine saying huffy, indignant things to the cashier like, "Do you think I forged this check or something, well then, do you think I forged the envelope and the postage meter too?" "What's the matter with this organization that you can't even recognize a check that you issued?" "Hey--do you even remember that I'm still here?" I watched myself noticing that the cashier's little girl was there, demanding attention.

I watched myself noticing my Spacious Mind noticing all my thoughts without attaching to any of them. I watched myself noticing that the person on the phone was rude to the cashier and she was embarrassed. I watched myself wanting her to have a good day. When she handed me the money, I apologized for making her go through such a long process for me on a day she couldn't find child care, and I congratulated her on her promotion and told her I hoped the rest of her day went better.

She beamed at me with an open face.

At no time did I manhandle myself to get a grip on my thoughts and emotions, I just let them pass like clouds in the sky.

All perceptions resolve effortlessly in your Spacious Mind, where there is no judgment.

Everyone has a Spacious Mind.

Pauli, I'm traveling for a few days. There are a couple of books you might be interested in.

The older one, Full Catastrophe Living, by Jon Kabat-Zinn I read many years ago.

Currently, I'm reading The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, by Harvard Medical School graduate Daniel Siegel.

Here's a quote from the Preface:

Welcome to a journey into the heart of our lives. Being mindfully aware, attending to the richness of our here-and-now experiences, creates scientifically recognized enhancements in our physiology, our mental functions, and our inter-personal relationships. Being fully present in our awareness opens our lives to new possibilities of well-being.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Maggie

MaggieB,

in a couple of your messages you hinted at C.G.Jung.

So as an obedient patient I went yesterday to the local library and asked for all those 8 books written by Jung they have here. Of course in bigger cities there are greater assortments available.

Four of the 8 were instantly available, and the rest at short notice. (BTW, of those four not available just yesterday one is similar to the book I possess somewhere in my library, but it is nearly impossibly to be found in this life; I ceased to catalogue the books after c. 3600 items. They are stored in two cities and four different buildings...)

But sometimes I have read the book mentioned above and liked it very much. (It may have been "Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken"; OTOH I could nearly swear that I've read "Man and his symbols", too, but is it in my possession? I do not remember.)

Of those four books now in my bedroom the first one to be read deals with Job (Antwort auf Hiob).

If I had to choose between Jung and Freud, Jung would win hands down. But there were other options, too, and I chose one of them, even though I had no idea that the idea was not an original one. Maybe later on...

Psychiatry was one of the specialties I had in my mind when I considered my professional future.
Actually one had to choose a specialty to be spent with for 3 months in a ward (but not at 24/7 basis; in addition to the time spent in the ward one had to listen to lectures given on various other specialties, too).

But at any rate, I chose psychiatry for that 3 mo period.

But wife number one did not appreciate the idea for a lifelong career. So good-bye psychiatry!

BTW, she is still kicking, and no number 2 is looming in horizon.

MaggieB,

After reading your adventure at the bank, it occured to me that having faith is our will being merged into the divine will. It's dawning on me that much of what we construct actually inhibits that process. Outlook becomes inescapably safe. Divine embrace.

Maggie B, reading your exchanges with Pauli are pricless--inspiring, comical, touching.

Your experience at the bank, to be more mundane, reminded me of a line I read (from Luther, I think). He wrote something to the effect: "Temptations are like birds flying over our head. You can stop them from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair." I'm not sure why, but that's always struck me as true & hysterically funny.

Thanks to both of you for sharing your spiritual popcorn as it pops!

Shalom!
Jeris E. Bragan

I should proof-read. the above should read "can't stop them from flying over your head..."

MaggieB et al.

For some (divine???, hellish???) reason I could not get sleep by any sensible means last night.

So, from Saturday 11 p.m. to Sunday 6.20 a.m. local time (= GMT + 2 h) I read the Finnish translation of Antwort auf Hiob written by Jung.

It is undiluted TNT, or perhaps more than that, for example the latest Chech formula for plastic explosive.

If anyone else than a known-around-the-globe figure had been the author, here in Finland in 60's the publisher (and author, too, if he was a Finn) would have been prosecuted for blasphemy.

BTW, there has been a such a trial in Finland.
Wikipedia tells that Hannu Salama

"In 1966 he was convicted for blasphemy in his book Juhannustanssit (Midsummer Dances) from 1964. He was released on probation, but finally pardoned by the Finnish president Urho Kekkonen in 1968. The new editions of the book were published as censored versions up until 1990. "

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

BTW, in Finnish criminal code there is no punishment for blasphemy anymore. It was replaced by "insulting religious feelings" or something like that. The legislators realized that most prosecutors and judges do not possess what it takes to understand God's point of view.

But back to Jung.

The book deals with the story of Job. Jung thinks (?) that the story is based on a real case.

But Jung treats God so mercilessly that even those pages would have been proof enough for verdict on blasphemy here in Finland in 60's and 70's.

And as I try to plod on veeeery carefully in order to maintain my membership in this club, I refuse to cite even one sentence.

Then Jung connects crucifixion with God's dealings re: Job.

IOW, if Job is a legend, so is Golgotha, too.

According to Jung God fumbled so miserably with Job (albeit instigated by Satan, one of God's Sons (sic!) that He had to resort to limiting damages. Therefore atonement at cross.

The third section deals with Revelation in general and John the Revelator in particular, especially John's dreams and visions.

John was the apostle of love, and that kind of outer shell can be so frustrating that one is prone to have violent dreams.

Most kids of fundamentalist preachers remember that their father could go berserk when there were only family members present...

Actually it can be very straining to radiate pure love during the whole day...

Pauli

Pauli, such descriptions of God a psychiatrist would surely diagnose as bipolar, or schizoid. While those terms were not known then, people were still known to act in such a manner. What kind of god is that? Never knowing when he would punish or show mercy. It is a wonder that Job was more forgiving, it seems, that his god.

Elaine,

IMHO Jung tried to convey the idea that Job was more prudent than his God in those circumstances. Job understood that someone had to give in, in order to not make things even worse.

According to Jung Job was righteous, but God was not. That left a mark in God's character, which could be removed only by blood.

Hence Calvary was obligatory.

That was Gospel according to C.Jung.

RE: Bipolarity or not

The book drove in a lesson. One should be careful with one's God. And if the alternatives are either love or fear,

the more prudent choice seems to be afraid.

There is a saying: Do not wake up a sleeping bear!

Jeris, if you want to to hear spiritual popcorn pop, you should be here in northern Wyoming (where it's snowing!) visiting with my family and me right now.

Scott Bennett (from non-forensic www.heavenlysanctuary.com) is having a, er, lively conversation with my traditional SDA ex-hubby. Oh my--so passionate on both sides, but kind and friendly, if loud, at times! I made my case for universal salvation with the usual low expectations, so I was not disappointed. :)

Pauli and I go 'way back. We agree that we both have The Thinking Disease, ain't that right, Pauli?

BTW, Pauli, my "obedient patient," I don't want you to take me as literally as you do the Bible, OK? :)

Just have a minute - want to get back to this poppin' discussion, but when I read Jung's Answer to Job many years ago, it prompted one of several throwing-the-Holy-Bible-repeatedly-against-the-wall while yelling fits.

It didn't seem to effect God in the least, as far as I can tell - S/He still seems friendly as ever.

Catch you later.

Listening to my family's lively discussion this evening, I'm thinking that my family is a microcosm of the church - we're all over the place theologically, and inside & outside of the church, but all intensely involved with what is going on in the church, and with each other.

I guess it's my family that makes me believe so passionately that this church can make it. Divorces and doctrinal differences don't keep us from being totally committed to each other forever.

After our no-holds-barred talk this evening, we gathered around the piano and sang, Come, Now is the Time to Worship and many other songs, then sat down to a great meal, followed by looking at old pictures and a hula hoop contest with my granddaughter. (I won, but my crown was hotly contested.)

It just doesn't get any better than this - I am blissed out. :)

Posted by: Heipauli | 04 October 2009 at 9:50

Actually it can be very straining to radiate pure love during the whole day...

Posted by: Jeris E. BraganII | 04 October 2009 at 8:40

"Temptations are like birds flying over our head. You can stop them from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair."

Well, actually, Jeris, I never met a temptation I didn't like, and I must confess, I never once have radiated pure love for a whole day. Maybe five minutes, but even that's iffy. :)

But I think Chris has the right idea:

It's dawning on me that much of what we construct actually inhibits that process.

Oh, Chris, I think you hit the nail right on the head!!!

We make this soooo hard!

Actually, I don't even think it's as complicated as merging one's will with God's - that sounds pretty hard, actually.

I may be wrong, but it seems I've stumbled onto something even easier. Could this be right??? Could it be so easy? I guess time will tell...I'm still experimenting. I'll keep reporting back. :)

Anyway, you don't have to do much of anything with your will, I think.

Here's the way I look at it. Imagine a LARGE circle. That's your Spacious Mind. Now imagine lots of little circles inside the big one. Those are the various points-of-view you hold throughout the day and over time. (Like my insufferable huffy, indignant attitude at the bank, for example.)

All you have to do is be the Big Circle and let every thing in the center work itself out. You don't have to resist or fix any of it.

The Big Circle is your authentic self. The little circles are what Chris calls "the stuff we construct" that inhibits the process.

You don't have to try to stop constructing it, you don't have to deconstruct it. You don't have to DO anything with it.

You just have to rest in natural awareness, which is the Big Circle, and natural awareness, being compassion itself, resolves whatever it is that troubles you.

I still can hardly believe this myself. It seems way too simple, but I feel so amazingly better since I've started "resting" numerous times throughout the day.

Really - I've hardly slept nights for months because so much is on my mind because of the world situation, and because I have a son in the military.

Could this be what the elusive Righteousness By Faith is? Do you think?

Man, if it is, y'all are gonna feel just as stupid as I do for making it so hard for so many years.

But, know what? If you feel stupid, just rest in pure awareness, i.e., God, while the stupid feelings just resolve themselves.

Try it, you might like it. :)

Romans 14:17
For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink;
but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

The big circle is the divine will, bigger than me.

"merging one's will with God's - that sounds pretty hard, actually" Yeah, this is the problem that I don't know how to avoid. But it's not really meant to sound that way. Not letting small circles get in the way can sound like hard work too. But I say it's righteousness, and peace, and joy. Rest, blessed rest.

Righteousness by faith, I suspect relates to assurance of forgiveness.

MaggieB,

today I got additional two books by Jung ("Man and his symbols" and "Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken" , both as translations to Finnish; they have no book by Jung as original language versions here in Pori)

As you must remember, Jung was interested in peculiar happenings, for example in synchronicity or whatever he must have called it in English texts.

To most physicians the phenomen is familiar.

A doctor may have been practicing for 20 - 30 years. Then one day s/he meets a patient having a very, very rare disease or deformity.

One day later s/he meets another similar patient. Case #1 is not any blood relation to case #2.

But there are no more cases. I.e. the doctor never will see a case #3. (Admittedly some of my collegues object, but even then they have never claimed having seen cases 1 -3 in three consecutive days)

I myself have never met any case #3.

Anyhow yesterday something very peculiar happened to me. The case is so odd that I do not try to tell much about it, but one could call it "case #1".

Then today something outrageously peculiar happened today. It could be called "case #2", except that there were no common features between them.

Vice versa. Case #1 was a contact by a person I had seen abroad in 1993. I had not given him any of my current email addresses. As some of you know, they are not easy to guess in my case, especially when one has no connection with adventism or any common friends.

What was the real purpose of the contact via email, I do not know. But anyhow, I had not expected it, I had not prayed for it, and it came like a bolt from blue sky.

Case #2 was a desperate situation. So awkward that I suggested my wife "praying just in case..."
Then before she consented, the situation was resolved. But how, that is the shameful secret.

Why do I think about synchronicity? Two veeery rare, from some point of view even unique happenings in two consecutive days.

But as I've never seen a case #3, tomorrow must be an ordinary day, nothing to tell about.

"much of what we construct actually inhibits that process."

This surely is contrary to Augustine's Original Sin; and Calvinism and the whole notion of "sin." Were it not for the terrible and destructive onus of sin, mostly originating with the Bible, would we be better or worse? Millions have lived without knowledge of the Bible or Christianity, or even the other monotheistic religions and they were no worse, if no better than Christians.

Have we inhibited our normal and natural abilities to be good, kind and compassionate by restraining them with the fear of sin and hell? What if there were no sin, salvation, or heaven or hell, would we live any differently? Have they made us better? Where is the evidence?

Imagine... if you can...

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Elaine,

To some extent, I do agree, but not always necessarily. It may be complimentary. In some ways synonymous with what they were saying.

I'm confused, are you claiming that sin does not exist? You ask, "Have they made us better?" What does this question even mean outside the context of goodness? What are you asking for evidence of? Is not your question evidence enough itself for you?

Differences in language and interpretation is what inhibits us sharing the concepts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rby5itnDloI

Chris, I don't know if you had opportunity or inclination to see that clip in my last post attributed to Einstein (I have not verified it), but my question is, if you care to answer, do you believe sin has independent existence?

Thanks!