Effective Prayer

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I don't agree with your arbitrary dichotomy. Some people see the universe as a manifestation of divine consciousness rather than as a creation of divine consciousness, a subtle distinction but important for my meaning of meaninglessness to be understood. If God is acting all the parts of everyone and everything instead of being thought of as something separate, it changes the interpretation. I don't subscribe to the idea of God as an old man with a white beard sitting on a golden throne.I see hints of Hinduism even in Christianity, when one speaks of the Christ within each of us.

Two short articles I wrote in the "Philosophy" section of my web site are relevant to my explanation if you want to better understand what I'm trying to say. Of course I could be wrong, I freely admit that right off the bat!

The first is called Meaning of Life.

The second is Ye are gods about a Hindu interpretation of the Christian Bible.

It's a nice thought but considering the size and ferocity of the dynamics of the universe and the insignificance of this particular solar system I can see no inherent beneficence overall. Life has to struggle very hard to remain in existence within the ever present attempts of the universe to destroy it and, at the moment it seems to be doing very badly indeed.

I don't see the universe actively trying to destroy life. Rather I see life as an expression of the universe. Lol that I wasn't quick enough to edit my last reply before you found it and replied to it. I was unable to sleep and logged back on to delete that post!

If the book of Job can be seen as teaching us that the universe is glorious nonsense, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. It's more like the Hindu idea of the universe at play. There's at least one place in the Christian Bible, I forget now exactly where but can edit this post later if I remember (I think in Proverbs) where it is hinted that even the Christian God basically made the universe for kicks, for giggles. In general though, Western religions are very somber and sorely lack humor. Humor is something I greatly appreciate in philosophies such as early Chinese Taoism and Japanese zen Buddhism.

I do agree that the book of Job does make God look like a sadistic bastard. There are other parts of the Bible that bother me more, such as when we are commanded to be happy as we smash babies against the rocks (Psalms 137:9). Also, if God is the Creator of everyone and everything, then ultimate responsibility for anything and everything that happens in it is HIS fault and nobody else's. It's also hard to trust one's soul to a book that is so riddled with contradictions. I am amazed that anyone can claim there aren't contradictions in the Bible, when there are SO many!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk[/youtube]

@TheBicyclingGuitarist

The doctrine of Biblical literalism is an offshoot of the doctrine of divine inspiration of the scriptures; it is not necessary to believe in either to be a Christian. As to your referencing of the psalms, of all the books and the Bible, it is the one that they should be taken the least literally; since it is poetry. It is often cited, that many critics put a high premium on literalism when in fact most Christians do not have this view.

Often people who just want to ridicule the beliefs of others, such as "literalism", will take the term "literalism" hyper-literally and then go mocking pretending that anyone who would consider the Bible to contain at least some degree of historical fact must also not accept the existence of anything except pure prose.

True

Absolutely.

According to Christ "we are all sinners". So all prayer coming from anyone older than a small child is coming from a sinner so this guy's prayers would be neither more nor less effective than anyone else's.

Concise and to the point.

I'm not one to ridicule anyone's beliefs. I do speak up when some people try to force their beliefs on everyone else's children and they parrot PRATTS (points refuted a thousand times) they got from their preacher or from lying websites such as Answers in Genesis. For the most part these are well-meaning but badly misinformed people.

There are some places in the Bible that mention people and places known from other sources, but that doesn't necessarily validate the Bible. The Harry Potter books mention London but that doesn't make them true stories. Trying to make religion into science, or redefine science as religion, is what bothers me about what the fundies are doing in this country. If they would stop trying to dumb down our children, I would not be so vocal about my opinion of the theological and other flaws of that style of interpretation.

" dumb down our children?"

ANYBODY who turns education into socialization and factspouting - whatever the RULES are and wherever the FACTS come from - is dumbing us down. It is incredible - that is to say, it would be incredible if I had not seen it all my life - how much of even "higher" education is kindergarten songs with gestures and spitback.

There is still some real education and the few who really want it and who really need it can kill the guardian of the 7th Level and find the House of Wisdom - but most just walk out of the 3rd level with a diploma and a certificate of Good Citizenship.

Blame all the religions, not just the ones that include a god.

Neither are we, look around you will find occasions where theists have complained about the same things that you are.



The New Testament is the best attested work from the ancient world. More often than not, the opposite is true, the Bible is used to validate other sources. One particularly glaring moment I can think of people trying to deny the accuracy of the Bible was by Hector Avalos, an atheist philosopher, who while denying its validity in debate, based a large amount of his historical research into ancient medicine on the NT.

It depends what you're talking about. That the New Testament exists is definitely true, some of what it claims maybe less so. For example, some of the outside sources about the historical existence of Jesus are known forgeries of earlier documents by later Christian apologists. "Lying for Jesus" has been going on a LONG time.

The way I interpret the Bible, and of course I only speak for myself and I could very well be wrong, is that it doesn't really matter whether or not Jesus ever existed as a historical personage in order to follow the teachings of surrendering one's ego to God. But of course that is not the mainstream interpretation. The big danger is mistaking when one inflates one's ego instead of deflating it. I read the Bible and clearly see Jesus teaching us the exact same message as Buddha taught, although of course Buddhists eschew any labels or concepts because they can lead to confusion, people mistaking the map for the territory. I am not the first nor the only one to see this, but again it is not the mainstream Christian interpretation.

@TBG

I think the history supports a statement a good deal stronger than that one. If you are interested in some information on the subject. I would recommend reading something by NT Wright or William Lane Craig on the resurrection.