Bombadil

Originally posted by Bombadil
Anybody else up for a good theological discussion? Agreement, disagreement, strenuous argument, and skeptical questions are all welcome. . .

Originally posted by Rowan
Ok somebody is getting their wish I have been sucked in... Aww, participation is strictly voluntary, but thanks for weighing in

Christians have also been responsible for the destruction of entire belief systems and the destruction of entire peoples.
Quite true. But that is true of many other groups. As I indicated earlier, faiths oftern take on the character of the people who hold them, rather than the other way around. Just because a certain person or group calls itself Christian doesn’t make it so. The Ku Klux Klan comes quickly to mind. . .

Today in our Christianity we have almost destroyed our natural resources
An important point, one that I feel pretty strongly about. If we take the Bible seriously, man is required to be a wise steward of God’s creation, not a despoiler of it. Once again, people put their stamp upon the faith, rather than the other way around. Or, as Mark Twain (a frequent critic of Christianity) once remarked, “God created man in His own image, and man, being a gentleman, returned the compliment.” The thing to remember is that the evil actions of some non-genuine “Christians” is no reason to condemn the genuine article. Your extended discussion of the treatment of the indigenous American people comes under that heading. A whole lot of injustice was done. But if you read your history carefully, you will see that some of the people protesting the loudest against such injustice were Christians who took their faith seriously, as opposed to those who just assume that because they were born in America, or Canada, that they were automatically Christian.

There is a Christian church here in Vancouver that will feed those stranded on the street who are hungry and homeless the only catch is that if they want to eat and sleep in a warm place they have to listen to a sermon. That sounds a lot like blackmail to me! Why not spread the word so to speak by modeling not blackmail.

This is a very frequent complaint against the “gospel mission” model, and I happen to think it has some validity.

Darwin’s belief of “survival of the fittest” went through many revisions over the years and publications of his theory yet for some reason we only ever seem to quote the original version and not the amended versions.

Well, you are quite right about my statement being a simplification. I do know a bit more about Darwinism than that, and I assume most of our readers do, too, even if the general population is less clear on the concept. But I think you might agree that the catch phrase “survival of the fittest” is widely accepted (though not universally, of course). There was even a time when the phrase “Social Darwinism” was accepted as a good thing (we have progressed beyond that, thankfully.) So I was commenting on that particular idea.

and the universe itself does not care who wins and who dies because impersonal matter cannot care about anything.
I’m not sure why you feel they are mutually exclusive or why living beings don’t care about anything in this version of the world.

Oh, I’m just commenting on the logical consequence of a popular idea. Some people, especially some of higher intelligence and with a greater awareness of scientific knowledge, say they believe that the universe is ultimately nothing but the interaction of matter, energy, time, and chance. Yet they don’t actually live as though they believed that. They live as though the universe actually does have meaning, even though they say it doesn’t (or they say that meaning is only a creation of the conscious observer, not inherent in the universe itself). Christianity postulates that there is a Creator and that the universe therefore does have actual meaning, not just imaginary meaning. I believe that just because I say that the universe has meaning doesn’t make it so, but if there is an actual Creator, then the universe does have meaning whether I personally believe it or not. I guess that is just a long-winded way of saying that I believe in objective truth, not merely subjective truth.

Am I “proselytizing” for my faith? Naw, I don’t think so. Just talking about what I care about. Plus I like the often-used description that a Christian is like a beggar who has found bread, and is eager to let other people know where it can be found. Anybody who’s not hungry doesn’t have to come, but there are lots of spiritually hungry people in the world. . .
And for those of us who are not spiritually hungry and know where the “food” is if we ever get hungry why the need to constantly tell us? Why knock on my door every Sunday or stand at the sky train entrance with magazines that spell out the immanent end to mans immortal soul if we don’t change our wicked ways?

I guess for the same reason that some people can always be counted on to tell you that you aren’t eating healthy food, or that you should quit smoking, or that you should exercise more. Or that you are a cretin if you think that BSG2003 was good/wasn’t good. Some people just can’t stand knowing that there are other people in the world who don’t agree with them. Some of those people are Christians, most are not. Me? I prefer to talk about the positives, make the best case for my faith that I can, and always pursue an honest exchange of ideas while respecting the other person’s right to disagree with me.

yes I know this had nothing to do with BSG
Oh, sure it did! That’s why I started this thread! And a café is a place to sit and chat about all kinds of things. When I was in college, some of my favorite times were spent arguing with classmates about theological issues. Sometimes I would change my mind because of new evidence, sometimes I would persuade the other guy, and sometimes nothing would change, but the discussions were always stimulating and useful. Thank you for challenging me. Obviously we have only just begun to scratch the surface here, and we can either go deeper, or let it drop. But I’m game to continue if Rowan or anybody else wants to continue.