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Tom, I remember thinking it was well put. I'll try to find the quote.
Sidenote -- I believe God absolutely wants us to have cookies. I said so in the eulogy for my grandmother.
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posted
Found it. In his letter Sadoleto used a form of Pascal’s Wager, stating as his basic premise for the argument “I presume, dearest brethren, that both you and I, and all else besides who have put their hope in Christ, do, and have done so, for this one reason, viz., that they may obtain salvation for themselves and for their souls”
Part of Calvin’s reply:
"It is not very sound theology to confine a man's thoughts so much to himself, and not to set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God.
…
“it certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul. I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with true piety who will not consider as insipid that long and labored exhortation to zeal for heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God.”
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dkw, I can see the similarities between Calvin's and my stances. I think there's a huge difference though, too. From a Biblical perspective, I think our differences hinge on our reaction to Ecclesiastes. Calvin pretty much agrees with the writer. I think that the entire book serves as an example of how empty the extrinsic life is. I think that may be a large part of why many Christians' descriptions of their morality or their conversion experiences makes me sad. It's like reading Ecclesiastes for me.
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I'm not sure I understand that last post Mr. Squicky. Probably because I don't think I've ever read anything about Calvin's interpretation of Ecclesiastes. Nothing that stuck with me, anyway. Could you explain a little more about what you mean?
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My response is probably more of a product of my own semi-fixation with Eclessiastes than of any focus of Calvin on it. I can't recall anything from him either.
Pretty much, my intepretation of Ecclesiastes is that it demostrates how empty the traditional way of living is. Happiness that comes from anything other than inside yourself is a transitory thing. To borrow language from humanistic psychology, happiness (I don't really like using happiness as a catch-all term for goodness either) can be seen as peaks or plateaus. Peaks can be exhilirating, but they are, by their very nature, transitory, both because they are based on changable external conditions and because of human beings drives to maintain a homeostatic state. A plateau, however, can only really come from a person's internal orientation. That's a really crude way of explaining it, but there you go.
Anyway, Calvin's philosophy, to me, fits in pretty well with my interepretation, up to a point. However, where I regard happiness and meaning to be only achievable by a person's internal orientation, Calvin believes that the meaning that transcends the Ecclesiastic outlook can only come from submission to God. For me, this is just another instance of denying the internal intrinsic orientation and the neccessary personal responsibility, while Calvin would regard my belief as no different from the vanity that the writer of Ecclesiastes mentioned.
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kat, Largely because most religious conversion stories that I've heard either take the form of people deciding between what seem to me to be unnaturally limited choices and accepting their choice unreservedly or as outgrowths of obvious psychological weaknesses.
I didn't mean that last as bad as it sounds. I should explain better. It's been my experience that there are two types of stories of this type, those revolving around addictions and irresponsibilty and those revolving around a desire for meaning. In both cases, it seems to me that, rather than deal with these problems head on, people are fleeing into a comfortable version of religion. Thus, the addict still maintains their addictive personality, they just turn it to religion. This usually leads to a much healthier way of living and can, over time, lead to a maturing and strengthening so that the person overcomes their weaknesses, but often the person is stuck at the same level of irresponsibilty, but never gets the "hitting bottom" reality check, and thus never actually faces the fact that they have a problem. And the person seeking for meaning often fills this void in large part by submerging themselves in something larger than themselves. If that's there is all to it, I don't really see the difference between that and submerging themselves in other fleeing responsibility search for meanings, such as joining a cult, celebrity worship, etc.
I believe that there are plenty of beautiful religious and spiritual experience and conversion stories out there. I fully accept that people have converted to various religions and I'm willing to accept their truths as valid, even when they explicitly contradict mine. However, just because some conversion are valid, doesn't mean that others, or parts of the valid ones, aren't manifestations of human psychological weaknesses.
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I hope that you can include the evidences of experiences that do not fit into your categories into the continual re-formation of your theory.
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quote:In both cases, it seems to me that, rather than deal with these problems head on, people are fleeing into a comfortable version of religion.
This only means that you have never had a conversion experience. For those who have, this statement is flawed in so many ways. I don't doubt there are people like this, but this only proves they have not gained a true conversion. Why? Not because religion, truely felt, leads to hiding or misdirecting problems. Rather, because religion ALLOWS them to deal with problems head on that they otherwise couldn't. It opens possibilities where all other considerations have been closed. True conversion doesn't contract, but expands the mind, spirit, and body toward many new avenues of growth. This is because we have learned to let go of our problems. Not that we don't have to face them, but that they are really relatively unimportant. That lessons the fear of the problems and gives greater hope that solutions can be found when faced. And if solutions can't be found, then their is no reason to dwell on them as some kind of crutch to happiness. I think you misunderstand the "hope" of conversion with repressed feelings. On the contrary. The feelings no longer haunt or disturb, or at least they are lessened.
Where you see conversion as hiding, the converted see as freeing.
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I'm not speaking from direct prophetic utterance here, but I think the LDS attitude toward Ecclesiastes is that the writer was kind of nihilistic. Or agnostic.
Just tonight I was reading a section (2n9, Jacob's lecture for you LDS) where it says the atonement covers all who sin in ignorance. This would seem to support Celia's thought that agnosticism is the way to go.
But it creates a conflict with Squicky's intrisic morality. (I realize Celia and Squicky are not necessarily coming from the same place but bear with me). For an agnostic to get the most efficient use from the atonement, they have to avoid moral teaching. And how do they know what it is in order to avoid it?
Anyway, wanting to be saved, even if it is in ignorance, is still an extrinsic motivation for being moral (or not moral, if you accept my postulate that it is one way to be saved.) So I guess I'm saying agnosticism is not consistent with intrinsic morality if there is an atonement.
I agree that it is easy to misunderstand Calvin. The rewarding of the elect with temporal blessings is one that we struggle with in the LDS church as well. Both by the haves and the have nots.
p.s. on conversion:
quote: outgrowths of obvious psychological weaknesses
This is called weak things being made strong. It's part of the whole point. But you are essentially right about the addictions. The very tendency that makes one a bad drunk can make one a good scriptorian.
I was deeply annoyed by Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. It was of no help to me in my own search for meaning, so I guess I can relate. Someone else's revelations cannot be conveyed in language without a desire on the part of the reader to experience their reality.
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I didn't say agnosticism was the way to go. I said Hobbes was doing a good job of saying that. I have none of the answers!
quote: For an agnostic to get the most efficient use from the atonement, they have to avoid moral teaching. And how do they know what it is in order to avoid it?
Do you think you could maybe explain that in small words or something? Is this a counterpoint to the arguement I wasn't making?
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Here's a snippet from a thread at Ornery that is pretty much what I'm talking about:
quote:Oh for sure! I'd have taken over the world multiple times by now. Seriously, if there is no higher power what is there to live for? Three things: money (material wealth), happiness (can be material wealth or a combination of things), or power. Power trumps all the rest. With power comes the rest in my opinion. I would spend my life in search of that if I didn't know that God had the ultimate power, that my quest for power will be fruitless before the eyes of God, and that pleasing God is the one true source of happiness and contentment in this world. Without God's peace, I would not be content, and when I'm not content, I make changes.
So if I got to choose, I'd say make me a universe which I can master. That's the greedy, lustful human side of me. Only through God's grace is my hateful energy sublimated.
Maybe it's just me, but, to me, the author sounds like a 15 year old boy who's having power fantasies because he can't get a girl. The big problem is, he thinks that his immaturity is the best he can do. As long as he holds onto this, I think his growth with be severely retarded.
Also, can't you just hear the "may as well try to catch the wind" setiment in there. I just get sad when I come across things like this.
pooka, I honestly can't understand how someone could be annoyed by Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Could you explain what it was that annoyed you? This is one of few instances where I say that I don't undertand and really don't understand. I'd like to understand.
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quote:However, just because some conversion are valid, doesn't mean that others, or parts of the valid ones, aren't manifestations of human psychological weaknesses.
Even conversion that are "manifestions of human psychological weakness" can be valid. The heart of Christian doctrine, for instance, is that humans cannot escape their desires without divine help. Christians believe that the divine help took the form of Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection.
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Dagonee, But that brings us back to Pelagius. If people can't do good without God's grace, then either God doesn't respect our free will or people don't have free will.
That is, I specifically don't want God's grace. I reject it, just like Planter rejected the descolada at the end of Xenocide. I will not be God's slave. If God makes me choose good, if I can't choose it on my own, than that's what I am. If I'm a slave, then I have no moal responsibility. It's only when I can choose for myself to do the right or wrong thing that I can be held accountable for my actions. I reject salvation by someone else's blood. I believe that it's my blood, and my blood alone, that contains my redemption.
Also, again in keeping with Pelagius, most Christian religions regard salvation as only available to people who follow their teachings. Thus, they're pretty much saying that all other people are unable to choose to do the right thing or do so without being saved. I think that the first option is patently ridiculus.
You're missing the point. Humans can't do it on their own, but they can choose to accept God's help to do so. And they can perform good acts of their own free will whether they've accepted his help or not. But they can't fulfill the original plan God had for us, which was lost during the Fall, without his help.
quote:The heart of Christian doctrine, for instance, is that humans cannot escape their desires without divine help.
It comes down to Pelagius and to meaning. I reject God's help. I don't want it. If my life has meaning, it will come from me, not from outside me. You're going to back to Calvin, where the only human virtue is submission and the only meaning is God's meaning.
edit: And yet, I accept full responsibility for my life. I think that I can overcome (not the word I would have chosen) my desires. I've been given many, many talents, and I expect to return at least as much from my efforts, not because God's going to check up on his investment and punish me if I don't have a high yeild, but because I think that it is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is a part of me, not part of some external thing that I'm being held to.
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By no means am I "going back to Calvin." The only human virtue is not submission, but submission, along with love, faith, hope, charity, et al. are necessary preconditions to human virtue and happiness. Don't oversimplify what I've stated, especially when I never suggested I was presenting a complete explanation of Christian belief.
Basically what you've just said gives lie to all your talk on all these threads about "mature" and "immature" thinking. Only you can give meaning to your life? Then only each of the Christians with "immature" beliefs you like to chastize can give meaning to their own life. The imposition of your term on their meaning is an attempt to project your meaning on their life.
You are of course denying the possibility that the nature of existence, including the nature of humanity, is such that human fulfillment requires submission to be complete. In other words, the possibility that a non-omnipotent/omniscient being cannot be happy/fulfilled/whatever-word-is-in-vogue without some form of submission to a higher authority.
Seems to me a God powerful enough to force people to act one way, yet allowing them to act in a different way, is not a very effective slave-driver.
"Oh, people converted because they had X psychological problem, so their conversion isn't valid." Please. People got to psychiatrists because they have X pshychological problem. Does that make therapy invalid?
quote:not because God's going to check up on his investment and punish me if I don't have a high yeild, but because I think that it is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is a part of me, not part of some external thing that I'm being held to.
Again, a complete misunderstanding of Christian doctrine, even of simplified Christian doctrine as it is commonly understood by Christians.
Edit: Christianity isn't about making people behave a certain way; it's about helping people develop into a certain kind of people. The kind of people who are able to partake in the eternal existence God created us for. Something in God's plan demands free will; Christianity is a means for helping people channel that free-will correctly.
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Dagonee, I made no statements about the meaning of other people's lives. I'm not competent to judge either their meaning or their truth. I'll freely admit that their meaning may be predicated on submission. I reject it for myself, not for anyone else.
I'm going to try and bring it down to some questions. 1) Can people have faith, hope, and charity without submission to God? If they are free to choose these things without God, what purpose does submission to God serve? Was Gandhi a good man or would he naturally have been a better man if he was Christian? Since he didn't submit to God, was he unable to achieve virtue or happiness?
2) Are you denying that heaven/hell considerations are a large part of Christian doctrine? Why do you perform the Act of Contrition? Isn't it because you "fear the loss of heaven and dread the pains of hell"? Don't some Christian sects teach that the state of your life on earth is partly determined by being rewarded or punished for their actions? Or that you can pray for something to happen and God might make it happen because of your prayer?
3) What is the purpose of salvation? If, without being saved, people can be good, than why should they want to be saved?
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Hobbes, I am actually more interested in your "Cousin Hobbes the Convert (Part 2)Spiritual Faith." Have anything about that, or was that your first one?
posted
Incidentally, I hold an Emmersonian view of Christianity and believe that I live my life pretty consistently with Jesus' teachings and with how they were presented in the Bible. I don't believe in the submission to spernatural or worldy authority that has formed that backbone of mainstream Christianity since at least the time of Constantine, but that doesn't mean I reject Christianity.
To give an example, I believe that Jesus' "I have given you an example" speech was referring more to his crucifixion than anything else. His life was an example and a call for us to walk in his footsteps. Thus, we must also be crucified (figuratively speaking) for our own redemption. This fits in with only my blood being good enough to merit my redemption.
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quote:1) Can people have faith, hope, and charity without submission to God? If they are free to choose these things without God, what purpose does submission to God serve?
This seems to apply here, so I’ll say it again: “Christianity isn't about making people behave a certain way; it's about helping people develop into a certain kind of people. The kind of people who are able to partake in the eternal existence God created us for. Something in God's plan demands free will; Christianity is a means for helping people channel that free-will correctly.”
Yes people can have these without submission. But as you’ve so often pointed out, people can have other virtues of Christianity without love, and this makes for a “worse” Christian. Submission to God’s will is the acknowledgement that something is owed to our Creator. He gave us the ability to act outside his will for some purpose. One of those purposes, I believe, is so that we can experience submission or obedience, something God himself had to perform several miracles to accomplish.
One of the reasons for the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection was so that God would have the experience in submission needed to help humans do the same.
You haven’t given any reasons why human beings do not need submission as part of their essential makeup.
quote:Was Gandhi a good man or would he naturally have been a better man if he was Christian? Since he didn't submit to God, was he unable to achieve virtue or happiness?
I don’t know. The Church acknowledges that Christ can offer salvation to people in ways not traditionally recognized by the Church. We don’t know he didn’t submit to God; we just don’t know the manner of submission, if any.
quote:2) Are you denying that heaven/hell considerations are a large part of Christian doctrine? Why do you perform the Act of Contrition? Isn't it because you "fear the loss of heaven and dread the pains of hell"?
No, I’m not denying Heaven or Hell. Some Acts of Contrition:
“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend You, my God, who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.”
“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In his name, my God, have mercy.”
“My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In his name, my God, have mercy.”
Every single one of them emphasizes that the primary reason for contrition is because we love God. Acknowledging the loss of Heaven is simple honesty in these prayers. It does not mean that is the sole, or even primary, reason for asking forgiveness.
Do you really have that hard a time understanding that Christianity is complex, and that there can be more than one reason for a different part of it? You are constantly setting up choices that don’t exist in your discussion of Christianity: “Love” or “Rules.” “Fear of Punishment” v. “Love of God” v. “Love of the Right.”
quote:Don't some Christian sects teach that the state of your life on earth is partly determined by being rewarded or punished for their actions?
Not any that I believe in; I told you I reject Calvinism. I believe God does intervene in human lives. I believe that God might perform a particular intervention in response to right or wrong actions of that person. But it’s not as a reward or punishment. God is freer to act in the lives of those who have chosen to submit to Him. Hobbes touched on some of the reasons in the metaphor you so casually dismissed.
quote:Or that you can pray for something to happen and God might make it happen because of your prayer?
I fail to see why this is related to the discussion. Are you saying the fact that God answers prayers somehow cheapens faith? Why would this be so?
quote: Incidentally, I hold an Emmersonian view of Christianity and believe that I live my life pretty consistently with Jesus' teachings and with how they were presented in the Bible. I don't believe in the submission to spernatural or worldy authority that has formed that backbone of mainstream Christianity since at least the time of Constantine, but that doesn't mean I reject Christianity.
To give an example, I believe that Jesus' "I have given you an example" speech was referring more to his crucifixion than anything else. His life was an example and a call for us to walk in his footsteps. Thus, we must also be crucified (figuratively speaking) for our own redemption. This fits in with only my blood being good enough to merit my redemption.
I don’t know how you live your life. But remember that Jesus submitted to the Crucifixion. He also spent 40 days fasting in the desert, and spent the last night before he died praying in the garden.
Have you chosen to only acknowledge the part of his example that relates to how to treat other people? Jesus said a lot of difficult things; it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he was either exactly what he said he was or a raving lunatic.
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Sorry about that Dag, I've been meaning to get back to this but I've been real busy. I'm only around now because I'm sick enough that I think I was doing negative amounts of work. However, I definitely owe you a response. I've started typing one out a couple of times a little while ago, but I couldn't seem to strike the right tone. I'll see what I can come up with tommorow.
One thing I want to put out there now is that I hope we're doing this in an air of mutual respect. I think you're a heck of an addition to this place. I intentionally took an antagonistic tone in a couple of places here to see if I could rattle your cage because I was pretty sure you could take it. You do seem to me to take a more negative impression from my stuff than I intend. I just wanted to make sure you know that I'm really not trying to be dismissive or malicious.
edit: Also, I was thinking, I'm not sure if you're seen Storm's humanism thread, but I think that a lot of my points on that thread speak to our disagreement here. You might understand me better if you give it a read.
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Never fear, MrSquicky, I think there's definitely mutual respect here. I read the Humanism thread, and think it is basically the flip side of the points being discussed here: that is, the dispelling of misconceptions about a belief system by those not holding the beliefs of the system. I think the misconceptions arise from looking at parts of each belief system in isolation from the whole; this is incredibly dangerous in Christianity. I would assume it's no safer in Humanism.
Looking back over things, one possible reason I may be taking things more negatively than you intend is that I can't tell if the incomplete picture of Christian beliefs you present in your posts represents your true conception of Christianity or is merely the portions you deem relevant to the discussion.
Any frustration I've felt has stemmed from my impression that you are presenting either/or (or either/or/or) choices that I don't think exist. Looking back, I'm not sure if that's your intent or not now. It is how I interpreted it at the time, though.
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You see, that's why I feel blind when I can't talk to someone face to face. I was trying to point out things I saw as weaknesses in Christianity and I was seeing you taking an apologist standpoint that none of these problems existed. I think it might be best if we sort of start again from fundamentals.
For the record, I think that I have a very complex view of Christianity. I was at one time a very devout Catholic. I think that I left the religion in large part because I believed strongly in the message and much less in the structure. Part of the problem was that I kept coming up with heretical ideas and, in studying Church history, I came to admire the heresiarchs and neglected thinkers much more than those whose works became canon. I certainly didn't leave because I hated the religion or even the people in it. I still have a lot of affection for the religion and I find it fascinating. I feel like there have been numerous times on the 'Rack where I've come in to correct people's misinterpretations of certain parts of Christianity or to provide a different context to see things in. I think that these have shown that I don't have a simplistic or extremely distorted conception of the religion.
I'm trying to keep talking about myself to a minimum, but I feel like I should explain the overriding context I'm approaching this from. Two of the central traits of my thinking about individuals and organizations are dynamics and relativism. Dynamics, as opposed to statics, is recognizing the systems are always in a state of flux and take a lot of their outward structure from the environment they express themselves in. This tends to lead to a concern with underlying motivations over their superficial expression. So, for example, rather than classifying someone as an extrovert or introvert, I'm more concerned with what they are expressing by their intro/extroversian. Relavatism is sort of the outgrowth of the scientific rejection of judging values. That is, science itself is supposed to only describe and not judge things. This isn't really possible in psychology, but at the very lesat it's important to understand that you make judgements with respect to what values you're imposing on them. The idea I'm trying to get at here is that I don't feel justified in criticizing the ultimate values that people are striving towards. Instead, I look at the general maturity - yes, that's a value judgement too, to an extent. sue me - of how they go about pursuing these goals. A good way of expressing this is that I try not to judge people on their opinions, on whether they agree with me or not, but rather on how they hold these opinions.
I'm sorry I'm doing such a bad job of explaining this. I don't think in words normally and this has been sort of like translating these ideas into a foreign language. Anyway, that was all a complicated way of saying that I focus on motives and don't necessarily judge outward expressions. So, I've more respect for a sincere Christian than for people believe like I do for what I think are immature reasons. Also, from a spiritual standpoint, I'm willing to recognize that my truth can be extremely different even contradictory from someone else's and yet both can still be valid. In a very real way, objective reality is made up of the union of our separate truths, and not their intersection. My job isn't to convince people to believe as I do, but to help them get past all the things that obscure their own truth.
That's the big reason that, like I said in the stuff that started all this, I am saddened by many of the conversion stories that I hear and by the attitude that many religious people take that people are inherently evil. I can't be sure (nothing is ever sure) but I feel strongly that these are often those types of psychological defenses that don't allow people to grow past them. They can protect against certain things (and protection is important), but they often trun from a sheltering house to a confining prision
As I said, I've studied Christian history and, from my perspective, Christianity has often been used to serve the worse and most unChristian aspects of human nature. I don't necessarily put this at the feet of "evil" people who manipulated the religion either. Rather, I think it's often because certain aspects of the religion have fostered an immature outlook in many of its adherents. That's not to say that these are necessarily bad ideas, only that the effect they had on people in a certain state was undesireable. For other people in other situations, they might be very useful and life-affirming. It's a rare belief or practice that can't cut both ways.
That's why I believe in honest criticism of systems. One honest critic with integrity is worth a thousand appologists in terms of the health of an organization.
One of my big criticisms of Christianity concerns the doctrine of original sin and of magic redemption. That's sort of what underlies a lot of the stuff in here and also in the Humanism thread as well as my respect for the Pelagian heresy. I think that this idea has tons of very harmful consequences and generally serves to distort truth. However, it fits in very well with the individualistic bent of our culture (aI'd say that the two are highly intermingled, with one causing the other and vice versa).
If you want, I can trace out how I think this leads to a culture that is both psychologically destructive and unChristian, but I've written a lot for one post as it is. To put it very breif, do you really think market capitalism is an honest expression of Christian values? Yet, it has been strongly identified with being Christian.
To put an end to this rambling, yes, I think that Christianity has a lot of strong points. Some of the best people I know are Christian. However, so are some of the most immature people I've met. Also, as I've stated many times now, studies consistently show that the majority of American Christians score worse on many measures of maturity than non-religious people. I believe that a lot of both the good things in the Christians I know and the bad things about Christians both historical and contemporary are bound up in the structure and teachings of the religion.
Like I was trying to get at before, there are plenty of people who are Christian largely because they want good stuff and don't want bad stuff and the Church, in a lot of their teachings, has encouraged this type of thinking. Also, like when the Curia issued a statement to the African churchs that using condoms causes AIDs, they are very concerned with regulating people's behavior.
I'm willing to recognize the many good things about Christianity, but I think it's more important to openly investigate the many bad things about it too. however, it seems to me that Christians, much like all other sorts of people, generally react to bad things in their religion with defensiveness and apologism and not with the zeal for truth that they should. For me, one of the most disheartening about the priest sex abuse scandal was the lack of rage on the part of Catholics. For me, they acted just like a beaurocry with a "Let's do the minimum we can to get this out of the public eye" attitude, instead of the air of betrayal that I expected. A lot of my hope in reforming society through stengthening religious commitment died during that scandal.
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I’m not quite sure if this is part of your problem with Christianity’s outlook on humanity Squicky, but I know others have this problem anyways so I’ll just go ahead and address it as best I can. The idea that some how all people are inherently evil.
I know different religions have different takes on this, and many of them undoubtedly will disagree with my take, but even if I only speak for myself, that’s still at least one person I’m representing.
People sin, they do. In my opinion that’s not from some predilection to do evil, but from a lack of perfection in one’s soul. A sin may be evil, and heck, a sinner may be evil too, but in my opinion most of the time they aren’t evil, or trying to do evil, they are merely not perfect.
I can understand why someone would resent it if I told them that what they do is not sufficiently good, because undoubtedly what it would sound like is I’m saying they aren’t good, which normally means they’re bad (evil). I know a lot of good people, they go through life with their understanding of morality and the world around them and try to do the right thing. I think they’re good, certainly better people than I am, but they are still not sufficiently good. They are not perfect. This isn’t something to be ashamed of, just like you wouldn’t think less of a 2 day year old child that was incapable of running a marathon, it’s just something to work on.
That’s how I see it, but the problem is most of the time believers and non-believers are speaking in completely different contexts. A non-believer would hear that since when they were little they stole someone’s pencil they’re now a bad person and resent it, seeing as how since then they’ve lived a righteous life (hyperbola, go with it ). Where as a believer probably means, you’re not perfect, flawed in some way, and though hopefully, after sufficient time you will become perfect (through work and effort), someone has to clean up for the mess you made while you working at it.
I’m not sure if I’m making sense but instead of trying again and just garbling it more and more I think I’ll leave it and let you ask for clarifications.
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Hobbes, I get what you're saying and I pretty much agree. If you check out the Humanism thread, I sort of address that there. I call this sort of thing maturity because it really isn't a matter of good and evil, I don't think, it's a matter of unfulfilled potential.
In my understanding, the doctrine of original sin doesn't allow for unfulfilled potential. The point is that people are unable to want to do good things without God's grace. Thus, to do good, you don't try to do good. You try to get God's grace, then you can do good things. But your aim should be Grace, not straight out doing good things.
A corollary of this is that people who aren't seeking God's grace, because, say, they're not Christian, are all evil. Even people who are Christian can't be trusted because they're going to do bad things as their default. I think hat this is more a case of a immature person projecting their own weaknesses into the world than a genuine truth about human nature.
Another corollary is that urges that come from inside yourself are only bad. I think this resulting in alienating your nautre (both good and bad parts) instead of integrating it and growing ad a person.
I remember a thread a while back where you mocked a teacher for telling you that a big part of releasing your creativity is to let go of constrained thinking. I think that sort of fits in with what I'm talking about.
People often seem to have a strange concept of what repression means. Repression doesn't mean feeling an urge and not acting on it. That's a much wider range of strategies and many of them are psychologically healthy. Repression is feeling an urge and then alienating the urge or even awareness of the urge from yourself. It's completely possible to handle an urge without directly expressing it. However, repression doesn't do this. In fact, the urge is still there, and you still act on it. You just are unaware that you are doing so or you feel a sense of guilt assosciated with it. You don't grow from your experiences when you repress.
posted
Then I think we're in agreement on this point, if I'm understanding you right. As I'm sure you're aware, the LDS Church does not hold orginal sin to be a true thing (Second article of Faith: We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgressions).
quote:I remember a thread a while back where you mocked a teacher for telling you that a big part of releasing your creativity is to let go of constrained thinking. I think that sort of fits in with what I'm talking about.
I think that was an edit in so I'm responding to it in a different post. First off, as I recall I wasn't quite as tolerant as I should've been, but I hope I wasn't mocking her.
I'm unclear though, how you think this comes in. I brought this point up a few times and went completely different ways with it so I think you'll have to refresh my memory as to what I was saying in that case because I made a few points about it, msot of which don't seem to relate to this discussion.
posted
I've got to come back to MrSquicky's post, but I need to respond to this, first: "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgressions."
This statement is not in opposition to the doctrine of original sin. Original sin is not the concept that we are being "punished" for Adam's sin. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that Adam's sin voluntarily removed him from the supernatural relationship with God he originally possessed. His descendents have inherited his state; Christ's atonement has corrected it.
I'm not saying LDS believe in original sin. I'm just saying the quoted statement is not the place in doctrine where that disbelief is articulated.
posted
/tangent You know in reading this dialogue I just realized that the doctrine of original sin and the ideas of humanities goodness is probably one of the things that turned both myself and several close friends off from the brand of Christianity with which we were raised.
I need to ask dkw when she's over her extreme twitterpation (I hope she stays twitterpated for the rest of her life, just not quite at the current levels) how "liberal" type christians view this doctrine.
Essentially the way it played out in our upbringing was that "everyone outside of the church is going to hell." I have heard dozens of times from my mother "yes, so and so is a nice person, it's a shame they are going to hell" and "there will be a lot of nice people in hell because they don't think they need God." These people were always the few people we had contact with as children in the course of daily life outside of the church and I know my mother some how thought by saying this she was "neutralizing" their influence on me, since I shouldn't accept the weight of anything they said since they were going to hell.
When we went off to college and we were confronted the reality of the numerous good, kindly wonderful people that not believe the exact way we were raised, it became obvious that there were flaws in the logic. Because this just doesn't jive with their own teaching that everything good comes from God. So "good people" who are "good" because only things from God are good, then going to hell, just doesn't quite add up in my mind.
Like I said, I wonder if the liberal christian theologians have this dilemma solved in a less exclusionary fashion. I seem to remember dkw saying something about redemption eventually applying to everyone.
quote:The point is that people are unable to want to do good things without God's grace. Thus, to do good, you don't try to do good. You try to get God's grace, then you can do good things. But your aim should be Grace, not straight out doing good things.
On a similar note, the doctrine of Original Sin states we are inclined to sin - not that humans can't commit good acts on their own or that they only want to commit sinful acts. It states that we cannot become the fully enabled people God created us to be without some additional help from God.
Since we couldn't exist without the original act of God, it doesn't seem outrageous that our true fulfillment can't exist without him either. The beauty of it is that we can choose the fulfillment - it is not forced on us.
Dagonee P.S., I'll reply to the rest later. Quick question though, does that post embody the response to my last post on the previous page as well?
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posted
Ohh I know Dag, I realizied that as I was typing but decided to put it in anyways, because it's the same type of idea. We aren't all tainted by something beyond our control is the message I saw in it.
quote:Like I said, I wonder if the liberal christian theologians have this dilemma solved in a less exclusionary fashion. I seem to remember dkw saying something about redemption eventually applying to everyone.
The Catholic position is that there is no salvation without Christ's action, but that we are not given to know all the ways that action occurs nor what forms it takes. So it's possible that people who do not consider themselves Catholic (or Christian at all) to be saved, but we don't know if/when it occurs. (I put the full quote in one of the Mel Gibson threads at some point).
It does not relieve us of our duty in the Great Commission to teach the gospel, so it's of limited practical effect to a Catholic.
posted
Hobbes, My recollection is that it was stronger than not being respectful enough, but hey, I could have gotten the wrong impression. Let's just make it an abtract case. If someone mocked a teacher for doing that, I'd think that it was an example of this. Warning: I'm an arrogant bastard. I could be wrong about everything that I'm going to say, but this is what I took from it.
The important part of this for me was the motivated misunderstanding of what the teacher was saying. The teacher was talking about loosing constraints as part of the process, but what was heard was loosing constraints was the process. She was talking about creativity, but what was heard was something along the lines of "You should let go of all constraints to do your assignments." This was clearly not what the teacher was expressing nor what the person reported that the teacher said. They were paying attention enough to repeat what the teacher said accurately, but their understaning of it didn't accurately reflect what she said. Thus, this was probably motivated misunderstanding, fueled either by dislike of the teacher or of the idea or a combination. Based on later comments, it seemed to me it was the idea that was threatening. So, I figured that it was a fear of loosing constraints that motivated the distortion.
I could be totally wrong that this is what was going on. But it is a common situation. That sort of fear of open-minded thinking is very prevelant in our society.
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posted
Dag, I guess it was the answer to the last post. I feel like we misunderstood each other so much at that point I didn't know how to go forward.
However, I think you're mistating the Catholic position. For one thing, salvation is much more circumscribed than you are making it. It is only through Baptism (by water, fire, or desire) that people can gain salvation and enter heaven. For example, babies who die without being baptized are going to spend enternity in limbo.
Also, the Pelagian heresey that I keep bringing up is that people can be good without grace, or their basic nature is not evil. This is contrasted with Agustine's doctrine of orginal sin. Pelagius is still considered a heretic and Augustine is still considered a doctor of the church. I think you're being more generous in interpreting the doctrine than is reasonable.
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posted
OK, I remember what you're talking about. Perhaps I wasn't specific in my thread but what she said was that your true self is who you are without the restraints that you enforce on yourself. That really gets to me, sorry.
posted
ehhhh...I've got my own set of filters too. I probably misunderstood.
In the context (I think it was an English class), I think that statement was out of line. It's not her job or her responsiblity to teach you what your true self is.
Creativity is a big thing for me. I've been trained in improv and I've found that, while trying to teach others, the biggest obstacle (other than fear of performing in front of people) is the inability to let go, trust yourself, and play in the moment. But, in the few instances where I've been able to help someone overcome this resistance the results are amazing. It's never failed to deeply affect the person. I'd fight for people to feel that sort of joy for it's own sake, let alone as part of a whole effort to change society for the better.
posted
I don’t think what I said was a distortion. From the Gibson thread I referred to:
quote:The Catholic Church does not teach that people outside the Church cannot obtain salvation. Gibson is wrong about this.
First, there are several Orthodox sects that are recognized as true descendents of the original Church, even though they reject the authority of the Peter.
Second, as the quote illustrates, salvation is obtainable by those "not formally and visibly membersof the Church." It also says we're not sure exactly how this works but it does emphasize such salvation is through the grace of Christ.
The document this comes from is DOMINUS IESUS, published by the Vatican with approval of Pope John Paul II in 2000.
The document does say several things which non-Catholics find tough to swallow:
Salvation is only possible through Christ and the Church. Note, it does not say whether the person has to express a belief in Christ - it just says salvation is a obtained through Christ's grace only. As explained above, Christ's grace works through the Church, so even a "non-Catholic" who receives salvation was somehow in communion with the Church.
Most non-Catholic Christian denominations are not "true churches." Basically this means that their lineage is not traceable straight through to Christ.
The preferred ("best") means of salvation is through full, active membership and participation in the Catholic Church.
Additional quote from the document provided by sndrake: "For those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, ’salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit.”
As for original sin, “according to Catholic theology man has not lost his natural faculties: by the sin of Adam he has been deprived only of the Divine gifts to which his nature had no strict right, the complete mastery of his passions, exemption from death, sanctifying grace, the vision of God in the next life.” (Original Sin). I don’t wish to understate the necessity of grace – it is absolutely and fundamentally necessary for salvation – no work can be completely, truly good without it, partly because no person can be fully in communion with God without grace, and no work can be truly, completely good without being fully in communion with God.
As for the requirement of baptism, the last method (desire) is what makes salvations outside full communion with the Church possible (but not preferred). I’m VERY hesitant to discuss it further here because desire is difficult, much more complicated than the word suggests, and not to be substituted for traditional exercise of the Sacrament.
As for unbaptized infants, I’ll let the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church speak for itself: "As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allows us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism." There is much disagreement within the Church about what state such infants are in after death. See this for more info.
Looking back, I realize it was misleading by being incomplete, although I don’t think inaccurate, especially in the presence of non-Catholics. Let me be clear – as a Catholic, I believe that the preferred (if you will) means of salvation is traditional baptism within the Catholic Church. However, it is possible to receive salvation through Christ’s grace in other forms, most easily in other Christian denominations and possibly in other forms. However, we are not given to know the requirements of such salvation nor how it is obtained, so there is “risk” involved in these non-preferred forms.
posted
Dag, I knew about that from Vatican II, but I hadn't realized that it had been incorporated into the Cathechism. That's cool. I was wrong.
I think I lost focus on Friday. I'd like to blame it on being sick, but I'm not sure it wasn't more because I was in attack mode. I still think you're overemphasizing the authority of these statements (I'm pretty sure that they are at the level of human suggestions rather than authoritative dogma and are strongly contradicted by the majority of Church tradition*), but I feel like that's going down the wrong path.
I would love for the Catholic Church to repudiate St. Augustine and his theory of original sin. It sounds to me like you would too, at least about the original sin part. Actually, it sounds to me like you think they already have. In large part, it seems to me that we are basically in agreement about the harmfulness of this doctrine. Where we disagree is that I think that it is a big part (I'd even say it's one of the guiding myths) of Christian thought in general and Catholicism in particular, and you disagree. I believe that many Catholics hold a view of original sin and of the inability of the unbaptized to enter heaven that is much closer to what I'm saying that what you are. Also, I think that this is a big part of their belief structure.
I think that it's the way I look at relative importance of beliefs that has led you to think that I'm throwing everything into an either/or structure. For me, belief systems can be classified by how much importance and attention people pay to it's various parts. The most important ones are those that win out in conflicts (e.g. the rules versus the love thing) and those that form the base state of thinking (e.g. posting the 10 Commandments instead of the "Golden Rule"). Thus, two people having the same basic beliefs but placing different priorities on the parts of this system can approach the world in very different ways. A lot of my criticisms of Christianity come from the way that I think it, both intentionally and unintentionally, steers people towards potentially dangerous ways of looking at things. That it supports Augustine over Pelagius and that it holders the Garden of Eden as one of the central myths are to me central pillars of an entire structure that leads people to hold the views of morality and human nature that I've been decrying.
It's not so much that I'm even saying that they shouldn't necessarily hold these views - that's not my place. It's more like I think that, if you are going to have certain strong beliefs, it's important to understand what possible effects they may have. It seems to me that far too many people are unwilling to consider that their beliefs may have negative as well as positive effects. That's why it bothers me so much when people's response to someone pointing out potential problems is a feverent denial that these problems could exist (I'm thinking of the 9/11 probes here, where the default response to someone saying that there might have been something wrong with the way that either Presidents Bush or Clinton handled things has become a partisan football with one side denying and the other attacking, instead of a way of looking at how we could better our security systems).
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* - I'm not trying to weenie out of that discussion. I think it would interesting, if you want to continue it. I just didn't want to get off on that tangent.
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quote:I believe that many Catholics hold a view of original sin and of the inability of the unbaptized to enter heaven that is much closer to what I'm saying that what you are. Also, I think that this is a big part of their belief structure.
That is not at all consistent from what I learned from my mom or CCD classes or sermons. What I heard was consistent with what Dagonee said. And my mom went to a very conservative school taught by bitter nuns, so most of what she taught me tends to be conservative. Especially since my mom went blind during college and has pretty much remained fixed on the conservative/sheltered teachings she had learned prior to that.
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posted
See, I thought the whole reason Catholics found it so important to save an ailing baby, even if the mother died, and the whole reason they had a priest pray over you when you were on your deathbed, and the reason suicide was a moral sin, was that if you died with even a SPOT of sin on your soul, you couldn't get to heaven -- so that if you had sinned since being shriven, you were basically headed to hell until your next confession. And since babies were born with sin, re: Augustine, it was vitally important to have a priest present at the birth.
Clearly, at some point, American Catholics stopped thinking this way. But what prompted the change?
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posted
Theologians admitted they couldn't know what God would decide, sometime during/after Vatican II.
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quote:See, I thought the whole reason Catholics found it so important to save an ailing baby, even if the mother died, and the whole reason they had a priest pray over you when you were on your deathbed, and the reason suicide was a moral sin, was that if you died with even a SPOT of sin on your soul, you couldn't get to heaven -- so that if you had sinned since being shriven, you were basically headed to hell until your next confession. (emphasis added)
Tom,
This has never been the teaching of the Church. I don't have time for a big explanation, especially since I owe Suicky a detailed reply. This link is probably more than you want to know, but it is only mortal sins that remove sanctifying grace from the soul. Venial sins do not.
The Church has never believed unbaptized children go to Hell - the prevailing thought was limbo, which was basically as much hapiness as a person could get without experiencing the beatific vision of God. Throughout it's history, the Church has acknowledged it did not know - Limbo was a theory that was accepted as not being inconsistent with Church doctrine.
posted
Yeah Dag, I'm feeling fine. I went out running again today for the first time in a while, Whoo boy it was nice...and really really painful.
I've been keeping away from this thread so that I didn't throw anything more onto the pile for your response, but I get antsy, so I do.
I did want to respond to Tom to say that Dag's totally right that there's never been anything in the Catholic Church about going to hell if there's even a little bit of sin on your soul.
Of course, I'm gonna have to disagree about the unbaptized babys going to hell thing. Even a cursory look over St. Augustine shows that this was in fact the accepted position for a long while. In fact, even though there were different factions about this through much of Church history, it was only sometime after St. Thomas Aquinas' disagreement that the stance was officially changed. There was a whole big thing about theologians distinguishing between Augustine's personal authority versus the Church's authority on his thought. It was a really interesting time, I think anyway. Here's a link about the development of thought about the post-mortem fate of unbaptized children.
edit: Here's another that places the Augustinian view in context as bein opposed to the Pelagian one.
edit again: Theca, That's fine. I'm cool with that. Here's the thing. I'm a veteran of 12 years of Catholic schools and that is exactly what they taught me as well as every other catholic school student in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I'm not just making this stuff up.
posted
BTW, was there ever a Part 2 to this thread that I just didn't see and doesn't come up on Search?
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quote:I need to ask dkw when she's over her extreme twitterpation (I hope she stays twitterpated for the rest of her life, just not quite at the current levels) how "liberal" type christians view this doctrine.
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