How can we get rid of our sinfulness?

[MikeyDB]

An alternate belief.

How about the “belief” that mankind as species harbors both the biological imperative to survive regardless of the “costs” involved and a capacity for self-destruction in the name of many different notions, situations, circumstances etc… simultaneously?

How about the “belief” that mankind chose to mythologize this internal conflict between the imperative to survival at any and all costs and his preparedness to self-destruction in the name of……?

This mythology of god and recipe/menu of ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ behaviors hasn’t throughout human existence exercised even sufficient influence to prevent its most holy of practitioners from committing grievously in-humane acts upon others. It simply doesn’t work!

If you’re the kind of person that has to feel the railing before you’d believe the “Wet Paint” sign or choose to question the wisdom of your politicians and your government in sending killers to annihilate barbarians (and of course their wives children and family) in the name of PEACE, then what you have to confront is the reality of the situation as presented….or you could of course “believe” some myth or other that the innocent don’t deserve the mercy of your kind loving tolerant compassionate and forgiving god.

The scary part is that it doesn’t matter what form or lunatic expression of some particular god-mythology you choose to embrace, everyone can find any number of reasons in their “beliefs” that exonerate them from responsibility for their actions in killing in the name of their “god”.

A ‘standard’ rebuke to the “faith” argument often cited is the brutality of atheist regimes…communism of both the Soviet and the Chinese variety…

Maybe in these postmodern days of glorious consumption and willing ignorance someone could come up with the tally regarding which perspective has been responsible for the greater number of dead innocents…

There is no “advantage”Look 3467 unless you mean the “Father forgive me for I have sinned….”… “pay your penance…go…and sin no more”…that’s so popular with the Catholics…

As if there weren’t enough “differences” in skin color and gender, tropical and northern….blonde haired and blue eyed….short dark and swarthy….it became necessary to create the ineffable relativism of mythology to plant nurture and harvest hatred….

You have yourself a Merry Christmas friend but I’ll keep watching my back for the self-righteous do-gooders motivated by unicorns and faeries…subscribing to belief mythologies. You know the kind that good Baptists use to be…get out of church early enough to attend the lynching of black slaves in the town square…or perhaps the life savings of an elderly person convinced by Jim Bakker or Swaggart that you can buy your redemption by sending in your cash….

Good thing all these “believer” credos have going isn’t it!

Someone here at Canadian Content felt I needed to be reminded that; “Hey America was attacked you know!” in legitimizing years of war and the destruction of countless lives in the name of “terrorism”….

This was someone whose currency reads “In God we Trust” and who’s government avows a separation of church and state….but whose military chaplains blessed us all before we set about killing in the name of preventing the spread of communism….

Such horsxhit!

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Evil is resident within every living body as part of the nature of things, i.e. pride, jealousies, greed and selfishness.

What keeps those things in check?

Well, in some people they're not kept in check, but fortunately that seems to be a minority. Unfortunately, it's not generally the people in power who have them in check... but that's another subject.

What keeps them in check is the knowledge of consequences, which goes back to our nature as social creatures, the recognition of the need to cooperate, and our common emotional responses. You don't need to postulate some anthropomorphic deity to keep them in check.

 

[L Gilbert]

I’ve been following this thread with considerable interest since Sanctus started it, and thinking about the various things people have written, without feeling I had much to contribute to it, but I’m going to try out a little essay here and see what happens. Seems to me we have essentially three kinds of contributors here: the true believers, doubters who aren’t sure if there’s anything of substance here and aren’t ready to come down on either side of the fence, and atheists. I count myself among that last group, as most of you know, so the question in the thread title--how can we get rid of our sinfulness?-- strikes me as essentially meaningless, because sin is a concept rooted in religious belief, of which I have none. But the source of moral values and the meaning of good and evil are things even atheists need to address, if they’re going to make any claim to intellectual honesty.

Well, for me "sinning" is simply doing something that causes someone else grief. I simply don't like doing things that are harmful to others. Religion and faith have nothing to do with it. It is very simple for me to avoid doing anyone else harm, I simply refuse to do it.
Infants don't sin simply because they are almost absolutely incapable of harming anyone else.

The theistic assumption is that morals require an ultimate source that must be outside of human beings. Essentially it’s a belief that a lawmaker is required for every law, but logic compels us to ask, what is the source of the lawmaker’s values? Another lawmaker? And what is the source of that lawmakers values? Logic produces an infinite regression, and it’s completely arbitrary where anyone chooses to stop it. Assuming the need for a lawmaker outside of human beings doesn’t solve the problem it’s intended to solve.

The real prompter of moral behaviour is something in human nature that operates at a deeper level than theological belief. Buddhists and Jainists, for instance, as that little essay I linked to previously indicates, are non-theists, and don’t think anyone could credibly argue they’re uniquely immoral because of that, or even that I as an atheist am uniquely immoral. Laws, both written and unwritten, and the sanctions for transgressions, are really the result of a social process. Humans are fully capable of setting up systems of rules and functioning within them without recourse to divine fiats. There is no good or evil in the absence of living creatures with competing needs, and we make up our own rules to deal with that.

yeah, morals and laws are simply constructs of whichever society develops them. They can be declared as in dictatorships and some religions, voted upon as in democracies, etc.

 

[MikeyDB]

Congratulations Dexter you're far more willing to moderate your criticism and exercise diplomacy than I.

Above all else I'm a realist as opposed to a pragmatist...

These "faiths" preach tolerance and forgiveness....ostracize women and gays....applaud the disappearance of the death penalty and establish complex rationalizations in support of behavior that their own doctrines and dogma decry...

What seems to have been forgotten along the way is that respect is earned it isn't automatically granted nor is it indicative in any respect for life or for existence itself to cloak yourself in a fantasy of dubious credibility exercised as justification for moral "preference"...

 

[L Gilbert]

MickyDB

I am talking about the differances between believers and non-belivers.

I am not saying that non-belivers don't have heart.

The advantage I sought was for the peace of mind: a communion with a God of plentifulness, a God of Love that can only deal with mankind's hearts.

Evil is resident within every living body as part of the nature of things, i.e. pride, jealousies, greed and selfishness.

What keeps those things in check?

Peace>>>AJ

Yeah, everyone has the potential to do harm. What keeps me from doing nasties is my willpower (and laziness ).

Mike, some of us do not display acrimony towards faiths because they are not intended to do harm. As Sanc said, it is the people within the faiths that are the culprits.

 

[MikeyDB]

Let me tell you something about yourself, and of course about me and everyone else for that matter….

Our capacity for love is unlimited.

Unlike our capacity for hatred fear and anger, love has no limits nor does it demand self-sacrifice.

Hate anger and fear can impede our availability to love and can sometimes consume us.

Love is always and forever.

I didn’t need “god” to teach or tell me this, I only had to understand why I cry when I’m sad or hurt and why I cry when I’m overcome with joy and happiness.

“god” can’t teach or tell you about love, that notion can only reveal a sliver of the love we are each capable of experiencing….

Love requires no learning it only requires the abandoning of self-imposed and self-sustained anger guilt and prejudice.

Love is far simpler than hatred.

 

[look3467]

Let me tell you something about yourself, and of course about me and everyone else for that matter….file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/OWNER%7E1.ABE/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif

Our capacity for love is unlimited.

Unlike our capacity for hatred fear and anger, love has no limits nor does it demand self-sacrifice.

Hate anger and fear can impede our availability to love and can sometimes consume us.>>>MickyDB

Micky, you are saying the right stuff there by which I can agree.

I must add though, that love is only born in the arena of the undesirable attributes of evil.

The greatest demonstration of love was and is under test against those conditions.

Love is always and forever.>>> MickyDB

And yes, I agree that love is forever.

I didn’t need “god” to teach or tell me this, I only had to understand why I cry when I’m sad or hurt and why I cry when I’m overcome with joy and happiness.

God teaches us that within us lay both the ability to do good or to do evil.
Life teaches us the same thing, by rewards and punishments.

In your view, life has thought you that good is preferably the better, and that evil is no good thing.

But you also have the in bread-capacity to love. For even an executioner knows how to love his own children.

But a Godly type of love is of a different sort.

It requires one to love, one who has done us evil by forgiving them.

Can we do that, which is required?

If we can, then we have a Godly type of love of which God is.

“god” can’t teach or tell you about love, that notion can only reveal a sliver of the love we are each capable of experiencing….

God has demonstrated love, but we don’t see it.

Love requires no learning it only requires the abandoning of self-imposed and self-sustained anger guilt and prejudice.>>>Micky

Here where we differ, love is not love unless it is tested.

Love is far simpler than hatred.>>>Micky

Try loving some one who is beating on you, and tell me how hard is it.

Peace>>>AJ

 

[selfactivated]

How can we get rid of our sinfulness?

I got the purrrrrrrrfect answer..............

you dont cause its a ......somebody made it up.........its pretend..........parents thought it up to keep kids in line see!

 

[sanctus]

I must add though, that love is only born in the arena of the undesirable attributes of evil.

The greatest demonstration of love was and is under test against those conditions.

I'm not sure I understand you AJ. Must love be tested to be valid? I would not think so, in all circumstances.

God teaches us that within us lay both the ability to do good or to do evil.
Life teaches us the same thing, by rewards and punishments.

In your view, life has thought you that good is preferably the better, and that evil is no good thing.

Good is always better, in all circumstances. The problem is, some of us do not seek the good, especially when we are after our own self-interests.

Try loving some one who is beating on you, and tell me how hard is it.

Peace>>>AJ

And yet, I have ministered to people who do love the person beating them. Somehow they overlook the physical pain. It actually boggles my mind, but I have encountered this many times already in my ministry. Mind you, psychologically I can offer a million reasons why they feel this way, but in truth people who do really do make me shake my head.

 

[sanctus]

Sounds like you're being exclusionary sanctus.

I don't like that about organized religion.

I don't believe there is only one church who has the truth.

I always find the term "organized religion" odd, for some reason, wondering what the opposite would be-"un-organized religion" I assume?

However, to a certain point the Church is exclusionary. It is for members only, in many respects. You have the choice as an individual to become a member of the Church or to remain outside of the Church.

As to the truth of God, it exists all over the world. His message is in many languages and the Church celebrates the goodness in others that we believe arises through God, even if the people are unaware of that fact.We reject nothing that is true.

 

[sanctus]

so are you kinda saying the proestants are sinning because they're not catholic? or is it that they are like cults in your eyes? why would you diss their theology?

I am not "dissing"(hate that word by the way) anyone's theology. Nor am I suggesting that protestants are sinning because they are not Roman Catholic.

There are levels of faith, obviously. We believe, based on the history and theology of the Church, that the Catholic Church is the fullness of the Christian faith. We understand that Christ however, is present in all Christian denominations because He indicated He exists where-ever anyone uses His name.

Certain protestant theories are, simply put, incorrect and based on assumption. We reject those, but not necessarily the various communities they arise from.

 

[sanctus]

......... but not all of mankind, only some. The majority of the rest get the message from elsewhere. There's a few that miss the message entirely, unfortunately.

Perhaps, but that does not change the veracity of the Scriptures as being the story of God's relationship with His people.

Frankly, there's more than a few that miss the message in the Church:-(

 

[sanctus]

lol
Again with the fact thing. An unsubstantiated claim cannot be a fact. There is no evidence for the existence of Yahweh or Yeshua. There is a lot of rumor and hearsay, but nothing else. I could just as validly claim that the existence of the tooth faerie is fact.

In the end, anything we encounter relies on the individual. Thus, it is not unsubstantiated to me, and therefore, God is a fact, for me.

 

[selfactivated]

lol
I could just as validly claim that the existence of the tooth faerie is fact.

*looking up at avatar and humming*

 

[sanctus]

I think Sanc was referring to certain of their interpretations of their theology, not the theology itself.

Thank you, yes that is correct. There are many elements to allot of protestant communities that I enjoy. I especially like watching and reading material from a Dr. Kennedy, for example. Some others, however, are so far out in left field with their theology that I can find little evidence of Christianity in their overall message. What comes to mind here are those charlatans who believe in this odd thing called the "prosperity gospel", or those out and out nutbars who run around healing everything from an ingrown toe-nail to cancer. Not that I discount that God can heal people from time to time, just that I doubt very much that He does so every Sunday morning on a TV programme as if healing was some sort of a circus sideshow. Those people seem NOT to get the message, considering that even Jesus did not have "healing programmes." Yes, from time to time it is recorded He healed various people, but He was also quite insistent that that was NOT His reason for coming to earth as man.

But I digress, sorry. There is much we have in common with protestant communities, and on those grounds I celebrate those things we share.

 

[sanctus]

Our capacity for love is unlimited.

Unlike our capacity for hatred fear and anger, love has no limits nor does it demand self-sacrifice.

Hate anger and fear can impede our availability to love and can sometimes consume us.

Somewhat true, but i am afraid that our capacity for doing evil and living in fear is also unlimited. The difference is in how we CHOOSE to actualize that which God has put inside of us.

 

[look3467]

I'm not sure I understand you AJ. Must love be tested to be valid? I would not think so, in all circumstances.>>>Sanctus

I go by the example of the walk of Jesus. The Father’s express image of what love is.

Here we have a like man in the flesh, subject to all the lusts of the flesh, and yet His love for the Father is above all that the flesh can not be.

How do we know?

If I understand creation, the Father Himself must save us from ourselves.

The ability to have lusts of the flesh is a creation of the Father, for He made it as a playing field.

Then He subjected us to it.

Jesus then was tempted in all points and by the Fathers presence in Him, He overcame them all in our behalf.

His love was tested and found pure and true in the field of adversity, for only God in Him could have met the standard.

What good is light when there is only light to compare it with? Just a thought.

Peace>>>AJ

 

[sanctus]

These "faiths" preach tolerance and forgiveness....ostracize women and gays....applaud the disappearance of the death penalty and establish complex rationalizations in support of behavior that their own doctrines and dogma decry...

The Church ostracizes no one who seeks admission to her. your assumption is incorrect. Women play a vital role in the lifeblood of the Church, and always have. A homosexual person is never ostracized from the Church. No one ever is. What is ostracized are the sins of homosexual behaviour, as is is all sexual behaviour outside the boundaries of marriage.

What seems to have been forgotten along the way is that respect is earned it isn't automatically granted nor is it indicative in any respect for life or for existence itself to cloak yourself in a fantasy of dubious credibility exercised as justification for moral "preference"...

Can we not justify our moral preferences? Must the church succomb to the whims of people outside its membership? It seems to me that the loudest voices crying for the Church to relent on its doctrines are those outside of it.

 

[sanctus]

You have yourself a Merry Christmas friend but I’ll keep watching my back for the self-righteous do-gooders motivated by unicorns and faeries…subscribing to belief mythologies. You know the kind that good Baptists use to be…get out of church early enough to attend the lynching of black slaves in the town square…or perhaps the life savings of an elderly person convinced by Jim Bakker or Swaggart that you can buy your redemption by sending in your cash….

Good thing all these “believer” credos have going isn’t it!

Someone here at Canadian Content felt I needed to be reminded that; “Hey America was attacked you know!” in legitimizing years of war and the destruction of countless lives in the name of “terrorism”….

This was someone whose currency reads “In God we Trust” and who’s government avows a separation of church and state….but whose military chaplains blessed us all before we set about killing in the name of preventing the spread of communism….

Such horsxhit!

Indeed. So if Parliament has some corrupt members, do we surrender the entire system of government? Do we blame the parliamentary system because the Prime Minister or members of his cabinet do unsavory things?

You display the same ignorance that many people display when it comes to the Church by condemning the whole for the actions of SOME of its membership. Bakker and his ilk, well, they weren't in the Church anyway so it is of little concern to me what they did or didn't do. I only mourn that what they did do they claim is in the name of God. Note that I wrote THEY claim.

Any man can use any label to define his evil. Using the Church to justify evil actions has always been popular, but I submit to you that often these actions are contrary to the faith and to Church doctrine.

You might be interested to know that historically speaking the Christian community was chiefly responsible for ending slavery in the United States.It certainly wasn't through any other channel that the rights of black people were championed at the time. That is but one example in which the Church, living by the credo of the Gospel, has effected real and actual change.

 

[sanctus]

I said defy the things mentioned in the commandments, such as killing, committing adultry, etc. I have no beef with the commandments, or the cardinal sins either, for that matter.

My apologies, I misunderstood you. However, raises a question from me, if you will. Are you CERTAIN you approve of the Commandments? I ask because the first few deal specifically with honouring and loving God.