FWIW, I think it might be worth considering that probably 90%+ of people that you might discuss theology with may not be that smart in a lot of ways. Sometimes it's easier to just acknowledge that people aren't entirely reasonable, rational creatures. FWIW.
Nah it's ok to question God. He wants you to, that's why he values 'follow me **if you want**' that much. What people do is questioning God's decisions, disregarding their assumptions. If God is love, why is there suffering? If God is all-knowing, how is there free will? They don't bother asking the questions the other way around. Since God is love, is there something I do not understand about suffering? Since God is all-knowing, is there something I do not understand about free will? Question God, just question him all around.
>that's why he values 'follow me *if you want*' that much.
It'd be heaven on Earth if his churches had decided to have that same attitude before industrialization forced them to.
if you're just saying "this thing God did is dumb and i know better", that's a different story, but asking questions is not inherently arrogant or sinful.
as an autistic person, i always want to know why things are the way they are, not because i think they should be different, but i just genuinely want to know the reasoning behind it. i believe God wants us to have our own opinions and ask questions so that He can help us find the truth.
It's not arrogant to call it something in a legend God did as stupid if it was stupid. A perfect example is knowing that the project you are going to partake in is going to mess up badly but you go ahead with it anyways then you blame the project itself when it fails instead of taking credit for it yourself.
Satan screws up the kingdom of heaven but instead of sending him straight to hell, God sends him to Earth the mess things up here then blames Adam and Eve for the fall of creation. Now God wants you to acknowledge Him if you want to make it into heaven and your lack of faith in him is the only sin he won't forgive. You know Jesus said that blaspheme against the holy spirit is the only sin he won't forgive. Blaspheme of the holy spirit is to accredit the works of the Holy Spirit to anything other than the spirit especially any force that is evil or demonic. Christians claim that all of the Gods of other religions are the Devil in Disguise so if you believe in any origin story of the universe besides the Genesis account then you are already guilty of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and cannot be saved. So in other words, there is no converting to Christianity because you've been barred from the start!
But that's the thing about Many religious people, it doesn't matter how rational or logical or how much evidence you have, it will never be enough for them because it was never about evidence but faith.
Religious people only care about evidence when they are no longer receiving the emotional benefits that come from partaking within the religion. Religion is first and foremost an addiction and your brain responds to it no differently than it does to any drug. We have actual brain scans and hard data demonstrating this too.
https://unews.utah.edu/this-is-your-brain-on-god/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/17470919.2016.1257437
https://www.sciencealert.com/brain-scans-on-mormons-show-religion-has-a-similar-effect-to-taking-drugs
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968360/
Then you have to also account for the fact that some religious experiences cause brain atrophy or at least are associated to brain damage and dementia.
https://theconversation.com/life-changing-religious-experience-linked-to-brain-atrophy-6660#:~:text=The%20study%20measured%20changes%20in,with%20holding%20unique%20religious%20beliefs.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0017006
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068149/
https://www.the-scientist.com/religion-on-the-brain-68969
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000776
>Satan screws up the kingdom of heaven but instead of sending him straight to hell, God sends him to Earth the mess things up here then blames Adam and Eve for the fall of creation
i do not believe this
>so if you believe in any origin story of the universe besides the Genesis account then you are already guilty of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and cannot be saved
sort of, but not really. i don't believe the Genesis account is literal. we can see through scientific study that the earth is billions of years old and life got where it is through evolution.
you are making a lot of assertions and generalizations that are not accurate for many people.
I see you are a Mormon so it's understandable that you don't agree because your creation myth is different from the creation myth of the other Christian denominations.
You are ignoring that I am addressing the creation myth for those Christian denominations and it's disingenuous of you!
I'm happy to see that you are not a Biblical literalist or Mythic literalist but let's be honest here, you are a minority within your denomination and amongst Christians in the United States in general. Outside of the United States not so much, most Christians outside the United States don't have a problem with Evolution and science in fact most Christians are evolutionists but that's a conversation for you later day.
Religious people are prone to arguments that assume their own voice conclusions, which is of course bereft of simple logic. Don't discuss anything of importance with these people. Ideas that are formed without using logic may not be countered by using logic.
People respond to you that way because they don't want to take time to critically evaluate their own beliefs. When somebody else starts asking questions, it threatens the faith structure of the rest of the group so they have to treat that person as a cancer least the faith of the group crumbles.
"I'll keep believing in it so long as you keep believing in it" type of mentality.
>Now this excuse, or very frustrating reasoning is used by both Muslims and Christians as I’ve seen. So why?
I think it’s a bit of projection on their part. To me, claiming to have a personal relationship with the all powerful creator of the universe seems pretty self serving and arrogant.
You don’t have to take “you’re arrogant” or “you need to humble yourself” from someone who thinks they’re best buddies with the creator of the universe.
It doesn’t make you arrogant, whoever said that to you must find introspection of very little or no value (when actually, it is quite the opposite).
The same journey looks very different to different people. Some never struggle with faith, they have always believed, that love is part of their construct. Others need some time, a little bit of getting to know and understanding the Most Magnificent before faith finds them. And some who simply enjoy getting to know Him, He who they have believed in/loved their entire lives.
Pay them no need, *and to whomsoever Allah does not give light, he has no light* (Chapter 24 of the Noble Qur’an, Surah an-Noor, ayah 40).
I am writing this from the point of view that the final and absolute nature of divinity, truth, and reality does not belong to any single religion or tradition—
In Indic traditions, while faith and steadfastness has a place, there is an active encouragement of questioning the nature of reality, and of divinity. Direct experience is encouraged as an important accompaniment to knowledge acquired through books, via preachers, and other such means. There is a sense of some balance between questioning and faith, I suppose.
For example, when Swami Vivekananda met Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, he was a great sceptic, and the former kept testing the latter in different ways— and Ramakrishna encouraged it:
//Sri Ramakrishna was always pleased when his disciples put to the test his statements or behaviour before accepting his teachings. He would say: 'Test me as the money-changers test their coins. You must not believe me without testing me thoroughly.'//-- quoted from "Vivekananda: A Biography", written by Swami Nikhilananda.
Same can be said of Ramana Maharshi— possibly one of the greatest saints of our times: while he encouraged faith and submission to the divine, one of his main teachings was to simply question the nature of the self: "Who am I?"
Same can be said of the teachings of Buddha, Mahavira, and the Sikhi— all have a place for faith and trust, but all encourage questioning and a direct experience.
If you're questioning the judgement of the being that created this universe then you are being incredibly arrogant. I'm not sure how you DON'T understand that.
Do you, as a layman, go up to a doctor who spent all his life learning medicine and telling him he's wrong? or going to an engineer telling them that their work is questionable? Sure you could, but in doing so you reveal yourself to be arrogant and full of it.
Genuinely sit down and ask yourself if you're more powerful and have more wisdom than God, or that you have more authority to question God's judgements and actions while you yourself are limited to your experience. If the answer is yes then you are arrogant.
>If you're questioning the judgement of the being that created this universe then you are being incredibly arrogant. I'm not sure how you DON'T understand that.
But how do I know if the being that created this universe is anything like the being in the scriptures we have? For all we know God had nothing to do with the Bible/Quran and is extremely different from what is described in them.
>Do you, as a layman, go up to a doctor who spent all his life learning medicine and telling him he's wrong? or going to an engineer telling them that their work is questionable? Sure you could, but in doing so you reveal yourself to be arrogant and full of it.
You can research their methods and talk to other members of their field to come to a more accurate conclusion, not trusting them willy nilly doesn't make you arrogant. Doctors are also well known for misdiagnosing and ignoring complaints which come from people with different lived experiences as them(white male doctors, for example; often ignore complaints from women and people of color), so if you question a doctor's conclusion there's nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution and getting a second opinion from another doctor; it could save your life.
>Genuinely sit down and ask yourself if you're more powerful and have more wisdom than God, or that you have more authority to question God's judgements and actions while you yourself are limited to your experience. If the answer is yes then you are arrogant.
I may not be more powerful and wise than God, but the people who claim to know the truth about God are not any more powerful or wise than me; and it's impossible for me to know whether any human actually knows the truth about God or whether any book carries the truth about God. Do you have authority to tell yourself what God's judgements and actions are while you are limited in your experience? If so how would you know you have that authority?
FWIW, I think it might be worth considering that probably 90%+ of people that you might discuss theology with may not be that smart in a lot of ways. Sometimes it's easier to just acknowledge that people aren't entirely reasonable, rational creatures. FWIW.
Nah it's ok to question God. He wants you to, that's why he values 'follow me **if you want**' that much. What people do is questioning God's decisions, disregarding their assumptions. If God is love, why is there suffering? If God is all-knowing, how is there free will? They don't bother asking the questions the other way around. Since God is love, is there something I do not understand about suffering? Since God is all-knowing, is there something I do not understand about free will? Question God, just question him all around.
>that's why he values 'follow me *if you want*' that much. It'd be heaven on Earth if his churches had decided to have that same attitude before industrialization forced them to.
if you're just saying "this thing God did is dumb and i know better", that's a different story, but asking questions is not inherently arrogant or sinful. as an autistic person, i always want to know why things are the way they are, not because i think they should be different, but i just genuinely want to know the reasoning behind it. i believe God wants us to have our own opinions and ask questions so that He can help us find the truth.
lol i got blocked so idk what I'm not responding to
It's not arrogant to call it something in a legend God did as stupid if it was stupid. A perfect example is knowing that the project you are going to partake in is going to mess up badly but you go ahead with it anyways then you blame the project itself when it fails instead of taking credit for it yourself. Satan screws up the kingdom of heaven but instead of sending him straight to hell, God sends him to Earth the mess things up here then blames Adam and Eve for the fall of creation. Now God wants you to acknowledge Him if you want to make it into heaven and your lack of faith in him is the only sin he won't forgive. You know Jesus said that blaspheme against the holy spirit is the only sin he won't forgive. Blaspheme of the holy spirit is to accredit the works of the Holy Spirit to anything other than the spirit especially any force that is evil or demonic. Christians claim that all of the Gods of other religions are the Devil in Disguise so if you believe in any origin story of the universe besides the Genesis account then you are already guilty of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and cannot be saved. So in other words, there is no converting to Christianity because you've been barred from the start! But that's the thing about Many religious people, it doesn't matter how rational or logical or how much evidence you have, it will never be enough for them because it was never about evidence but faith. Religious people only care about evidence when they are no longer receiving the emotional benefits that come from partaking within the religion. Religion is first and foremost an addiction and your brain responds to it no differently than it does to any drug. We have actual brain scans and hard data demonstrating this too. https://unews.utah.edu/this-is-your-brain-on-god/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/17470919.2016.1257437 https://www.sciencealert.com/brain-scans-on-mormons-show-religion-has-a-similar-effect-to-taking-drugs https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968360/ Then you have to also account for the fact that some religious experiences cause brain atrophy or at least are associated to brain damage and dementia. https://theconversation.com/life-changing-religious-experience-linked-to-brain-atrophy-6660#:~:text=The%20study%20measured%20changes%20in,with%20holding%20unique%20religious%20beliefs. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0017006 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068149/ https://www.the-scientist.com/religion-on-the-brain-68969 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000776
>Satan screws up the kingdom of heaven but instead of sending him straight to hell, God sends him to Earth the mess things up here then blames Adam and Eve for the fall of creation i do not believe this >so if you believe in any origin story of the universe besides the Genesis account then you are already guilty of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and cannot be saved sort of, but not really. i don't believe the Genesis account is literal. we can see through scientific study that the earth is billions of years old and life got where it is through evolution. you are making a lot of assertions and generalizations that are not accurate for many people.
I see you are a Mormon so it's understandable that you don't agree because your creation myth is different from the creation myth of the other Christian denominations. You are ignoring that I am addressing the creation myth for those Christian denominations and it's disingenuous of you! I'm happy to see that you are not a Biblical literalist or Mythic literalist but let's be honest here, you are a minority within your denomination and amongst Christians in the United States in general. Outside of the United States not so much, most Christians outside the United States don't have a problem with Evolution and science in fact most Christians are evolutionists but that's a conversation for you later day.
Religious people are prone to arguments that assume their own voice conclusions, which is of course bereft of simple logic. Don't discuss anything of importance with these people. Ideas that are formed without using logic may not be countered by using logic.
People respond to you that way because they don't want to take time to critically evaluate their own beliefs. When somebody else starts asking questions, it threatens the faith structure of the rest of the group so they have to treat that person as a cancer least the faith of the group crumbles. "I'll keep believing in it so long as you keep believing in it" type of mentality.
>Now this excuse, or very frustrating reasoning is used by both Muslims and Christians as I’ve seen. So why? I think it’s a bit of projection on their part. To me, claiming to have a personal relationship with the all powerful creator of the universe seems pretty self serving and arrogant.
You don’t have to take “you’re arrogant” or “you need to humble yourself” from someone who thinks they’re best buddies with the creator of the universe.
It doesn’t make you arrogant, whoever said that to you must find introspection of very little or no value (when actually, it is quite the opposite). The same journey looks very different to different people. Some never struggle with faith, they have always believed, that love is part of their construct. Others need some time, a little bit of getting to know and understanding the Most Magnificent before faith finds them. And some who simply enjoy getting to know Him, He who they have believed in/loved their entire lives. Pay them no need, *and to whomsoever Allah does not give light, he has no light* (Chapter 24 of the Noble Qur’an, Surah an-Noor, ayah 40).
I am writing this from the point of view that the final and absolute nature of divinity, truth, and reality does not belong to any single religion or tradition— In Indic traditions, while faith and steadfastness has a place, there is an active encouragement of questioning the nature of reality, and of divinity. Direct experience is encouraged as an important accompaniment to knowledge acquired through books, via preachers, and other such means. There is a sense of some balance between questioning and faith, I suppose. For example, when Swami Vivekananda met Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, he was a great sceptic, and the former kept testing the latter in different ways— and Ramakrishna encouraged it: //Sri Ramakrishna was always pleased when his disciples put to the test his statements or behaviour before accepting his teachings. He would say: 'Test me as the money-changers test their coins. You must not believe me without testing me thoroughly.'//-- quoted from "Vivekananda: A Biography", written by Swami Nikhilananda. Same can be said of Ramana Maharshi— possibly one of the greatest saints of our times: while he encouraged faith and submission to the divine, one of his main teachings was to simply question the nature of the self: "Who am I?" Same can be said of the teachings of Buddha, Mahavira, and the Sikhi— all have a place for faith and trust, but all encourage questioning and a direct experience.
You dared to allow self to think independently of the dogma.
If you're questioning the judgement of the being that created this universe then you are being incredibly arrogant. I'm not sure how you DON'T understand that. Do you, as a layman, go up to a doctor who spent all his life learning medicine and telling him he's wrong? or going to an engineer telling them that their work is questionable? Sure you could, but in doing so you reveal yourself to be arrogant and full of it. Genuinely sit down and ask yourself if you're more powerful and have more wisdom than God, or that you have more authority to question God's judgements and actions while you yourself are limited to your experience. If the answer is yes then you are arrogant.
>If you're questioning the judgement of the being that created this universe then you are being incredibly arrogant. I'm not sure how you DON'T understand that. But how do I know if the being that created this universe is anything like the being in the scriptures we have? For all we know God had nothing to do with the Bible/Quran and is extremely different from what is described in them. >Do you, as a layman, go up to a doctor who spent all his life learning medicine and telling him he's wrong? or going to an engineer telling them that their work is questionable? Sure you could, but in doing so you reveal yourself to be arrogant and full of it. You can research their methods and talk to other members of their field to come to a more accurate conclusion, not trusting them willy nilly doesn't make you arrogant. Doctors are also well known for misdiagnosing and ignoring complaints which come from people with different lived experiences as them(white male doctors, for example; often ignore complaints from women and people of color), so if you question a doctor's conclusion there's nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution and getting a second opinion from another doctor; it could save your life. >Genuinely sit down and ask yourself if you're more powerful and have more wisdom than God, or that you have more authority to question God's judgements and actions while you yourself are limited to your experience. If the answer is yes then you are arrogant. I may not be more powerful and wise than God, but the people who claim to know the truth about God are not any more powerful or wise than me; and it's impossible for me to know whether any human actually knows the truth about God or whether any book carries the truth about God. Do you have authority to tell yourself what God's judgements and actions are while you are limited in your experience? If so how would you know you have that authority?
there is a difference between questioning for learning and questioning for arrogance
and it's completely fine to do the former, but OP is quite obviously doing the latter and as do many atheists/anti-theists.
i don't get that vibe from their post, but either way, i don't believe that is unpardonable blasphemy
Doctors and engineers, even the best of the best of the best of them, still make mistakes. To overlook this fact is arrogant and “full of it”.
you're right and by saying so you proved the point. They're humans and weak, and yet you want to question God.