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Faith
Topic Started: Jun 15 2010, 05:04 AM (1,002 Views)
Sedulius
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I have come to some new conclusions.

There are few things of which I can be certain, especially concerning faith.

I do know without a doubt that there is a God and he is involved directly in my life.

Beyond that, I have no certainty on the subject.

I will not, however, abandon my religion. I am a Christian, and I have a code of conduct that is Christian. I am Christian by my very nature.

I am neither certain nor uncertain the nature of Jesus Christ. I think I already have the answers. I just need to sort them out.

I think we're looking at a whole new Sed, but at that we're looking at exactly the same Sed. I control my own destiny and do what I wish, except when God intervenes.

Anyways, just thought I'd share that I'm thinking differently in my current status.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Thinking, re-evaluating, even doubt are all good things and will help you grow and improve. The seeking of truth is a journey, and it is the journey that shapes your life, not its end. Just remember, the huge difference between Fact and Truth, and do not let fact hide the truth you seek.
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Ulgania
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A better Zarathustra has never rode a horse
So is this some sort of existential leap towards another level of faith? Is this a sign of stoic passivity coupled with a culturally-Christian morality?
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Al Araam
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Demigod of Death & Inactivity

Doesn't absolute knowledge that there is a god make faith useless and/or impossible? One does not believe something that they know without a doubt to be true. For instance, I do not believe that I had breakfast this morning. I know I had breakfast this morning. You profess to know there is a god and that he is directly involved in your life, therefore there is no faith required on either count. If you don't mind me asking, what do you believe/have faith in?
Edited by Al Araam, Jun 15 2010, 05:27 PM.
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Rhadamanthus
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Al Araam
Jun 15 2010, 05:26 PM
Doesn't absolute knowledge that there is a god make faith useless and/or impossible? One does not believe something that they know without a doubt to be true. For instance, I do not believe that I had breakfast this morning. I know I had breakfast this morning. You profess to know there is a god and that he is directly involved in your life, therefore there is no faith required on either count. If you don't mind me asking, what do you believe/have faith in?
Speak for yourself. I believe everything I know is true.
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Rhadamanthus
Jun 15 2010, 05:55 PM
Al Araam
Jun 15 2010, 05:26 PM
Doesn't absolute knowledge that there is a god make faith useless and/or impossible? One does not believe something that they know without a doubt to be true. For instance, I do not believe that I had breakfast this morning. I know I had breakfast this morning. You profess to know there is a god and that he is directly involved in your life, therefore there is no faith required on either count. If you don't mind me asking, what do you believe/have faith in?
Speak for yourself. I believe everything I know is true.
I know everything I believe is true.
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Al Araam
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Demigod of Death & Inactivity

And in doing so accept that there is a possibility that you cannot know anything? Nihilism. Deep stuff. I think that Sed's concrete knowledge that there is a God reflects a more basic assumption that the things which we perceive actually are. You are correct though, RD. You could just be a figment of my imagination.
Edited by Al Araam, Jun 15 2010, 06:18 PM.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Posted Image
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Ulgania
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A better Zarathustra has never rode a horse
Tristan da Cunha
Jun 15 2010, 06:26 PM
I love that pic
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Deleted User
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I've completely lost my faith. I just can't bring myself to believe. I really want to, but its just not happening.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Atticus
Jun 15 2010, 06:57 PM
I've completely lost my faith. I just can't bring myself to believe. I really want to, but its just not happening.
** Slaps Atticus around **

Believe, you sucka! ** Best Samuel L. Jackson accent **
Edited by New Harumf, Jun 17 2010, 11:47 AM.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

I don't care what you believe. Just believe.
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Nag Ehgoeg
Jun 17 2010, 11:30 AM
I don't care what you believe. Just believe.
How?
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Sedulius
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So, clarifying what exactly I have done, I have wiped my old OS and installed a new OS. The hardware is the same. I am of course speaking metaphorically. The experiment is to see what arises.

Essentially, I have wiped away all rules and all assumptions to see how I will act uninhibited. More or less, I do as I please.

That I know God exists and that He does interact in my life directly is a fact based on evidence that has been revealed to me but is impossible to convey to you. God is beyond this universe and human comprehension, so I understand if you do or do not understand what I am saying.

That said, I understand exactly how I work when uninhibited. I work off of a system of desires. One may think this is a bad thing, but it is not. If one is truly uninhibited, the desires will conflict and balance each other out. And it is from this that I have determined the fundamental problem with many Christians.

Many Christians worship because they think they have to. They think they will go to hell if they do not. They do not worship because they want to. I have found that I, on the other hand, worship out of a natural desire to worship. And this is what a Christian is supposed to be. A Christian that does not worship because they truly want to is hollow. They're worship is meaningless because in their hearts they do not truly believe. However, I may not be altogether correct in this, and they may perhaps obtain that want of worship through their persistence. I do not know.

Here are some observations of myself I have done so far:

The day before yesterday I had been awake for over 24 hours. My video card on my computer was once again giving me problems. I left my chair, and was confronted by the dog that consistently growled at me. He growled at me. I kicked him in the face very hard with my combat boot. My mother was disturbed. She went outside and wept greatly, and I was lectured by my father, which only furthered my anger. I sat there thinking I would not apologize for kicking a stupid beast. But by the time my mother came in, what you could say was my conscience kicked in, and I apologized to my mother for the act. I did not do this out of some artificial code of honor or morality, but rather I did because I had a desire to. The desire that I should do such a thing outweighed the desire that I should do nothing. Hence, balance naturally came to the situation, and I did the right thing without actually having to think about it, but rather because I felt compelled to do it.

I have also observed that since my re-installation, Christian aspects surfaced by themselves. I eventually had the desire to pray, and when I prayed I had the desire to end in "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".

All of this is not a matter of that this is my code of life. This is rather that this is simply who I am. This is who I am if I wipe away all surface traits and let myself arise.

I am not the best man, but I control my own destiny and my own way so long as God does not intervene.

-----

These things said, I pose a question.

Can God kill himself?

If you are a monotheist, answer as you believe.

If you are an atheist, answer hypothetical as if there were a god.

If you are a polytheist, give what examples of gods you believe are necessary to answer the question.

I will give my answer at another time.
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Union
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Pyrenees Republic
An apology is not always equal to the sin of an act. I'm sorry, but that is not balance. It is self rationalization of the most brutal nature. Would you consider it balance if someone acted on a desire to kill your family, but apologized for it?

Such a path is disturbingly hedonistic and narcissistic. You are not the only being on this globe, and your happiness and desires are not the only ones that count. If God exists, I have no doubt in my mind and heart that he would not want to be served in such a way. If you can act in such a way at all, your mother is right to be disturbed, and you cannot call yourself a good man.
Edited by Union, Jun 17 2010, 03:33 PM.
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Sedulius
Jun 17 2010, 03:26 PM
So, clarifying what exactly I have done, I have wiped my old OS and installed a new OS. The hardware is the same. I am of course speaking metaphorically. The experiment is to see what arises.

Essentially, I have wiped away all rules and all assumptions to see how I will act uninhibited. More or less, I do as I please.

That I know God exists and that He does interact in my life directly is a fact based on evidence that has been revealed to me but is impossible to convey to you. God is beyond this universe and human comprehension, so I understand if you do or do not understand what I am saying.

That said, I understand exactly how I work when uninhibited. I work off of a system of desires. One may think this is a bad thing, but it is not. If one is truly uninhibited, the desires will conflict and balance each other out. And it is from this that I have determined the fundamental problem with many Christians.

Many Christians worship because they think they have to. They think they will go to hell if they do not. They do not worship because they want to. I have found that I, on the other hand, worship out of a natural desire to worship. And this is what a Christian is supposed to be. A Christian that does not worship because they truly want to is hollow. They're worship is meaningless because in their hearts they do not truly believe. However, I may not be altogether correct in this, and they may perhaps obtain that want of worship through their persistence. I do not know.

Here are some observations of myself I have done so far:

The day before yesterday I had been awake for over 24 hours. My video card on my computer was once again giving me problems. I left my chair, and was confronted by the dog that consistently growled at me. He growled at me. I kicked him in the face very hard with my combat boot. My mother was disturbed. She went outside and wept greatly, and I was lectured by my father, which only furthered my anger. I sat there thinking I would not apologize for kicking a stupid beast. But by the time my mother came in, what you could say was my conscience kicked in, and I apologized to my mother for the act. I did not do this out of some artificial code of honor or morality, but rather I did because I had a desire to. The desire that I should do such a thing outweighed the desire that I should do nothing. Hence, balance naturally came to the situation, and I did the right thing without actually having to think about it, but rather because I felt compelled to do it.

I have also observed that since my re-installation, Christian aspects surfaced by themselves. I eventually had the desire to pray, and when I prayed I had the desire to end in "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".

All of this is not a matter of that this is my code of life. This is rather that this is simply who I am. This is who I am if I wipe away all surface traits and let myself arise.

I am not the best man, but I control my own destiny and my own way so long as God does not intervene.

-----

These things said, I pose a question.

Can God kill himself?

If you are a monotheist, answer as you believe.

If you are an atheist, answer hypothetical as if there were a god.

If you are a polytheist, give what examples of gods you believe are necessary to answer the question.

I will give my answer at another time.
:rolleyes: Jeeze Sed, when are you ever going to settle down. You have practically flipped flopped on every issue concerning religion by now.
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Sedulius
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Union
Jun 17 2010, 03:32 PM
An apology is not always equal to the sin of an act. I'm sorry, but that is not balance. It is self rationalization of the most brutal nature. Would you consider it balance if someone acted on a desire to kill your family, but apologized for it?

Such a path is disturbingly hedonistic and narcissistic. You are not the only being on this globe, and your happiness and desires are not the only ones that count. If God exists, I have no doubt in my mind and heart that he would not want to be served in such a way. If you can act in such a way at all, your mother is right to be disturbed, and you cannot call yourself a good man.
Ah, but you misunderstand. The system has been reinstalled, and now everything has to built from the ground up. It has to be developed. Everything you just said was based off of an artificial code of ethics, a standard I cannot be measured by. Over time, things will become more and more apparent to me, and I will know how to proceed.

On that, you assume that a sin has a value, and a work has a value. They do not. I was not even attempting to rationalize my action. I was merely stating the process. I acted out of anger for the first action, and out of guilt for the second.

Furthermore, you act as if your hypothetical situation of someone killing my family and then apologizing appeals to me. It does not. It is an irrelevant argument. I am not sure what I would do given the situation. One possibility is that I would act in anger. I would kill the person myself. Another possibility is that I would act with compassion and forgive him. That is after all the Christian thing to do.

Also, who are you to judge me? All I have done is admit my human nature and admit my spiritual nature. You are no better or worse, human.

You have completely missed the meaning of the dialogue, and you tell me things that are untrue and things that I already know. Your contribution has been useless.

I do not mean to anger you with these words. I am merely stating my thought on the matter, which is what you were doing as well. That said, I would like to hear your answer to my question, and perhaps an analysis of the philosophical part of my dialogue, rather than just the actions I took in the infancy of my re-installation.

EDIT: To Atticus, your response has shown that you entirely misinterpreted the post. I am disappointed with you. As I said, I am the same hardware. In a sense, I have not changed at all. I challenge you to tell me where my opinions actually have changed. Honestly, I think all you're really doing is taking a cheap fallacious jab at me. You're an ass.

EDIT 2: Also, you guys forget that it is an experiment to determine what further systems should or should not be installed.
Edited by Sedulius, Jun 17 2010, 04:02 PM.
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Sedulius
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An apology is in order. My harshness is uncalled for.

However, I ask that you do not make judgments of me so lightly. I've merely stated one event. Examine the entirety of my life and you would have a different opinion. Only Lans truly knows me on here.
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Rhadamanthus
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Sedulius
Jun 17 2010, 04:22 PM
An apology is in order. My harshness is uncalled for.

However, I ask that you do not make judgments of me so lightly. I've merely stated one event. Examine the entirety of my life and you would have a different opinion. Only Lans truly knows me on here.
Sed, we know you as you present yourself here. That is entirely under your control. When your present yourself, incomplete, to people who do not know the whole you, you invite their judgment.

Now, I'm not endorsing anyone's judgment, mind you. I'm just saying that you need to be more careful with what you type.
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Paradise
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I don't know if "God" exists or not. What I can say for certain is that the "Christian" God does not exist.

If there is a God, it can only be an "energy-like" God with no self-consciousness, no omniscience.

God or not, I do not intend to practice any religion because I do not see the usefulness of it.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
You apologized to your mother? Why? You did not kick your mother in the face.

Until you apologize to the dog, and hold him, and convince him you love him, I am not impressed. Dumb animals do NOT deserve your wrath.

You are not at one with God if you can strike out like that uncalled for. Yes, I can judge you, because I recognize evil when I read it. Psychopaths take out their anger on dumb beasts.

You need to open your heart, not your mind. Right now, your mind is searching for a path, but your heart must lead, and right now, your hear is a black hole.


God cannot die. God cannot be defined. All we can say of God is that "God is". To add any attributes to God lessens God, and attempts to make God "human-like" and understandable. God is beyond all wisdom.
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Union
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Your desires are not the only ones to be considered in a course of action, Sed. If your new path does not recognize that, it is not a good one. Such self-absorption and gratification is the path of Satan, and perhaps you should consider that your vision may not have come from the source you believe, but merely presented itself as such, or is a test of your will to do good, in spite of your desire to act otherwise.
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Hastine
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Universi enim hic sumus.
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Sinning against God just so you can feel closer to him after you've repented is like Chris Browning your girlfriend so you two can feel feel closer after you've apologized. It's dishonest and disrespectful. And trust me, I know; at several points in my life, I've wanted to become the ultimate sinner just so I can be redeemed dramatically in the future. This also included abusing my parents verbally, attacking my dog for no reason and playing with people's emotions (as well as wanting to hurt people). But not only has it not worked for me (despite my dickish tendencies, my conscious seems to always override them and I apologize for everything I did), but it's been detrimental to me both socially and spiritually.

God doesn't expect perfection. But he expects that you at least try your best. That goes for both you and me, and everyone.
Edited by Hastine, Jun 17 2010, 06:34 PM.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Sedulius
Jun 17 2010, 03:52 PM
Also, who are you to judge me? All I have done is admit my human nature and admit my spiritual nature. You are no better or worse, human.
You judge Union unworthy of judging you. On what basis do you make your judgment? Do not toss stones in a glass house.

To believe that he, or any human, is no better or worse shows a lack of discernment. Discernment comes from wisdom and experience and is the basis of judgment. One cannot go through life without discernment and judgment or one will fall for any delusion, and to refuse the judgment of others is the sign of an immature mind and a chaotic heart.

When judgment is made in ignorance by one who lives wrongfully in the imagination that he knows you, his judgment is based upon the projection of the problems of his self, and not upon complete knowledge and wisdom. But even then, you can be assured his judgment has a reality in you, for he sees something, even if he does not see it entirely as it is. Consider his judgment because you yourself cannot see the whole of yourself. With wisdom and experience the picture of yourself becomes more complete to your own knowledge, and your perspective will expand toward the universal.
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Telosan
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This image doesn't reflect my actual beliefs. I'm actually one of the few young people left in my church. I'm the head of the altar serving ministry, by seniority, experience, and by being the only one all the other altar servers will listen to.

There weren't that many other candidates anyway. Not enough young people care anymore.
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