Lifequill - Latest Comments

Re: A Superhero Called the Messiah

nfq — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:43:47 -0000

So ... Jesus is in many ways like Superman, and in many ways like Batman. Superman and Batman both have devoted, enthusiastic fans who study the canon of literature surrounding their lives and debate the finer points with each other. Superman and Batman stories impart moral teachings that almost everyone can get behind. Okay ...

It seems like the reason you worship Jesus instead of Superman or Batman is that Jesus was "real." I assume you mean that Jesus existed as described in the Bible, not that there was some man named Jesus about whom stories and legends developed, leading to the stories we have in the Bible today. Correct? What makes you conclude that Jesus is more real (in this sense) than Superman or Batman?

Re: Tearfully Tough Times

iowabarbi — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:23:33 -0000

Hi Josh... thank you very much for the words, lessons and support. You are a dear friend.

Re: Tearfully Tough Times

Octodude — Wed, 25 May 2011 01:19:16 -0000

Oops - I meant to say, "you may have been cut off near the end, though." I mssed those two words, but you got what I meant.

And more importantly: thank you.

Re: Tearfully Tough Times

Canterrain — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:22:50 -0000

Yeah, I'm not sure what happened there.

I've updated and cleaned up the post now that I have access to my computer.

Re: Tearfully Tough Times

Octodude — Tue, 24 May 2011 21:23:07 -0000

Thank you, Josh. It looks like you may have been near the end, though...

Re: Maybe We Do Church Wrong

Jared — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:25:37 -0000

I agree. The church I went to felt very much like a college classroom. The pastor was the teacher, and he was always right. You could ask questions, but not really contribute.
If the church was a real community, everyones voice would be important. Of course a learned man (or woman) to guide and provide answers is important. But I think Letting the community guide the service more is the way to go. I have yet to find a church that does this.
The closest I've seen a church come to this had time in the service set aside for "god stories." Something God has done in your life lately. It was a chance for the rest of us to get up and talk. It was really neat.
So, in my opinion the key is figuring out how to bring the church together communally in a service, instead of just that one guy doing it all. Technology isn't the answer, even though every new church seems to think it is. But that's just my opinion.

Re: Should Christian Art offend?

secretary desk with hutch — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 07:50:10 -0000

It all depends to anyone who's putting out " that is offensive to the 'legalistic' christian" a scripture that comes to mind is,
Matthew 7:
15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
If their lives are not producing good fruit then how can their art be glorifying to God?!?!.

Re: The Hard Questions

nfq — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:53:15 -0000

This isn't directly responsive to the questions at the end of your post, but it's an issue that I have with how many Christians deal with the problem of evil and other "challenging questions." It seems like you are content to say, "It's possible that there's a way out of this dilemma, and the god I already decided to believe in would be capable of coming up with things I can't conceive of, so I'll rest my entire faith on the assumption that the merely possible is what factually is." Perhaps there is an omnipotent, benevolent God, and he has some good reason for natural disasters, pain and suffering. I admit that this is a conceivable reality. But the real issue seems to me to be, is this the most likely reality? I mean, it's possible that there's a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars. We have no way of absolutely verifying whether it's there or not, at this point in time. But ... it seems terrifically unlikely, so I (and presumably also you) don't believe in it.

Re: A Mr. Clean Perspective

Julmicbud — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:46:24 -0000

I LOVE SKI

Re: Believers and disciples

Wes Molebash — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:08:57 -0000

Excellent post, man!

Re: Final responses (I think!)

NFQ — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:40:16 -0000

Can you tell me what is it you think I ignored? I'm also curious what it is you think I accused you of that I did myself. I don't recall accusing you of anything.

Re: Final responses (I think!)

Canterrain — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 10:55:58 -0000

I'll post this here and you're site just for a bit of good measure.

I realize you split it in two, but the parts I say you ignored are the parts directly dealing with the section you put in your first post. I realized you intended to hit on the 'not God is a liar' sections with your next post.

Debate doesn't upset me. Deep debate isn't offensive to me. I've been in and around it for much of my life.

Accusing me of something, while doing that exact something is what I can't agree with. And when I see it, I'm done. That's what I saw here. Your tone often comes not off as, "You're wrong." but rather, "You're an idiot." And there's no point in continuing that conversation.

Re: Final responses (I think!)

NFQ — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 10:28:29 -0000

Hey, I'm really sorry that you think I ignored a bunch of stuff in your post. I was trying to write about everything all together, but it grew over 2000 words and I decided to split it in two -- that's why I wrote the note at the end saying that I'd deal with the main question in my next post. (It's nearing done, and will go up soon.) I thought you raised an important point in what was essentially a tangent from the central issue, and I thought that important point deserved a post itself.

Obviously religion is a very personal subject, and it's hard to have a discussion without anyone feeling offended, but I really do try to be respectful. I think that debate is a valuable way to sort out which ideas are the best, and yes, that does involve some measure of saying "you're wrong" in response to the other ideas. I do intend to make deeper arguments beyond "you're wrong because I disagree," though. I think you did read that deeper analysis, because you responded to it here. I respect you, but I do not have "respect" for particular arguments or particular conclusions because that would imply that they're beyond critical analysis. I don't "respect" my own arguments or conclusions like that either. To some extent, any disagreement is a form of disrespect to an idea, but that's what debate is all about.

Anyway, I apologize for upsetting you. If this level of debate is that offensive to you, I totally respect your desire to stop.

Re: Does the Bible Support Slavery?

NFQ — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:48:08 -0000

I might agree with you if the "someone of authority" we were talking about was, say, Thomas Jefferson in colonial America. Even if he were able to come to terms with the idea that slavery is wrong while profiting from slavery himself, he and the other founders couldn't put "There will be no slavery" into the Constitution. Too big a change, too quickly -- society could devolve into chaos. Put some guiding principles in there about freedom and equality, and let society figure them out whenever they get around to it.

But we're not talking about a mere mortal here. We're talking about God. And maybe we need to clarify what we mean when we say God -- I generally assume that the Christian God is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. So if slavery really is wrong, and innocent people are suffering by being enslaved, I'd think an omniscient God would know about it and a benevolent God would want to put a stop to it as soon as possible. An omnipotent God shouldn't be held back by petty practical limitations. This is the guy who created the universe from nothing -- and you want me to suppose that slavery just had to exist and God was powerless to reshape society or do anything about it.

That is, unless God doesn't really mind slavery -- unless "benevolent" means something totally different to God than it does to us. I don't know how we would know what God likes and doesn't like other than reading the Bible, so it doesn't seem so unreasonable to infer that he's okay with it.

Keep in mind also that God was pretty clear in the Bible about (for example) adultery being wrong, even though the simple existence of that commandment couldn't stop adultery completely. People argue all the time about why God didn't just make it so that nobody wanted to sin, and believers say that it's because we're supposed to make the choice to be good. So why not define slavery as sinful? Even if you think there was some reason why God wouldn't want to end slavery suddenly, he certainly had the opportunity to make a statement like that.

Re: On stereotypes and generalizations

NFQ — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:01:32 -0000

Hey, how've you been? I was just wondering if I should expect some reply post/s from you any time soon, or if you've moved on from this blog to bigger and better things. I know how busy life can get, I don't mean to rush you -- but I'm curious about your responses to the things I wrote.

Re: Easy Apples

NFQ — Mon, 10 May 2010 09:11:56 -0000

Hmm. I see the point you're getting at, but I'm not sure how well it really meshes with the God of the Old Testament. There's a whole lot of demanding that people worship him, and enacting extraordinarily severe punishments on people who don't. Even in this story -- you say that what God "does is ask and hope and extend His arms waiting," but what I remember him doing in the story was casting Adam and Eve out of the garden, giving them (and the serpent too) an assortment of punishments that were to apply to all of their descendants as well, and putting cherubim and a flaming sword in the way of their attempts at returning.

I'm curious as to your thoughts on some questions I've had for a while about the story of Adam and Eve -- particularly, the fact that obeying God is presumably a "good" thing to do, but prior to eating the fruit Adam and Eve didn't know about good or evil at all (that being the entire point of the fruit). It's surprising to me that God would be seen as justified in enforcing real culpability on decisions made *without* that knowledge. I wrote a post about it here.

Re: On stereotypes and generalizations

NFQ — Sat, 08 May 2010 02:04:37 -0000

Hi, I just saw your trackback on my post ... thanks for your very thoughtful comments! I'm glad to have prompted some discussion. You've raised a number of good points and I obviously can't address them all here, but I think I'll be turning my responses to several of them into posts of my own over the next week or so.

I feel like I should say, I was a competitive debater for a number of years and my baseline level of snarkiness is apparently a bit higher than that of "normal" conversation. I didn't intend any personal offense by it, and I'll definitely be paying more attention in the future.

I want to clear up a couple quick things. One is the reason I brought up those certain topics when I was discussing the idea of context -- they all come from the video I linked to with examples of contradictions in the Bible. Wes responded to the video in particular by saying that more context was needed, so I thought it was valuable to point out some of the instances of contradiction that he was answering in that way.

The other thing has to do with your statement:

There are quite a few Christians who were born and raised a Christian. And knew no other life. It’s true. But even more true is that there is an equally great number of Christians who were NOT born and raised Christian. But came to this belief later in life. Not all Christians are taught practically from birth.

It's of course true that not literally all Christians were Christians from birth. But I would definitely not say that the number of Christians raised Christian is equal to the number of Christians who converted. (In the US, at least, which I believe we're both talking about. I believe this also applies to a worldwide average ... though you may be right in a country where Christians are a minority.) I found this paper, and I'm a bit too tired to read all 49 pages right now, but Table 2 shows the number of people surveyed who began as one religion and converted to another. The vast majority of Christians come from the "former religion" rows corresponding to Christianity. You could also take a look at the second figure here, which is US-specific. It shows that about 85% of people were raised Christian, which means it's just not numerically possible for the ~75% of the population that is currently Christian to be equal parts raised-Christian and converted. I recognize there are exceptions to my generalizations, but I think that they're not so far off the mark when you look at the numbers.

Hopefully that clears that stuff up. Like I said, I found your post very interesting and plan some more nuanced responses to it later.

Re: Broken Plates and Forgiveness

octodoggie@yahoo.com — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:37:02 -0000

Hi Canterrain!

I quite liked your article, "Broken Plates and Forgiveness." Very apt and accessible.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks and God bless,
OctoDude

Re: Faith and evidence

Richard Samul — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:05:56 -0000

I believe that true religious tolerance begins with the understanding that "your god is not my god". This can be seen in the diversity of the world's religions (and lack thereof), where, given the same set of evidence (the universe), a different conclusion has been drawn. Even within a broad grouping ("Christianity" or "Islam"), "your god is not my god" holds true, for everyone has a different conception of, and relationship with, the divine.

Once, I likened religion to a multi-lane highway. At it's origin, our birth. The destination: death and that-which-comes-after (be it a conception of heaven, hell, or nothing). In-between, we travel the highway. It is merely an illusion that some lanes move faster than others, that some lanes take a more direct path - all lanes lead to the destination. The lanes, of course, are the various modes of belief and faith.

Religion can be boiled down to essential truths: Be true $DEITY (worship and/or try to emulate the ideal). Don't kill. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't cheat. Treat those you meet as you would want to be treated. The rest is just window-dressing, the cultural and psychological framework within which these base truths are structured.

Faith, then, is the conviction that these truths are meaningful, that their application to one's life makes a difference, not only in life, but in death and that-which-comes-after.