Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 11, 2026 00:29
VIEWED: 9348
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Really???!!! How did he imagine it would all turn out...
I think that might have been the whole point of the "supposed to have free will/ defy him" thing.
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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Hmm, no, I don't think that's it. John Milton wasn't a pentecostal.
I'm not so good on naming sects of Christianity. I could also have just forgotten a lot of stuff.
Protestant?
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I believe that Satan probably came and appeared as a serpent or took over its body or something. Seems a lil unfair to punish snakes for all time, but it isn't my place to decide what is fair and not. Plus snakes are unique and fun to learn about so it isn't such a horrid thing for them to crawl on their bellies really, I doubt they mind. My question as a girl was "If the serpent could talk, then could all of the animals talk before sin? I suspect now that Satan just took the form of a snake and that there wasn't a regular snake involved, but I don't know. Maybe all the animals talked and that's why Eve wasn't too shocked with the whole talking serpent thing. :)) I would like it if animals talked, way to go screwing it all up for us Adam and Eve, :).
Do you guys remember that episode of Star Trek where they land on this planet with no rules, well almost no rules, and Wesley breaks the only rule there is? I guess I think of it a little like that. As people we tend to push our limits. Its easy for me to say "No way would I have eaten from that tree, it was the only thing I wasn't supposed to do so why rock the boat, I could do anything else I wanted." But I wasn't there so I don't really know what I'd have done. I just get annoyed when people think it was an apple, why? What do apples have to do with ANYTHING? I bet it was a fruit that we don't have anymore.
Eve and Adam both got punishments, Eve would have a hard time in childbirth and Adam would have to work very hard to make a living from the earth, no more easy peasy plentiful year round fruit bearing trees.
Mary without sin: That does sound like something some Catholics would believe. I don't believe that though, I believe that Mary was a girl who was devoted to God but who was very much human in all ways. But a lot of Catholics feel differently than I do.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Originally posted by RionaEire:
Eve and Adam both got punishments, Eve would have a hard time in childbirth and Adam would have to work very hard to make a living from the earth, no more easy peasy plentiful year round fruit bearing trees.
Given that women have also had to toil in the fields over millenium and in some cultures do all the agricultural work, looks like they got the worse deal
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Originally posted by Niki2:
But yes, I do believe in "something". Actually, leaving all the buddhist stuff out of it, I CAN explain it, despite the buddhist belief explaining it in more detail. I've mentioned it before; I believe that, given we use so little of our brains, IF we ever evolved to use all of them, we'd evolve beyond the fallacy of subjective reality, which is what causes war, suffering, hatred, all that stuff--the "I" world. Not that all that wouldn't BE there, just that we wouldn't "engage" it. As in meditation, we could let it go but be aware of it. IF the entire species got there, all that stuff just wouldn't "be", it wouldn't be necessary and we'd have no interest in it.
Sorry about the delayed response. Very interesting Niki. I think along the same line you do. Humans are selfish. It is hardwired in our genes as a survival measure(hunter/gatherer) to ensure we survive....but in our present society causes more trouble than good. I figure a hundred thousand years from now we will have evolved away from that completely. Provided we are still on this planet(doubt it).
Regarding the afterlife, I have done much research on it, and it is highly intriguing to say the very least. Many books have I read about people that have been revived after a death experience(some over an hour). Some written by the doctors that brought them back, others by the survivors themselves. Most have euphoric experiences of the pinnacle of happiness. Absolutely spiritual, and 100% unexplainable. This is the spur....this keeps my faith in a higher power. God.
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70's TV FOREVER
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Originally posted by OPPYH:
Humans are selfish. It is hardwired in our genes as a survival measure(hunter/gatherer) to ensure we survive....but in our present society causes more trouble than good.
I'd like to see you make a case for that in light of recent scientific evidence completely debunking that claim - humans are naturally COOPERATIVE in order to ensure survival, something both Rosseau and Kropotkin pointed out very effectively, and the reseach of Doctor Bruce M Perry, CITIVAS and many others has all but outright confirmed it - that whole "selfish man" song and dance is a bad bill of goods, a false notion that people need to be controlled "for their own good", that is always, ALWAYS sold by bastards holding a leash in the other hand and a firm idea of who should be doing the controlling.
You can teach people to be like that, condition them to be, and sometimes it might even work, but you're working completely against the natural instincts - which is what I have long suspected is one of the root causes of aberrant behavior amongst public school "educated" is because of the mixed messages from their natural instincts, empathy, trust, cooperation - and what is required to "succeed" in a society gone rabid, exploitation, hatred, deceit... causing all manner of mental static which makes em act out, and we can't admit that so we create cute little labels for it and try to mitigate resistance with drugs or abusive conditioning.
And all that time, all that work, invested in trying as hard as possible, in every way, at every turn and corner every minute of the day via social indoctrination, marketing, so-called "education", mass media - in an effort to create sociopaths, and it FAILS.
Because NATURE ALWAYS WINS.
And humans are, by nature, empathic and cooperative - you can twist it, warp it, but grind it out ?
Unless you're starting with someone already badly damaged upstairs, honestly I don't think you can.
Besides which that whole myth is also part of the "born better - born bad" bullshit spectrum that folks shovel in order to deny their own complicity in systems and social structures that are destructive to humanity.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Oppy, Frem, it's funny, I agree with BOTH of you to an extent, and in other ways, not. I don't thing humans are born selfish per se--tho', Frem, if you look at babies, the "I" this is pretty much what's in charge until they reach the point of recognizing other entites. At the same time, from that moment on they DO attempt to become part of the "pack". That's kind of what I see.
But yes, we are cooperative as a species, without a doubt. That's part of the angst of being a teenager and wanting to "fit in", why psychopaths are often found to be loners, why people can become RWAs so easily, why religion has such a hold, and why nationalism creates wars. To a degree. There's much more to it, of course, but it seems to me to be pretty much our makeup.
Then again, when it comes to the very bottom line, we, like all species, are "selfish" insofar as the survival instinct. Every creature wants to survive, so it goes back to being an "I" thing--obviously with exceptions.
So it's kind of both, as I see it. And I think, Frem, you view the world through the "veil" of your own experiences a lot, too, so I'm not as hard-core against some of the things you are; I think education is much more complex and not as evil as you see it.
No, I don't think we'll be around a thousand years from now. I don't know how you break/lose all the "stuff" we carry around. As our population increased, from Day One forward we have expanded, conquered, etc., and we're running out of expanding room. I look at our ability to move out into the universe as opposed to how fast our population is increasing, and don't see a lot of hope. And maybe that's a good thing; not sure I'd wish us on the universe as we are...
For me, I don't believe in an afterlife per se, it's not logical to me. I do believe in some form of spirit, soul, whatever, which can move on, but as an individual, no. And when it comes to God, I don't buy it at all; this very discussion is an example of why I don't. It's just too much "myth", there are too many similiarities to ALL "religions", one can be an outgrowth of another, two completely different ones can come up with so many similiarities, and mankind needed "something" to explain the mysteries of the universe, so it's not surprising to me that myths would develop along a similar line. But to believe one over another, with all the illogic, discrepancies, etc., inherent in all, isn't something I can invest myself in.
From all I've read here, the concept of Christian God seems to be of a very capricious, selfish, domineering patriarch, which pretty much defines any god of any religion, and depends on worship, submission, unquestioning acceptance on the part of humans. Good way to control them, but not logical at all. That's just how I see it. The final nail in the coffin for me is people being so adamant in every religion that if you don't accept THEIR god, you're doomed. That's an incredibly human concept, and has never turned out to be a good one. So I'll stick with buddhism.
Oppy, no problem with delayed response; I run through the list of topics most every morning, so if it's a topic I've been involved in and followed, I'll check out anything new. On MY side, apologies for the ridiculously long diatribe on buddhist reincarnation; that paragraph was all you needed, I got caught up in trying to explain things I shouldn't have been trying to explain. Thanx for your response.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c94/Nikovich_/Toget
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Well, sure, it's the dichotomy of the human condition, but there's a difference between simple self-preservation and exploiting and/or harming others for deliberate gain.
I mean, we've all done things to preserve our existance or procure our survival that we're probably not real proud of, especially those of us who've been really poor...
But there's a line there, that once crossed, changes the dynamic from self-preservation into predation.
I posit that if the "selfish-man" theory was actually true, then when faced with a choice of cooperation versus competition, humans would not generally choose cooperation - and yet they do, often when there is little to no benefit to them, simply out of social impulse and a desire for mutual company.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Banding together does advance one's self interest and can still be considered the result of 'selfish' motivations. I guess it's all in how you define 'selfishness.'
I like to help people out when I am able. I like helping them, seeing them happier and feeling good about myself, but the case could be made that the manner in which is benefits me makes it 'selfish' behavior.
I also do this because I believe it was what Jesus wants us to do, along with forgiveness and unconditional love. The same behaviors he's shown us. Is that selfish? Domineering? Capricious?
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