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M. Demetrius

Speaking with God

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Well, hold onto your pileii, there are many people today who believe God speaks to them, in His own time and ways. Not all of us are crazy, though it's clear some of us are. ;) Also, some who say that they hear from God are not telling the truth.

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Well, hold onto your pileii, there are many people today who believe God speaks to them, in His own time and ways. Not all of us are crazy, though it's clear some of us are. :lol: Also, some who say that they hear from God are not telling the truth.

What is important here is whether someone is deliberately lying, or genuinely mistaken, or being hoodwinked, or is intuitively looking for a self-excuse.

 

Liars have inhabitated every walk of human life from the start - thats one of the downsides of human intelligence and communication and lets face it, most of us fall short of moral perfection in some way or other. In many cases this 'falseness' is intended for financial reward. there have always been preachers convincing people they're onto a good thing provided they part with some cash.

 

Being genuinely mistaken is something else. Human perception isn't faultless and in some circumstances we can perceive some very strange things. After all, our brains interpret what we perceive from our sensory organs and sometimes we tend to see something different than actually occured. It has to be said though, that that this facet of human perception is exploited by those who lie, which leads to...

 

...Being hoodwinked. We know this sort of thing goes on today. Charismatic fakers have existed in religion since the idea was thought up. I read once of a cave in roman times that was used as a sort of 'Underworld Experience', for a donation of course. Christianity is fundamentally a manufactured faith, having been cobbled together from myths of various religions existing in the ancient world.

 

lastly, there is 'God Made Me Do It'. St Augustine decided that since people could not be perfect, it was ok to go astray as long as you prayed for forgiveness and obeyed the priests. I see that as a dangerous philosophy, since you could justify any horror as acting in your gods name - and lets be honest, thats usually what happens. A british monk named Pelagius decided this attitude was wrong. He stated that if you wanted to call yourself a christian, then you must be a christian. He disappeared in suspicious circumstances afterward.

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...Being hoodwinked. We know this sort of thing goes on today. Charismatic fakers have existed in religion since the idea was thought up. I read once of a cave in roman times that was used as a sort of 'Underworld Experience', for a donation of course. Christianity is fundamentally a manufactured faith, having been cobbled together from myths of various religions existing in the ancient world.

 

Fakers do exist, and they deceive many. There are those, of course, who would draw the conclusion that simply having some of the same beliefs in one religion or another doesn't automatically mean they are copies or false. If truth exists, it will be found in many places to varying degrees. I suppose I know what you mean, but I don't agree with the apparent implication that Christianity is false because it shares ideas that exist in other religions. Counterfeit money shares many features of real money, but only one is real.

 

I also rather suppose that even in a thread with a provocative title such as this one, it would be easy for a conversation like this to turn ugly. I don't think that's what the board is about, but if you do, then do as you will. I won't argue about the planks of Christianity with you, as you have already made it clear that you are antagonistic toward them. I believe; you don't. So be it.

 

Don't confuse the basic concepts of Christianity with midieval priests' behavior. The Spanish Inquisition was anything but Christian in nature, though it was performed by leaders of the church of that day. Fakers? I say so, others say no.

 

Pax Dei vobiscum

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To some extent all religions are invented by someone, because someone had to start the ball rolling. If you credit christianity with an element of truth in its mythos you are therefore honour bound to do the same for other beliefs. I have always stated that God is a human concept, not an absolute truth. Its one depiction of the infinite in understandable terms, and notice that an established religion rapidly accumulates a sizeable body of lore - this is always deliberate, because then a man learned in this lore can be admired for this knowledge, and he can bamboozle or impress his peers so much the easier. Human nature being what it is, there are those who exploit the naive and innocent for their own purposes, and this belief system and its apparently complex depth, plus the psychological state of people with deep concerns for their safe future, means there is a ripe field to be harvested. It goes on today just like it always has, and I notice the christian churches of ancient Rome got a reputation for being wealthy very quickly. Indeed, you might argue that Paul, the main architect of the christian faith, had this in mind from the start. Whether Jseus did or not is harder to figure, since the story related in the bible is very distorted to portray him as the son of god.

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