otseng wrote:
Or it could be that what it means to pray "in his name" is not what we think.
If that's true then Jesus wasn't a very good teacher. I mean, if you have no clue what he meant then clearly he's a lousy teacher.
otseng wrote:
Yet, to my knowledge, she never became an atheist.
So what? Neither have I. But she clearly doubted the reality of Jesus.
otseng wrote:
Yes, she had doubts. And it'd be a miracle if she did not have doubts. She's experienced and witnessed more pain and suffering than anybody should. But, having doubts does not have to be the same as rejecting and leaving Christianity, which she never did. It could be that Jesus did not answer her prayers for all the suffering around her to stop. Then again, Jesus might've actually "answered" her prayers by showing how one light can illuminate the world. Her life has inspired many, including myself. People even wanted to travel to Calcutta just to see her in action.
What inspires are people who are real and go through hard times and do not fold. They stay the course, even though it is very difficult. In face of hardships, they still serve and love others and hold on to their beliefs.
What is Mother Teresa a prime example of? I believe not of atheism, or a rejection of Christianity, but of God's heart for the world.
Mother Teresa was clearly agnostic for sure. And, as far as I'm concerned that's the only honest thing to be. And she made it clear that she lost any reason to continue to believe in Jesus. She stayed with the church out of a personal sense of responsibility to those who basically worshiped her. That's certainly respectable. And the fact that she did this as a clear agnostic is even more respectable, but it doesn't shine any light on Jesus or Yahweh at all. In fact, to give either of them credit for Mother Teresa's agnostic determination to not let down other people is actually an insult to Mother Teresa.
otseng wrote:
Um, how can you as a non-Christian say what is the true dogma of Christians?
I'm, not a "non-Christian", on the contrary I was born, raised, baptized and born again as a Christian. Historically I'll always be a Christian for that very reason. What I am is a Christian, like Mother Teresa, who has simply realized that the religion if false.
In fact, if you stop and think about it, for Mother Teresa to continue on supporting the Catholic Church and pretending to be a Christian Nun when in truth she no longer believed was actually quite dishonest. She was basically living a lie.
Ironically for me to own up to the truth is actually a higher act of morality than Mother Teresa was willing to reach. She continued to live in a LIE for the sake of supporting an institution that she no longer believed in.
So Mother Teresa was failing to be honest with people. I could not do that. When I realized that Christianity was false I had no problem sharing that TRUTH.
And that's precisely because I didn't want to live a LIE.
otseng wrote:
Making up your own personal Jesus does nothing to salvage the Biblical Jesus.
Sure, I agree with that.
But that's what you must do if you want to continue to support Christianity. Because the Biblical Jesus doesn't hold water.
otseng wrote:
Well you're not doing that if you think that a generic sense of theism can support the Bible. The Bible is specific dogma, it's not generic.
To defend Christianity would be a sequence of steps. One needs to get to the theism step first before going on to defending Christianity. For this thread about cosmology, the only step I would claim it leads one to is theism.
Cosmology most certainly does not even remotely point to Hebrew theism.
At the very best it could be said to not conflict with Eastern Mysticism.
It definitely does not support Hebrew mythology.
You say that do defend Christianity would be a sequence of steps. But in truth, there are no steps at all that can support the theology and this has actually been already proven beyond any shadow of a doubt by Christendom itself.
Here are some steps to think about.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all begin with the same fundamental God myth.
Let's assume that we conclude from cosmology that there "Must be a Creator".
Where does that take us? Well that merely suggests that some spiritual philosophy or religion
might be true. But even if there is a Creator God that doesn't even mean that any religions actually describe that God anymore than Greek Mythology did.
First you'd need to eliminate Taoism and Buddhism and show why they can't be a correct picture of the "Creator". Good luck with that.
Now let's assume that you actually get to the Abrahamic Religions (which is one WHALE of an assumption).
Now what? Well, now you start with
STEP ONE:
You must first show that the original God of the Old Testament makes sense. But we already have a huge problem right there. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all disagree on precisely what this original God is like in the details.
Moreover, let's just look at the Christian Picture. This supposedly all-wise God does the following:
1. Curses Satan to crawl on his belly and eat dirt for the rest of his days.
Did that solve the problem of Satan? No it didn't.
2. Curses Eve with greatly multiplied pain and sorrow in childbirth.
Did that solve anything? No it didn't. Things only got much worse after that.
3. God drowns out the bulk of humanity for being sinners.
Did that solve anything? No it didn't. Sin continued and nothing this God has ever done has ever solved anything.
And there are plenty more examples all through the Old Testament where this God intervenes in human affairs and NEVER solves a problem ever.
So why should anyone believe that these ancient myths have anything to do with a supposedly all-wise God when this God can never solve anything?
And keep in mind here too this this supposedly omniscient God who knows what in the minds of men also commanded men to judge each other and to stone sinners to death to remove them from their midst. Why would an omniscient God who knows who's been naughty or nice have mere mortal men who have no clue what's in the minds of their neighbors judging people and stoning them to death?
If God wanted the sinners to be removed from the midst of the good people why didn't he just do that himself? He's the only one who has the omniscient knowledge capable of doing that correctly. All he'd have to do is give evil people heart attacks or whatever.
So I don't see how you'd ever get past
STEP ONE.
But just for the sake of granting absurd arguments let's assume that you actually succeeded in
STEP ONE, and made a case that the Old Testament could actually represent a valid all-wise supreme creator. Now you've got to move on to
STEP TWO. And show why this then leads to Christianity rather than just Judaism or Islam.
But here you run into extreme problems. Why? Because Christianity itself is in extreme disagreement. In short, the Christians haven't even been able to convince each other that their unique versions of Christianity are true.
In fact, you even confessed above in your last post that you have no clue what Jesus meany when he said, "
In his name". In other words, you confess that even you don't understand what Jesus was supposedly trying to say.
And now you're going to try to "defend" a religion that even you confess you don't understand?
Your probably better off just leaving the cosmologists to figure out the true nature of reality. There's no way that you are going to start from cosmology and end up with a case for Christianity.