Social Necessity of Spiritual Need

ViceVersa. It’s good to ask questions. That’s how I became a Christian at the age of 30, having been brought up agnostic. If you looked harder, you would find answers. I can recommend the books of John Lennox, the reasonablefaith.org website and the coldcasechristianity.com website.

Science points to the universe having a beginning. Before that beginning there was neither space nor time. There was literally nothing, no thing. It’s more of a fantasy in my view to imagine that the universe could come into existence without a cause than to think that there is a God.

ViceVersa

There are literally thousands of different religions in the world, many with drastically opposing views. They can't all be right, can they? People who do believe only believe in their own religion.

No, they can’t all be right. But one of them can be.

Caleo

In these modern times there are few who believe in supernatural miracles. Education is universal in developed countries , and science is taught.

Jesus as an icon of goodness and truth adapts from the age of faith to the present age of scientific enlightenment. The moral code as promulgated by Jesus remains the basis of our civilisation. Outworn supernaturalist beliefs are unnecessary because the moral code as exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount serves our scientific age as well as it served medieval supernatural faith.

How can you be sure that miracles don’t happen? Here’s a two-volume scholarly investigation showing that they do.

Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (2 Volumes)
amzn.eu/d/4sgvR2M

Here is a very interesting and readable set of miracle stories gathered by the author Eric Metaxas from among his friends. If he was in any doubt whether something could have happened naturally, he left it out.
Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life
amzn.eu/d/9RWDyHk

That is only £2.99 on Kindle, and has 4.5 stars from 1,400 reviews.

BTW, I think more people believe in miracles than you think.

Caleo

Skye, ministers have to preach to the congregations they actually have sitting in the pews.Many people who attend their church will have been taught since infancy that miracles happened, and that miracles are historical events.

Jesus did I believe give his life 'as a ransom'in the sense that what Jesus believed was dangerous . Jesus well knew that he was a serious nuisance to the Roman authorities and that he would eventually be put to death. Socrates too died in similar circumstances when he became too much of a thorn in the side of the Athenian authorities. Martin Luther King also sacrificed his life for the common good, and many many others .

If you read the gospels, Jesus quite obviously did not mean that he came to give his life as a ransom for many in the sense that he was living a dangerous life and was likely to die. Here are two examples of what he said:

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. … Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.’
(John 3.16-18)

‘Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”’
(John 11.25-26)

Caleo

Skye, Jesus was no lunatic or liar. His life and work were fully and truthfully devoted to the common good. He was of course a practising Jew and naturally Jesus worked within the terms of the OT prophets.

The claim of Jesus to be son of God do not refer to His being a supernatural being, on the contrary Jesus is the earthly second person of the Trinity born of a real woman in the normal way. We are all sons and daughters of God in the sense that what happened could not be otherwise than it was, as if God had ordained it all.

If Jesus was not claiming to be a supernatural being, why did his opponents among the Jews try to stone him, saying that this was ‘for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God’ (John 10.33)?

Jesus obviously did not look at himself as a son of God in the same sense as anyone else. Other people do not expect to come back in glory with all the angels and judge the world (Matthew 25.31-33). They do not say they can forgive sins that were not committed against them (Mark 2.10). They do not say, ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10.30).

How do you explain someone saying they are God if they are not God, unless they are mad or lying? That’s not exactly a small mistake.

Caleo

Eloethan," a sense of wonder or fear about the universe and their small part in it. "

This answered by Jesus who pointed out that God cares about the fall of a mere sparrow, so how much more would God care about you.

That is not merely sentimental, but is how God is the name for a deterministic system that underpins all being. So you are what you are and the System cares.

Systems don’t have feelings or care about people.

Skye17

ViceVersa

There are literally thousands of different religions in the world, many with drastically opposing views. They can't all be right, can they? People who do believe only believe in their own religion.

No, they can’t all be right. But one of them can be.

How? Is it not arrogant to think that your particular religion is the right one and all the rest are wrong. And I have asked questions - many of them - and the more I asked, the more atheist I became.

Caleo

In these modern times there are few who believe in supernatural miracles. Education is universal in developed countries , and science is taught.

Jesus as an icon of goodness and truth adapts from the age of faith to the present age of scientific enlightenment. The moral code as promulgated by Jesus remains the basis of our civilisation. Outworn supernaturalist beliefs are unnecessary because the moral code as exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount serves our scientific age as well as it served medieval supernatural faith.

In these modern times there are few who believe in supernatural miracles

In 2018 the BBC reported:

//Three in five UK adults say they believe some form of miracle is possible, a survey commissioned by the BBC has suggested. …

- 62% of British adults believe some form of miracle is possible today
- Nearly three-quarters aged 18-24 say they believe some form of miracle is possible today, more than any other age group//
www.bbc.com/news/uk-45679730

In 2018 the General Social Social Survey in the US found that 76% of those surveyed said they ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ believed in religious miracles.

An analyst wrote:

//the data points to the conclusion that belief in miracles had actually modestly increased between 1991 and 2018.//
www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/do-you-believe-in-miracles

ViceVersa

Skye17

ViceVersa

There are literally thousands of different religions in the world, many with drastically opposing views. They can't all be right, can they? People who do believe only believe in their own religion.

No, they can’t all be right. But one of them can be.

How? Is it not arrogant to think that your particular religion is the right one and all the rest are wrong. And I have asked questions - many of them - and the more I asked, the more atheist I became.

Isn't it arrogant to think the atheist world view is right and all the others are wrong?

Questions are great. But have you looked for answers?

Caleo - you sound more Christian than some of the Christians I know in real life.

Are you sure you are not at the stage of giving your life to God?

That's not what I am saying at all. I'm an atheist - full stop. I've asked the questions and found the answers. I don't try to force that view on others - but those who believe in religion (any religion, by the way) always seem to want to convert others to their belief. You do you - just don't expect others to fall in line with your beliefs.

For me, the biggest question is why do people who profess a religious belief, then not live their lives by what they say they believe.
Or at least try. Mostly they do what they want and then make excuses.

For me belief is a concrete thing that should show itself in our actions, especially the hard stuff that costs us something rather than an expected reward, like miracles.

I have seen this occasionally in individuals in every religion I’ve observed, but not in most “believers” who just ignore the bits that don’t suit them.

So they don’t really “believe” do they?

Fancy That, I hope I do "give my life to God". My life is a poorish sort of thing such as it is but I still hope that the big System that rules our existence needs it as much as It needs the sparrow that falls.

PS, Fancy That, some of the Christians you know in real life who don't come up to expectations can't help what they do and believe. I suppose it's the job of their pastor to try to lead them towards a better truth from wherever they are, and I trust a good minister will try to do so.

I hope there are ministers of religion who can lead people who don't believe in the historicity of miracles. Ministers possibly don't have much time for awkward questioners who may be disruptive among a conservative congregation.

In the whole of my life I briefly met only two churchmen who answered me wisely and honestly, and these two have influenced me I hope for the better. I have however read Don Cupitt's "Sea of Faith" and that has been a lot of help .

Skye, concerning who does and who does not believe in the historicity of miracles we tend to move socially in certain circles that don't interact much if at all.
This conversation on Gransnet is quite unusual and there should be more conversations like this one . This conversatiton is an example of the benefit of electronic social media.

Skye objected:

"Systems don't have feelings or care about people"

A very worthy objection! That is what Jesus did. As the second person of the Trinity JC added the human face to God. JC showed how to live so as to harmonise with what I called "The Big System".

Skye, the opponents of Jesus among the Jews tried to conserve Judaism during the Roman occupation. Jesus was a disrupting influence even among the generally stroppy Jewish population, and the conservative Jews could not afford to lose favour with the Romans. To this day Jews still await the coming of their Messiah. Jesus, for all that he harked back to the prophecies of Isaiah, was a progressive.

Palestine at the time of Jesus was a real place with very similar political problems to out own times and place.

I’ve just started a book ‘Awe, The transformative Power of Everyday Wonder’ by Prof Dacher Keltner. It talks about finding awe in nature, birth, death, religion, music and art amongst other things. I wonder if that’s what people mean when they talk about a spiritual need. The need for humans to have connection to something bigger than ourselves be that a mountain, beautiful music or a religious experience.

LtEve, I think awe towards something bigger than ourselves is necessary for us to trust that we are all part of God , but awe is not sufficient.

We also need to love something better than ourselves otherwise we may be trusting and worthshipping something not only powerful but also evil.