For the discussion of all things philosophical.
https://canzookia.com/
I'm not conscious of having done that. I certainly didn't intend to. If you felt there was something in my wording that amounted to an attempt at belittlement, I retract it and apologize.Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 7:51 pm I appreciate the resources, I don't know why you feel the need to belittle me for not knowing what to search.
For someone who claims to be "christian" and who believes in God and the bible you surely are being exactly like the very thing God, the bible, and "jesus christ" were telling people what not like to be, an were warning people about l, exactly.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 6:19 pmAs I say, not necessarily. You could just look at what's being offered today, and see if it is a complete picture of God or just a vague, Deistic kind of "godishness." Looking at different churches will yield you different results. But you'll certainly find that there is a large number of mainline denominational churches (such as the United, Methodist, Lutheran, C. of E., and other ones), in which God is presented in pretty much this fashion, except in rare cases when such churches have become independent in relation to the dicates of their synods or established denominational rules. These more independent churches often present a much more complete and winsome picture of God, even when their denominational headquarters and many of their associated churches have fumbled the text.Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 2:17 pmSo no straight forward resources then? I just have to be completely immersed in both general Christianity and English Christianity specifically in order to see it?
I'd love to make it simple for you, honestly. But human nature isn't simple, and human behaviour isn't simple, and the history of all church denominations is long and complex. But I can give you a source or two that might be a fruitful place from which to form at least a basic opinion about that.Fair enough, I thought possibly there was something you could just quickly and easily point to. Guess that's not the case.
For example: "A new Pew Research Center survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults finds that one-third of Americans say they do not believe in the God of the Bible, but that they do believe there is some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe. A slim majority of Americans (56%) say they believe in God “as described in the Bible.” And one-in-ten do not believe in any higher power or spiritual force."
(https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/20 ... they-mean/)
Of course, this leaves us with the question, "When Americans say they believe in 'the God of the Bible,' what conception do they think that is?" And I suspect it is more often the vague, Deistic kind of conception, one that is actually NOT Biblical, or some similarly half-baked understanding of God that some or many of them believe amounts to being "the God of the Bible." That seems to me to be experientially true, though I cannot prove it. And to imagine that more than half of the people in America have a really clear idea of what they mean by "God" when they say the word, or "Biblical God" when they claim as much, seems to me unduly optimistic, given that only one in five Americans has even read the whole Bible even once (https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/ ... inish.html). How can people who've never read the whole Bible even once be sure that the idea of "God" they are following is fully "Biblical"?
And if that's true, then even that bleak statistic may be bleaker still, in reality. But there would have to be much more research to confirm that.
The important thing, though, is that this palid, weak, distant view of God is almost always the starting point for public debates about the possibility and relevance of God, it seems. And if so, it's not really surprising that believing in God is not highly compelling to the public mind in Western democracies today. It's like Oxford professor of Pure Mathematics, John Lennox, said to Richard Dawkins in one of their debates: "I don't believe in the God you don't believe in either." Dawkins hated that: but there's something to it. If all that is presented to the public is a kind of vague "Force" or cosmic hall-monitor in place of the real God, no wonder people don't believe in it. It's not who God is.
This here is so 'insiders' only stuff that it exists 'in' "immanuel can's" views and beliefs, only.Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 6:55 pmHow do I just look at that? Do I need to attend many dozens of church services? Are there links that they give that show what you're saying about them in their own words?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2024 6:19 pmYou could just look at what's being offered today, and see if it is a complete picture of God or just a vague, Deistic kind of "godishness."
It's okay if this is some kind of insiders-only discussion. It's okay if the answer is "you would, in fact, only know if that claim is true if you're immersed in modern Christian thought." Not all conversations make themselves available to outsiders, and that's okay. The way you're making it sound simple and easy, "just do this one thing", suggests that it's not only for insiders to know, but I'm getting the impression that it is really inscrutable to outsiders.