Reply To: Idiot of the Year

[Just Iron]

Back on topic. Where do I start responding to further questions asked and comments made about that last lengthy post? I’ll have a bash.
To Sidey : Absolutely agree with your take on previous mass extinctions and Climate variations. I don’t see how that precludes the existence of God though. What it might lead to is a bit more discussion on how much of current change is anthropomorphic/man made and how much is cyclical … but that seems to be a somewhat ‘heretical’ question. I did find the statements about ‘life finding a way’ and ‘the planet finds an equilibrium’ interesting. These almost seem to give ‘life’ and ‘the planet’ some kind of intelligence and agency. Be careful about making’ faith statements’ my friend.
Heath … a peppering of questions or challenges from you. Taken in order:
1. Q Clever fella this God. Did he create all the stars, planets, asteroids, black holes and why didn’t he make them all habitable too?
A. The Judeo Christian tradition is that He did make them. He is Creator. They are part of Creation.
And that Humanity is the crown of Creation, made in His image …with its host environment, planet earth, as the focal point.
2. In summary … you were disturbed by my statement that not all calling themselves Christians believe the same about all things. You said.. ‘Basically you can believe and do what you want and still call yourself a Christian.’ I wish it wasn’t so ( … I wish everyone was a true Christian believing and behaving exactly like me ( JOKE!!!!!! STOP IT! I’M JOKING!! )…. More seriously I definitely believe there are core beliefs and manifestations of those beliefs in behaviour which are essential to being a Christian and which I am trying to embrace. I’m not much for labels and titles … but Putin or Hitler and even some Popes involved in mass murder and millions of other examples who claim the title don’t disprove the validity of Christianity … they disprove the validity of their claim.
I should point out that this variation in belief isn’t unique to Christianity. Moslems split into sects and are hostile to each other, as do all other faith groups. Political groups are often nothing more than a spectrum of roughly affiliated cliques who fight each other as much as they do the other groups. Monty Python captured this so well when the People’s Group for the Liberation of Palestine ( or something) hated the Popular Front for the Liberation more than they did the Romans!
3. ‘We have all met Christians who go to church every Sunday but are horrible uncaring bastards for the rest of the week.’ Yep. It stinks when that happens. Maybe disproves the validity of their claim .. or that they aren’t very mature or healed yet cos its not an overnight thing. And we’ve all met non Christians who never go near a Church who are horrible uncaring bastards too. It would be interesting to compile the data on whether the average person claiming to be a Christian is more or less uncaring than those who make no claim.
4. You asked me directly.. ‘How many of the 10 commandments has Trump NOT broken?’
I’m not sure how this relates to anything I posted above, Heath…but I suspect that Trump has broken most of them. I know I have … especially when Jesus actually said that you don’t have to actually kill someone to be a murderer, just have ‘murderous’ thoughts. Now that’s a strict standard …I’d say impossible. How many would you say that you have or have not broken ? ( As an extra .. also would love to know why you invited me to answer that question if you have the time).