That's exactly the point - no one is necessarily included nor anyone excluded, the message is for everyone - everyone is the child of God.

Well, people certainly comprise the world.

And so ask the next logical question: what sort of difference?

The term originally referred to the people of Israel, God's chosen people. In the New Testament, the meaning changes to the object of God's mercy, those who will inherit eternal life. In the New Testament, from what I can tell, the term does not separate any nation or culture. The term does not seem to set some group as superior and another as inferior.

Then I take you back to your words:

"The people who wrote the scriptures, and the people who lived in those days, even, believed they were unique, set apart, basically, better than other people. So they had no qualms about killing, raping, pillaging, or any of that other fun stuff."

The bold is my own. The people who wrote the scripture are among the earliest Christians. Very few Christians prior to those men and women.

I'm not sure Zetetic was referring to you specifically - personally, I think you make a good point as some Christians do use the line of thinking you provide to justify their beliefs.

There have been responses to the original post. The first couple of pages were fairly well on topic.

There were responses to the original question, yes, but I saw no attempt to justify the scripture, just attempts to deflect responsibility for claiming to believe the scriptures by ignoring those scriptures that cast the original doubt into the mind of the person who started the thread. And it is a doubt that is shared by many.

As for the message being for everyone, I could quote another scripture, "Many have been called, few have been chosen." Yes, the message is for everyone, but that doesn't mean that everyone is meant to understand it.

Dirt and stone and air and water and trees and animals, and so on and so forth, also comprise the world. There's nothing in the verse that signifies that God was making a distinction, nor that he wasn't making one.

As you say, in the OT the term was "God's chosen people". Do we assume that because of the New Testament God no longer chooses who is or isn't his child? If so, then let me remind you about the "few have been chosen" part. That's from the New Testament. If it doesn't make you different from others to be God's child, then why call yourself Christian? Why bother with a label, a distinction?

For me, what I am doesn't make me better than anyone else, but it certainly makes me different. It can't possibly make me better, because I had nothing to do with becoming what I am. God made the decision, not me.

Where this originally pure intention went remarkable awry was when people started thinking that they had something to do with their own salvation. Christianity began to teach that your actions make you a Christian, so that those who perceived themselves as doing those actions began to think that they accomplished something that other, shall we say, less capable human beings did not/could not accomplish. Thus pride entered the equation and the result became something unbecoming.

If Zetetic wasn't speaking about me personally then he should have clarified. Since his post was in direct reply to my post, I can only assume that when he used the pronoun "you" he must have been talking to and/or about me. Even if he wasn't, it is still backwardly contrived to call someone else ignorant and then call yourself a positivist, or even to say something negative of aethism and then call yourself a skeptic.

If everyone at the outset is a child of god, what need then of the totalalitarian ambitions of Christianity, or any world religion for that matter. What they don't embrace they must smite, a lot of smiting going on.



http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:...bbd81900_m.jpg

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things as a meaningful unity" - Albert Einstein

I agree with boagie. And it suggests that Christians don't actually believe that everyone is God's child, they just like to pretend they do. Cause, hey, we don't want to offend you while we smite you.

I wasnt refering to you solace, in that post, but rather the general subgroup of atheists whom have stumbled into it and come with shallow presumptions and a weak base. I do not see how doubting certain empirical evidence(scientific skepticism) and believing sense data to be the only thing which can affirm knowledge(positivism) bars me from claiming that someone is ignorant within the bounds of the definition if they have empirically proven that such a word is applicable to them. Personally, since god cannot be proven nor disproven in my mind(nor anyone elses as of yet lest they trick themselfs and redefine god such that it lessens its significance), it seems just as silly to deny his/her/its existence as to affirm it. Once again though, to ponder it is fine, but one cannot take faith in one side unless they choose to do so without proof or weak self deluding argument.

My only real point in the afformentioned post was that it seems that all the problems adressed on this thread boil down to human folly in general rather than a group or teaching. If one religious text were not involved, it would be another and there would still bethoose who fear science because they do not understand it and those who use widely held belifes to their benefit. I appoligize for coming off to you as a high and mighty naysayer, that was not my intent and I suppose that I should have been more clear.

Well, your argument this time around comes across much better. Doubting one type of empirical evidence, and then using another type of emipirical evidence to negatively portray a particular group does raise an eyebrow though. Your clarification of the use of the term skeptic is helpful. Before it seemed as though you were using it in a broader sense, which confused me, since atheists are, in a certain sense, the ultimate skeptics.

For the record, I agree with you for general purpose. The existence of a creator cannot be proven or disproven. Speculation is fine, as long as it remains that. There are people around here, and elsewhere, who like to make claims of certainty, ie: There is no God, or, I know God exists. Both ways of thinking, and especially of conversing, are screwed up.

... which is why this entire issue comes down to belief; not knowledge as such.

This brings up another interesting point, how do you define atheist? There is a branch of 'fundamental'(in a certain sense) atheism that insists that it is correct and in asserting that god does not exist, becomes what it chastises. I think that Richard Dawkins falls into this camp, asserting that god and belief in god is not only silly, but dangerous(at least that is what I have gotten out of him). He seems to actually think that man holds the keys to unlocking every secret of the universe and can answer the ultimate question of "Why?" and in this belief system he simply creates a new theism where god is the ever elusive answer to our greatest and most tiemless questions.

This is a bastardisation of what atheists like Bertrand Russell believed. just read 'Why I am Not a Christian'. He admits that he cannot deny the possibility of a god as it cannot be proven, but that he chooses not to believe it because it cannot be proven to be so. of course, if you listen to Popper, you find that it is not proven if it is not proven false thus it comes down to faith. There are people out there who think god doesnt exist because evolution exists, I have met one. There are those who think that god is gone because they misunderstand nietszche,again, I have met one; hence an ignorant 'Atheist'. These 'Atheists' are not skeptics in any sense of the word.

Also, on a different note, I do not believe one can ultimately be a skepticist, for without faith that you can move your hand or see what you see you are incapacitated by doubt. Reductionist nihilism at its worst.
At its best, a good dose of skepticism can vitalize a field, just look at Einstein or Descartes or Socrates.

I gladly entertain atheists regularly, as I find that a good bit of what they have to say is far more pertinent than what religious folk talk about. But yes, some of them do take their convictions to a whole new level of persistence. I recently compared what one atheist on this site was saying to what the very relgious people he despised were saying, that the similarities between how they represent their respective points of view were remarkable. But, shall we say, less hard-nosed atheism is more about taking a skeptical view of God's existence rather than insisting vehemently that God does not, or even, cannot exist.