Church News Article Says: Get Your House in Order!

[Philo Sofee]

Oh aren't you a clever coy one to obviously miss the entire point with a lame question... now then, do I really honestly have to take you by the hand and gently step by step connect the dots with you as I would a kindergartner?

Yes, please do! Pretty please?

No. I am going to tell you to do a very non-Mormon thing. Think it through for yourself and it will be better. But, and here is the catch, you have to do it honestly. Your cute stuff deliberately missing the point is seen by all, and you ain't faking anyone out. It really does make you look... well, brainwashed and stupid. And I know you aren't stupid, so quit making yourself appear to be. Or is that still a Mormon thing?

[Sledge]

No. I am going to tell you to do a very non-Mormon thing. Think it through for yourself and it will be better. But, and here is the catch, you have to do it honestly. Your cute stuff deliberately missing the point is seen by all, and you ain't faking anyone out. It really does make you look... well, brainwashed and stupid. And I know you aren't stupid, so quit making yourself appear to be. Or is that still a Mormon thing?

Well, I am clearly not enlightened like you. Stem asked:

Where is God? In people's imagination? If all people get inspired from any book or other media, what's the point of God and scripture?

I replied

You're asking questions for which no external answer will satisfy you, and for which centuries of philosophical debate have not empirically resolved. It's like what the actual nature of love is. You have to find those answers on your own.

Then you said

Obviously, because there is no actual external answer that works. God for millenia has also failed to empirically resolve it. Gee, I wonder why... I noticed how you very conveniently just skipped over that obviousness.

So what obviousness am I missing other than the obviousness that there cannot logically be an all knowing all loving god?

[Physics Guy]

I think most people in Germany consider the Bible as a piece of cultural background. Some passages may still be respected for their content as well, but I'm pretty sure that Germans who expect the whole Bible to be of uniform authority are a small minority.

The major Christian traditions here are not American-style evangelicalism, after all, but Roman Catholic and Lutheran. Catholicism has always taught that the Bible needs authoritative interpretation by the Church, and Lutheranism is much less different from Catholicism than later Protestant denominations. In spite of having "sola Scripture" as a slogan, the Lutheran tradition has always been willing to pick out some parts of Scripture as better than others and unapologetically force the others into line with the good texts. Luther made no bones about putting Romans over James.

The wrinkliness of the Bible just isn't much of an issue in most of Christianity, let alone in the largely post-Christian broader cultures of Europe. I think it's more of an issue for the anti-authoritarian and anti-intellectual strains in American culture, where the Bible is supposed to be enough for anyone and you're not supposed to need anyone else to tell you how to interpret it. Somehow this rugged individualist attitude seems to me to lead all too often to slavish dependence on charismatic pastors who can make it all seem clear. I've known a few people, though, who really do seem to revere the whole Bible while wrestling honestly with it. In effect it seems become for them one part of a dialogue, of which the other half is their own life.

[huckelberry]

On the bolded portion. Can we suggest that is true of many books? I mean nearly all? Some people can seemingly feel inspiration by any parts of any book? And why would someone include god as being part of that inspiration? Or perhaps, what is inspiration?

Yes, of course. That is why god has said we should seek knowledge from the best books.

If you are asking what inspiration is, I can only offer my opinion that it is confirmation or condemnation; epiphany or confusion. Sometimes all at once.

Sledge, I found your characterization of inspiration pleasantly honest. I think dastardly stem is brushing aside the very wide variety of things that might be called inspiration. I think I will have ice cream! Lets watch a movie! I just wrote a song that I think really tells it! I think I will study physics, or perhaps french cooking! Bank robbery, that's the ticket! no play guitar like the guy on mtv!

I think it is clear that people think of divine inspiration when it reveals a bit of understanding of the meaning of life and how that intersects with their choice of actions. That may be closer to the inspiration that sledge has mentioned.

Of course that spiritual inspiration does not seem to be aimed at prophesy about such things as what will happen if you marry so and so. It doesn't always even seem to be as interested in clarifying what church is right.(thought it might at some times) Some may see that as showing that god is not there. On the other hand it might show that which church is not the primary question God is concerned with.