joi, 18 decembrie 2014

Dumnezeu se sinucide

     Cand unui individ i se spune ca cineva a facut un sacrificiu pentru el, in mintea acestuia se declanseaza in mod natural un sentiment de indatorare sau de autoinvinovatire. Daca in mod voluntar ai primi o bataie in locul cuiva, persoana respectiva ti-ar fi recunoscatoare. Daca ai renunta la ochii tai ventru a darui vederea unui orb, cu siguranta ca persoana in cauza ar avea motive serioase pentru a se simti datoare si in acelasi timp neputinciosa in a-ti rasplati tot ce ai facut pentru ea. Daca ti-ai da viata pentru cineva, e foarte probabil ca aceea persoana sa traiasca toata viata cu un sentiment de autoinvinovatire.
     Este suficient sa convingi pe cineva de faptul ca altcineva si-a dat viata pentru el, pentru a trezi in mintea acestuia sentimente puternice de indatorare si recunoastere. Combinand nonsensurile doctrinelor crestine cu tehnicile de manipulare emotionala prin care pot fi create sentimente de recunoastere si autoinvinovatire, putem sa producem chiar si iluzia precum ca mitul sacrificiului divin ar avea vreun sens. Asta e de fapt ceea ce face popa si predicatorul duminica la biserica.
     Nu multora le-a trecut vreodata prin cap sa se puna in pielea sarmanului Dumnezeu care s-a simtit obligat de el insusi sa se sinucida pentru a salva propriile sale creaturi de la propria sa condamnare.
     Cum ar fi sa iti imaginezi faptul ca esti atotputernic si atotstiutor. La un moment dat, faci niste creaturi constiente, care sa aiba dorinte, inclusiv dorinta de a se juca cu nuci. Intr-o zi, iti duci creaturile intr-un loc unde cresc nuci, apoi le spui ca au voie sa se joace cu orce, numai cu nuci nu. Creaturile tale fac ce fac, iar apoi la un moment dat incep sa se joace cu nuci, facandu-te extrem de nefericit, desi in calitate de Creator atotstiutor stiai dintodeauna faptul ca daca le vei pune un nuc prin prejma, creaturile tale se vor juca cu ele. Si ce trebuie sa faci tu acum dupa ce dorinta ta prosteasca nu a fost implinita de catre fiintele pe care nu te-a obligat nimeni sa le faci? Conform cu doctrina biblica, ar trebui sa sa te duci printre creaturile tale pentru a fi omorat, apoi sa invii dupa trei zile. Vei face toate aceste lucruri ridicole pentru a impresiona pe nimeni altul in afara de propia ta persoana, deoarece nu te-a obligat nimeni sa joci acest joc ridicol.
     Au vreun sens toate aceste credinte crestine? Evident ca nu, insa repetarea acestor invataturi lipsite de sens a creat ceea ce se numeste "obisnuirea cu absurdul".

-Haidautu


31 de comentarii:

  1. Excelent punctata absurditatea sacrificiului divin/

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  2. foarte bine ! am remarcat si o gandire filozofica , foarte tare !

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  3. Mai bine si mai clar de atat nu se putea. In cateva randuri ai "demolat" baza religiei Crestine. Cat de evident poate sa fie acest adevar, din pacate, nu e de ajuns pentru a opri persoanele din a crede in asa ceva, ba din contra, te vor cataloga ca "satanis" sau "criminal" daca incerci sa ii faci sa gandeasca; din acest motiv am mari sperante in noua generatie, care e mult mai deschisa pentru un dialog, va ajunge si momentul in care Religia va fi doar un vis urat, un cosmar pe care sa il uiti cand te trezesti. Rusinea omeniri.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  4. Psalm 14:1-3 The fool says in his heart, "THERE IS NO GOD"...


    Psalm 14:1-3 The Fool Says, THERE IS NO GOD. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is NONE who does good.
    The Lord looks down from heaven on THE CHILDREN OF MEN, to see if there are ANY who understand, who SEEK after God.
    They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is NONE who does good, not even one.(Ps.53:1-3 &Ps.11:4).

    Psalm 4:2 How long, O YOU SONS OF MEN, will you turn My glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood?

    In Psalm 14:1-3 &Ps.43:1-3 God mean only about THE CHILDREN OF MEN and not about THE CHILDREN OF GOD.
    Bible verses like Genesis 6:2-4 &Gen.11:5&Job 30:8 &Job 1:6 &Job 2:1 &Job 38:7 &Ps.12:1 &Ps.45:2 &Ps.90:3 &Ecc.3:18 &Hosea 1:10 &Matt.5:9 &Luke 20:36 &Acts 3:25 &Acts 13:26 &Romans 8:14,19 &Rom.9:26 &Gal.3:26 &Gal.4:6 &Eph.5:6 &Coloss.3:6 help us to see that already from the beginning our world was separated by God in only two groups of peoples called, "THE CHILDREN OF GOD and the CHILDREN OF MEN.

    The animals have instincts to guide them, but as man you has leamed to ask questions, like "Who am I?" "Why am I here? Where am I going?"
    You are the only creature in the universe who asks, "Why"
    Maybe you tried to answer these questions without reference to God.
    And you saw that the answers that came back were not exhilarating, but dark and terrible, saying,"You are the accidental by-product of nature, a result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death... and you are a cosmic orohan until the day you die.

    Seeing yourself as modern thinking man you thought that when you had gotten rid of God, you had freed yourself from all that repressed and stifled you.
    But i will help you to discover that in killing God, you had also killed yourself. For if there is no God, then your life becomes absurd.

    If God does not exist, then both you and the universe are inevitably doomed to death.
    For now you know that you exist, that you are alive, you also know that someday you will no longer exist, that you will no longer be, that you will die.
    You, like all biological organisms, must die. With no hope of immortality, your life leads only to the grave.

    This thought is staggering and threatening: to think that the person you call "myself" will cease to exist, that you will be no more!
    Your life without God is but a spark in the infinite blackness, a spark that appears, flickers, and dies forever.
    And whether it comes sooner or later, the prospect of death and the threat of non-being is a terrible horror.

    The true existential significance of your death can only be appreciated from the first-person perspective, as you realize that you are going to die and forever cease to exist. Your life without God is just a momentary transition out of oblivion into oblivion.

    And the universe, too, faces death. Scientists tell us that the universe is expanding, and everything in it is growing farther and farther apart. As it does so, it grows colder and colder, and its energy is used up. Eventually all the stars will burn out and all matter will collapse into dead stars and black holes. There will be no light at all; there will be no heat; there will be no life; only the corpses of dead stars and galaxies, ever expanding into the endless darkness and the cold recesses of space—a universe in ruins. So not only is the life of each individual person doomed; the entire human race is doomed. There is no escape. There is no hope.

    IF THERE IS NO GOD, then you and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, you await your unavoidable execution.
    IF THERE IS NO GOD then there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd.
    It means that the life you have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.

    &Now let's continue to look at each of these....

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  5. If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life?
    Does it really matter whether he ever existed at all?
    His life may be important relative to certain other events, but what is the ultimate significance of any of those events?
    If all the events are meaningless, then what can be the ultimate meaning of influencing any of them?
    Ultimately it makes no difference.

    Look at it from another perspective: Scientists say that the infinite universe originated in an explosion called the "Big Bang" about 13 billion years ago. Suppose the Big Bang had never occurred. Suppose the universe had never existed. What ultimate difference would it make?
    The universe is doomed to die anyway.
    And in the end it makes no difference whether the universe ever existed or not.
    Therefore, it is without ultimate significance.

    The same is true of the human race.
    Mankind is a doomed race in a dying universe.
    Because the human race will eventually cease to exist, it makes no ultimate difference whether it ever did exist.
    Mankind is thus no more significant than a swarm of mosquitos or a barnyard of pigs, for their end is all the same.
    The same blind cosmic process that coughed them up in the first place will eventually swallow them all again.

    And the same is true of each individual person.
    The contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the researches of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good men everywhere to better the lot of the human race--ALL THESE COME TO NOTHING.
    This is the horror of modern man WITHOUT GOD: because he ends in NOTHING, he is NOTHING.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  6. But it is important to see that it is not just immortality that man needs if life is to be meaningful.
    Mere duration of existence does not make that existence meaningful.
    If man and the universe could exist forever, but if there were no God, their existence would still have no ultimate significance.

    To illustrate: I once read a science-fiction story in which an astronaut was marooned on a barren chunk of rock lost in outer space.
    He had with him two vials: one containing poison and the other a potion that would make him live forever.
    Realizing his predicament, he gulped down the poison.
    But then to his horror, he discovered he had swallowed the wrong vial—he had drunk the potion for immortality.
    And that meant that he was cursed to exist forever—a meaningless, unending life.
    Now if God does not exist, our lives are just like that.
    They could go on and on and still be utterly without meaning.
    We could still ask of life, "So what?"
    So it is not just immortality man needs if life is to be ultimately significant; he needs God and immortality. And if God does not exist, then he has neither.

    Twentieth-century man came to understand this. Read Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
    During this entire play two men carry on trivial conversation while waiting for a third man to arrive, who never does. Our lives are like that, Beckett is saying; we just kill time waiting—for what, we don't know.
    In a tragic portrayal of man, Beckett wrote another play in which the curtain opens revealing a stage littered with junk.
    For thirty long seconds, the audience sits and stares in silence at that junk. Then the curtain closes. That's all.

    French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus understood this, too. Sartre portrayed life in his play No Exit as hell—the final line of the play are the words of resignation, "Well, let's get on with it." Hence, Sartre writes elsewhere of the "nausea" of existence. Camus, too, saw life as absurd.
    At the end of his brief novel The Stranger, Camus's hero discovers in a flash of insight that the infinite universe has no meaning and there is no God to give it one.

    Thus, if there is no God, then life itself becomes meaningless. Man and the universe are without ultimate significance.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  7. If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint.
    Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please.
    As Dostoyevsky put it: "If there is no immortality then all things are permitted."
    On this basis, a writer like Ayn Rand is absolutely correct to praise the virtues of selfishness. Live totally for self; no one holds you accountable! Indeed, it would be foolish to do anything else, for life is too short to jeopardize it by acting out of anything but pure self-interest.
    Sacrifice for another person would be stupid. Kai Nielsen, an atheist philosopher who attempts to defend the viability of ethics without God, in the end admits,
    "We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by myth or ideology, need not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn't decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me . . . . Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.(Kai Nielsen, "Why Should I Be Moral?" American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 90).

    But the problem becomes even worse.
    For, regardless of immortality, if there is no God, then there can be no objective standards of right and wrong.
    All we are confronted with is, in Jean-Paul Sartre's words, the bare, valueless fact of existence.
    Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning.
    In a world without God, who is to say which values are right and which are wrong?
    Who is to judge that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint?
    The concept of morality loses all meaning in a universe without God. As one contemporary atheistic ethicist points out, "to say that something is wrong because . . . it is forbidden by God, is . . . perfectly understandable to anyone who believes in a law-giving God.
    But to say that something is wrong . . . even though no God exists to forbid it, is not understandable. . . ."
    "The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone.(Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985), 90, 84).

    In a world without God, there can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments.
    This means that it is impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil.
    Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, and love as good. For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  8. If death stands with open arms at the end of life's trail, then what is the goal of life?
    Is it all for nothing? Is there no reason for life?
    And what of the universe? Is it utterly pointless?
    If its destiny is a cold grave in the recesses of outer space the answer must be, yes—it is pointless.
    There is no goal no purpose for the infinite universe.
    The litter of a dead universe will just go on expanding and expanding—forever.

    And what of man? Is there no purpose at all for the human race?
    Or will it simply peter out someday lost in the oblivion of an indifferent universe?
    The English writer H. G. Wells foresaw such a prospect. In his novel The Time Machine Wells's time traveler journeys far into the future to discover the destiny of man. All he finds is a dead earth, save for a few lichens and moss, orbiting a gigantic red sun. The only sounds are the rush of the wind and the gentle ripple of the sea. "Beyond these lifeless sounds," writes Wells, "the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives—all that was over.( 3 H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (New York: Berkeley, 1957), chap. 11).

    And so Wells's time traveler returned. But to what?—to merely an earlier point on the purposeless rush toward oblivion. When as a non-Christian I first read Wells's book, I thought, "No, no! It can't end that way!"
    But if there is no God, it will end that way, like it or not.
    This is reality in a universe without God: there is NO HOPE; there is NO PURPOSE.

    What is true of mankind as a whole is true of each of us individually: we are here to no purpose.
    If there is no God, then our life is not qualitatively different from that of a dog.
    As the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes put it: "The fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All come from the dust and all return to the dust" (Eccles 3:19-20).
    In this book, which reads more like a piece of modern existentialist literature than a book of the Bible, the writer shows the futility of pleasure, wealth, education, political fame, and honor in a life doomed to end in death. His verdict? "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity" (1:2).
    If life ends at the grave, then we have NO ULTIMATE PURPOSE FOR LIVING.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  9. But more than that: even if it did not end in death, without God life would still be without purpose. For man and the universe would then be simple accidents of chance, thrust into existence for no reason. Without God the universe is the result of a cosmic accident, a chance explosion. There is no reason for which it exists. As for man, he is a freak of nature— a blind product of matter plus time plus chance. Man is just a lump of slime that evolved rationality.
    As one philosopher has put it: "Human life is mounted upon a subhuman pedestal and must shift for itself alone in the heart of a silent and mindless universe.(W.E. Hocking, Types of Philosophy (New York: Scribner's, 1959), 27).

    What is true of the universe and of the human race is also true of us as individuals. If God does not exist, then you are just a miscarriage of nature, thrust into a purposeless universe to live a purposeless life.

    So if God does not exist, that means that man and the universe exist TO NO PURPOSE—since the end of everything is DEATH—and that they came to be FOR NO PURPOSE, since they are only blind products of chance. In short, life is utterly without reason.

    Do you understand the gravity of the alternatives before us?
    For if God exists, then there is hope for man. But if God does not exist, then all we are left with is despair. Do you understand why the question of God's existence is so vital to man?
    As one writer has aptly put it, "If God is dead, then man is dead, too."

    Unfortunately, the mass of mankind do not realize this fact.
    They continue on as though nothing has changed.
    I'm reminded of Nietzsche's story of the madman who in the early morning hours burst into the marketplace, lantern in hand, crying, "I seek God! I seek God!" Since many of those standing about did not believe in God, he provoked much laughter. "Did God get lost?" they taunted him. "Or is he hiding? Or maybe he has gone on a voyage or emigrated!" Thus they yelled and laughed. Then, writes Nietzsche, the madman turned in their midst and pierced them with his eyes

    'Whither is God?' he cried, 'I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? . . . God is dead. . . . And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves?(Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Gay Science," in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. W. Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1954), 95).

    The crowd stared at the madman in silence and astonishment. At last he dashed his lantern to the ground. "I have come too early," he said. "This tremendous event is still on its way—it has not yet reached the ears of man." Men did not yet truly comprehend the consequences of what they had done in killing God. But Nietzsche predicted that someday people would realize the implications of their atheism; and this realization would usher in an age of nihilism—the destruction of all meaning and value in life.

    Most people still do not reflect on the consequences of atheism and so, like the crowd in the marketplace, go unknowingly on their way.
    But when we realize, as did Nietzsche, what atheism implies, then his question presses hard upon us: how shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves?

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  10. About the only solution the atheist can offer is that we face the absurdity of life and live bravely.
    Bertrand Russell, for example, wrote that we must build our lives upon "the firm foundation of unyielding despair.(Bertrand Russell, "A Free Man's Worship," in Why I Am Not a Christian, ed. P. Edwards (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 107).

    Only by recognizing that the world really is a terrible place can we successfully come to terms with life.
    Camus said that we should honestly recognize life's absurdity and then live in love for one another.

    The fundamental problem with this solution, however, is that it is impossible to live consistently and happily within such a world view.
    If one lives consistently, he will not be happy; if one lives happily, it is only because he is not consistent.
    Francis Schaeffer has explained this point well. Modern man, says Schaeffer, resides in a two-story universe. In the lower story is the finite world without God; here life is absurd, as we have seen. In the upper story are meaning, value, and purpose. Now modern man lives in the lower story because he believes there is no God. But he cannot live happily in such an absurd world; therefore, he continually makes leaps of faith into the upper story to affirm meaning, value, and purpose, even though he has no right to, since he does not believe in God.

    Let's look again, then, at each of the three areas in which we saw life was absurd without God, to show how man cannot live consistently and happily with his atheism.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  11. First, the area of meaning. We saw that without God, life has no meaning. Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning.
    For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action.
    Sartre himself chose Marxism.

    Now this is utterly inconsistent. It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say one may create meaning for his life.
    If life is really absurd, then man is trapped in the lower story.
    To try to create meaning in life represents a leap to the upper story.
    But Sartre has no basis for this leap.
    Without God, there can be no objective meaning in life.
    Sartre's program is actually an exercise in self-delusion.
    Sartre is really saying, "Let's pretend the universe has meaning."
    And this is just fooling ourselves.

    The point is this: if God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning.
    But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent—for without God, man and the universe are WITHOUT ANY REAL SIGNIFICANCE.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  12. Turn now to the problem of value. Here is where the most blatant inconsistencies occur.
    First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood.
    Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood.
    The two are logically incompatible. Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent. For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom.
    Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views "incredible." "I do not know the solution," he confessed.(Bertrand Russell, Letter to the Observer, 6 October, 1957).

    The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong cannot exist. As Dostoyevsky said, "All things are permitted."

    But Dostoyevsky also showed that man cannot live this way. He cannot live as though it is perfectly all right for soldiers to slaughter innocent children. He cannot live as though it is all right for dictators like Pol Pot to exterminate millions of their own countrymen. Everything in him cries out to say these acts are wrong—really wrong.
    But if there is no God, he cannot. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.

    The horror of a world devoid of value was brought home to me with new intensity a few years ago as I viewed a BBC television documentary called "The Gathering." It concerned the reunion of survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, where they rediscovered lost friendships and shared their experiences.
    One woman prisoner, a nurse, told of how she was made the gynecologist at Auschwitz. She observed that pregnant women were grouped together by the soldiers under the direction of Dr. Mengele and housed in the same barracks. Some time passed, and she noted that she no longer saw any of these women. She made inquiries. "Where are the pregnant women who were housed in that barracks?" "Haven't you heard?" came the reply. "Dr. Mengele used them for vivisection."

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  13. Another woman told of how Mengele had bound up her breasts so that she could not suckle her infant. The doctor wanted to learn how long an infant could survive without nourishment. Desperately this poor woman tried to keep her baby alive by giving it pieces of bread soaked in coffee, but to no avail. Each day the baby lost weight, a fact that was eagerly monitored by Dr. Mengele.
    A nurse then came secretly to this woman and told her, "I have arranged a way for you to get out of here, but you cannot take your baby with you. I have brought a morphine injection that you can give to your child to end its life." When the woman protested, the nurse was insistent: "Look, your baby is going to die anyway. At least save yourself." And so this mother took the life of her own baby. Dr. Mengele was furious when he learned of it because he had lost his experimental specimen, and he searched among the dead to find the baby's discarded corpse so that he could have one last weighing.

    My heart was torn by these stories. One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed. Mankind had never seen such a hell.

    And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: there is no absolute right and wrong; all things are permitted. But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view. Nietzsche himself, who proclaimed the necessity of living beyond good and evil, broke with his mentor Richard Wagner precisely over the issue of the composer's anti-Semitism and strident German nationalism. Similarly Sartre, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that a doctrine that leads to extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste, of equal value with its opposite.(Jean Paul Sartre, "Portrait of the Antisemite," in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Satre, rev. ed., ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: New Meridian Library, 1975), p. 330).

    In his important essay "Existentialism Is a Humanism," Sartre struggles vainly to elude the contradiction between his denial of divinely pre-established values and his urgent desire to affirm the value of human persons. Like Russell, he could not live with the implications of his own denial of ethical absolutes.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  14. A second problem is that if God does not exist and there is no immortality, then all the evil acts of men go unpunished and all the sacrifices of good men go unrewarded. But who can live with such a view?
    Richard Wurmbrand, who has been tortured for his faith in communist prisons, says,
    "The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, 'There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.' I have heard one torturer even say, 'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.' He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.(Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967).

    And the same applies to acts of self-sacrifice.
    A number of years ago, a terrible mid-winter air disaster occurred in which a plane leaving the Washington, D.C., airport smashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, plunging its passengers into the icy waters. As the rescue helicopters came, attention was focused on one man who again and again pushed the dangling rope ladder to other passengers rather than be pulled to safety himself. Six times he passed the ladder by. When they came again, he was gone. He had freely given his life that others might live. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the selfless and good act he had performed.
    And yet, if the atheist is right, that man was not noble—he did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the ladder first, pushed others away if necessary in order to survive.
    But to die for others he did not even know, to give up all the brief existence he would ever have—what for?
    For the atheist there can be no reason.
    And yet the atheist, like the rest of us, instinctively reacts with praise for this man's selfless action. Indeed, one will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system. For a universe without moral accountability and devoid of value is unimaginably terrible.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  15. Finally, let's look at the problem of PURPOSE OF LIFE.
    The only way most people who deny purpose in life live happily is either by making up some purpose, which amounts to self-delusion as we saw with Sartre, or by not carrying their view to its logical conclusions.

    Take the problem of death, for example. According to Ernst Bloch, the only way modern man lives in the face of death is by subconsciously borrowing the belief in immortality that his forefathers held to, even though he himself has no basis for this belief, since he does not believe in God. By borrowing the remnants of a belief in immortality, writes Bloch, "modern man does not feel the chasm that unceasingly surrounds him and that will certainly engulf him at last. Through these remnants, he saves his sense of self-identity. Through them the impression arises that man is not perishing, but only that one day the world has the whim no longer to appear to him." Bloch concludes, "This quite shallow courage feasts on a borrowed credit card. It lives from earlier hopes and the support that they once had provided.(Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1959), 2:360-1).

    Modern man without God no longer has any right to that support, since he rejects God. But in order to live purposefully, he makes a leap of faith to affirm a reason for living.

    We often find the same inconsistency among those who say that man and the infinite universe came to exist for no reason or purpose, but just by chance.
    Unable to live in an impersonal universe in which everything is the product of blind chance, these persons begin to ascribe personality and motives to the physical processes themselves.
    It is a bizarre way of speaking and represents a leap from the lower to the upper story.
    For example, Francis Crick halfway through his book The Origin of the Genetic Code begins to spell nature with a capital "N" and elsewhere speaks of natural selection as being "clever" and as "thinking" of what it will do.
    Fred Hoyle, the English astronomer, attributes to the universe itself the qualities of God. For Carl Sagan the "Cosmos," which he always spells with a capital letter, obviously fills the role of a God-substitute.
    Though all these men profess not to believe in God, they smuggle in a God-substitute through the back door because they cannot bear to live in a universe in which everything is the chance result of impersonal forces.

    And it's interesting to see many thinkers betray their views when they're pushed to their logical conclusions.
    For example, certain feminists have raised a storm of protest over Freudian sexual psychology because it is chauvinistic and degrading to women.
    And some psychologists have knuckled under and revised their theories. Now this is totally inconsistent. If Freudian psychology is really true, then it doesn't matter if it's degrading to women.
    You can't change the truth because you don't like what it leads to.
    But people cannot live consistently and happily in a world where other persons are devalued.
    Yet if God does not exist, then nobody has any value.
    Only if God exists can a person consistently support women's rights. For if God does not exist, then natural selection dictates that the male of the species is the dominant and aggressive one.
    Women would no more have rights than a female goat or chicken have rights.
    In nature whatever is, is right. But who can live with such a view?
    Apparently not even Freudian psychologists, who betray their theories when pushed to their logical conclusions.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  16. Or take the sociological behaviorism of a man like B. F. Skinner.
    This view leads to the sort of society envisioned in George Orwell's 1984, where the government controls and programs the thoughts of everybody.
    If Skinner's theories are right, then there can be no objection to treating people like the rats in Skinner's rat-box as they run through their mazes, coaxed on by food and electric shocks.
    According to Skinner, all our actions are determined anyway.
    And if God does not exist, then no moral objection can be raised against this kind of programming, for man is not qualitatively different from a rat, since both are just matter plus time plus chance.
    But again, who can live with such a dehumanizing view?

    Or finally, take the biological determinism of a man like Francis Crick. The logical conclusion is that man is like any other laboratory specimen. The world was horrified when it learned that at camps like Dachau the Nazis had used prisoners for medical experiments on living humans.
    But why not? If God does not exist, there can be no objection to using people as human guinea pigs.
    The end of this view is population control in which the weak and unwanted are killed off to make room for the strong.
    But the only way we can consistently protest this view is if God exists.
    ONLY if God exists can there be PURPOSE IN LIFE.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  17. The dilemma of modern man is thus truly terrible.
    And insofar as he denies the existence of God and the objectivity of value and purpose, this dilemma remains unrelieved for "post-modern" man as well.
    Indeed, it is precisely the awareness that modernism issues inevitably in absurdity and despair that constitutes the anguish of post-modernism. In some respects, post-modernism just is the awareness of the bankruptcy of modernity. The atheistic world view is insufficient to maintain a happy and consistent life.
    Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value, or purpose.
    If we try to live consistently within the atheistic world view, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy.
    If instead we manage to live happily, it is only by giving the lie to our world view.

    Confronted with this dilemma, man flounders pathetically for some means of escape. In a remarkable address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in 1991, Dr. L. D. Rue, confronted with the predicament of modern man, boldly advocated that we deceive ourselves by means of some "Noble Lie" into thinking that we and the universe still have value.(Loyal D. Rue, "The Saving Grace of Noble Lies," address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, February, 1991).

    Claiming that "The lesson of the past two centuries is that intellectual and moral relativism is profoundly the case," Dr. Rue muses that the consequence of such a realization is that one's quest for personal wholeness (or self-fulillment) and the quest for social coherence become independent from one another.
    This is because on the view of relativism the search for self-fulfillment becomes radically privatized: each person chooses his own set of values and meaning. If we are to avoid "the madhouse option," where self-fulfillment is pursued regardless of social coherence, and "the totalitarian option," where social coherence is imposed at the expense of personal wholeness, then we have no choice but to embrace some Noble Lie that will inspire us to live beyond selfish interests and so achieve social coherence.
    A Noble Lie "is one that deceives us, tricks us, compels us beyond self-interest, beyond ego, beyond family, nation, [and] race."
    It is a lie, because it tells us that the universe is infused with value (which is a great fiction), because it makes a claim to universal truth (when there is none), and because it tells me not to live for self-interest (which is evidently false).
    "But without such lies, we cannot live."

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  18. This is the dreadful verdict pronounced over modern man. In order to survive, he must live in self-deception.
    But even the Noble Lie option is in the end unworkable.
    In order to be happy, one must believe in objective meaning, value, and purpose.
    But how can one believe in those Noble Lies while at the same time believing in atheism and relativism?
    The more convinced you are of the necessity of a Noble Lie, the less you are able to believe in it.
    Like a placebo, a Noble Lie works only on those who believe it is the truth.
    Once we have seen through the fiction, then the Lie has lost its power over us.
    Thus, ironically, the Noble Lie cannot solve the human predicament for anyone who has come to see that predicament.

    The Noble Lie option therefore leads at best to a society in which an elitist group of illuminati deceive the masses for their own good by perpetuating the Noble Lie.
    But then why should those of us who are enlightened follow the masses in their deception?
    Why should we sacrifice self-interest for a fiction?
    If the great lesson of the past two centuries is moral and intellectual relativism, then why (if we could) pretend that we do not know this truth and live a lie instead?
    If one answers, "for the sake of social coherence," one may legitimately ask why I should sacrifice my self-interest for the sake of social coherence?
    The only answer the relativist can give is that social coherence is in my self-interest—but the problem with this answer is that self-interest and the interest of the herd do not always coincide.
    Besides, if (out of self-interest) I do care about social coherence, the totalitarian option is always open to me: forget the Noble Lie and maintain social coherence (as well as my self-fulfillment) at the expense of the personal wholeness of the masses.
    Rue would undoubtedly regard such an option as repugnant.
    But therein lies the rub.
    Rue's dilemma is that he obviously values deeply both social coherence and personal wholeness for their own sakes; in other words, they are objective values, which according to his philosophy do not exist.
    He has already leapt to the upper story.
    The Noble Lie option thus affirms what it denies and so refutes itself.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  19. But if atheism fails in this regard, what about biblical Christianity? According to the Christian world view, God does exist, and man's life does not end at the grave.
    In the resurrection body man may enjoy eternal life and fellowship with God.
    Biblical Christianity therefore provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life for man: God and immortality.
    Because of this, we can live consistently and happily.
    Thus, biblical Christianity succeeds precisely where atheism breaks down.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  20. Now I want to make it clear that I have not yet shown biblical Christianity to be true.
    But what I have done is clearly spell out the alternatives.
    1- If God does not exist, then life is futile.
    2- If the God of the Bible does exist, then life is meaningful.
    Only the second of these two alternatives enables us to live happily and consistently.
    Therefore, it seems to me that even if the evidence for these two options were absolutely equal, a rational person ought to choose biblical Christianity.
    It seems to me positively irrational to prefer death, futility, and destruction to life, meaningfulness, and happiness.
    As Pascal said, we have nothing to lose and infinity to gain.

    Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear THE CONCLUSION of the whole matter:
    Fear God and keep HIS commandments, for this is the duty of EVERY MAN.(Rev.14:7 &Luke 17:10 &1John 2:3-4 &1John 5:2-3 &Matt.19:17 &Rev.22:14 &Rev.14:12 &Rev.20:12-13)

    Revelation 20:13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were JUDGED, each one according to his WORKS.

    Romans 2:12 For as many as have sinned WITHOUT THE LAW OF GOD WILL ALSO "PERISH" WITHOUT LAW, and as many as have sinned HAVING THE LAW will be judged by the law of liberty(James 1:25 &James 2:12).

    1 Corinthians 11:31 For if we would JUDGE OURSELVES(looking in the Law of liberty Exodus 20) we would NOT be judged by God.

    RăspundețiȘtergere

  21. Paul Haidutu wrote that when a person is told that somebody made a sacrifice for him, in his mind naturally triggers a sense of indebtedness or even of self-blame.
    If you are agree to remove your eyes in the idea to help a blind person to see, surely that blind person would have serious reasons to feel indebted and in impossibility to reward you for that what you did.
    If you are ready to die in the place of someone, that person will live all his life with a sense of self blame.
    It is enough to convince anyone that someone has given his life for him and with this you aroused in the mind of that person a strong feelings of indebtedness and recognition.
    Combining emotional techniques with all kind of nonsense used in Christians doctrines, can create feelings of guilt, indebtedness and self-recognition

    Now let`s see WHY it is impossible to apply Paul Haidutu explanation.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  22. Acest comentariu a fost eliminat de autor.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
    Răspunsuri
    1. WHY IS NOT TRUE what Paul Haidutu said about God giving His life on the cross to make us feel EMOTIONALLY and INDEPDED and in SELF-BLAME for His death on the cross FOR our sins and in needs of RECOGNITION ?.

      Jesus said in:
      John 6:44-45 NO ONE CAN COME TO ME unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
      It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall ALL be TAUGHT BY GOD. Therefore everyone who HAS heard and learned FROM the Father COME TO ME.(in Matt.11:28).
      Matthew 11:28 COME TO ME, all you who labor and are heavy laden(with sins) and I will give you rest.(John 6:44).

      In John 6:44-45 &Matt.11:28 we see God using ONLY HIS LAW(Exodus 24:12 &Deut.5:31 etc) as His only one TEACHING and tutor(school-master) to bring us to Christ Jesus.(Galatians 3:24).

      And by the word "LAW" we are called to know ALL LAWS about Sanctuary given to manage and support God`s main Law Exodus 20 which is the fundament of His grace seat(called now as throne).
      For where NO LAW IS, there is NO SIN(Romans 4:15 &Rom.5:13)
      and where is NO SIN, there is NO NEEDS for grace and cross FOR sin.

      John 7:49 But this crowd that does not know THE LAW is accursed.”

      There is NO ONE verse in the Bible to see God using the cross to bring us to Christ.

      Because God use ONLY HIS LAW to bring us to Christ, and in John 6:44-45 Jesus make clearly that we have NO CHANCE TO COME TO CHRIST WITHOUT TO BE AT FIRST atracted by God the Father and His LAW to be at first TAUGHT by the Father BEFORE TO COME TO Christ.

      And there are VERY many Bible verses like Exodus 24:12 &Deut.5:31 &Gal.3:24 saying ONLY about the LAW of God as TEACHING and WAY TO Christ Jesus.

      KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE LAW OF GOD IS REQUIRED AS FIRST STEP BEFORE TO COME TO CHRIST JESUS !.
      How many Christian religions was able to understand John 6:44-45 ?.

      But when you really desire to COME TO Christ...already as arrived to Him, He called you to FOLLOW Him and die together with Him(Matt.16:24 &Matt.10:38 &Luke 14:27):

      Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified WITH Christ; it is NO LONGER I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

      Romans 6:7 For he who has died(with Him) has been freed from sin.
      1John 3:9 Whoever has been BORN AGAIN OF GOD does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.(1John 5:18).

      Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?.

      Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
      Matthew 10:38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
      Luke 14:27 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

      Ștergere
  23. Acest comentariu a fost eliminat de autor.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
    Răspunsuri
    1. But Romans 5:10 called us to see Jesus crucified already on the time when WE WERE ENEMIES AGAINST GOD.
      And the ENEMIES are not EMOTIONALLY and INDEPDED and in SELF-BLAME for the death on the cross FOR their sins.

      Romans 5:10 For if WHEN WE WERE ENEMIES we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

      Colossians 1:20 and by Him to reconcile ALL things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having MADE PEACE through the blood of His cross.

      God has made peace with His ENEMIES through the blood of His Son on the cross.

      As true Christians we know that our God is immortal and there on the cross died ONLY the 100%MAN Jesus Christ called as Son of God, of David, of man and of Adam (and as second Adam).
      Of course we know from the Bible that Jesus was God without beginning before to come in our world as 100%MAN.

      Only Paul Haidutu was able to see all viceversa since he was not able to read and understand the Bible.

      Because only a spiritual minded man will be able to understand spiritual words like these.

      Matthew 13:11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

      Romans 8: 6-7 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to THE LAW of God, nor indeed can be.

      Ștergere
  24. Acest comentariu a fost eliminat de autor.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
    Răspunsuri
    1. Paul Haidutu wrote that not many people ever went head-to put themselves in the skin and the shoes of God who felt himself forced to commit suicide in the idea to save his own creatures which actually were condemned by God.

      Then Paul Haidutu write that even He was able to know the future as omnipotent and omniscient God, He decided to create conscious creatures who have desires, including the desire to play with nuts.

      But you can not understand WHY He saw as necessary to begin to give His Law already there in the garden of Eden EVEN KNOWING that His creatures will sin against His commandment and He WILL have to come here as 100%MAN and stay nailed on the cross FOR sin against His Law ?.

      Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God COMMANDED the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall SURELY die.

      What would make you to give a commandment(law) to your children EVEN KNOWING that your children will ignore your commandment and you WILL have to stay nailed on the cross BECAUSE you gave the commandment.

      What would make you to give them a commandment(law) even with the price of your life ?.

      Ștergere
  25. Acest comentariu a fost eliminat de autor.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
    Răspunsuri
    1. Colossians 1:20 and by Him(Jesus) to RECONCILE ALL things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things IN HEAVEN, having MADE PEACE through the blood of His cross.

      You know that WE was in needs to be reconcilled to God and brought again in a totally peace with God.
      But WHAT saw God as necessary to be reconciled IN HEAVEN ?.
      What He saw there IN HEAVEN as being in needs for a perfect PEACE ?.

      Can you tell us what you was able to understand reading deep Bible verses like this ?.

      Colossians 1:20 and by Him(Jesus) to RECONCILE ALL things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things IN HEAVEN, having MADE PEACE through the blood of His cross.

      Ștergere
  26. Acest comentariu a fost eliminat de autor.

    RăspundețiȘtergere