OT: Bible Discussion (Split from Real World Sensitivities)

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by Tifone

I really don't see the link between animal liberation and hatred/violence ^_^ Quite the opposite btw. And about secularists being much more easily offended than many religious people, I think you're totally wrong - both historically and in current society. But I think we're going faaaar off topic.

All across America, Christianity is being challenged in the courts on a daily basis. Michael Newdow and his quixotic challenges against the Pledge of Allegiance come to mind. (And the Pledge isn't even specifically Christian, just generally theist.) Secularists sue to prevent schoolkids from praying. Teachers confiscate Bibles. Religious monuments are constantly under legal threat.

The town of Las Cruces, NM (Spanish for "The Crosses") was sued because the town logo has three crosses on it. Thankfully, the lawsuit has been dismissed, although the plaintiffs may attempt to appeal to the Supreme Court:
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10480497

Despite our whining, American Christians actually have it easy. We just have to put up with lawsuits and social pressure. Christians in other countries are literally in danger of being killed for their faith. See The Voice of the Martyrs for more details about anti-Christian persecution around the globe.

Historically, religious believers have done most of the persecuting. That's shameful, but also true. However, secularists have turned the tables these days, and faith is in the crosshairs.

Originally Posted by Tifone

Before starting to answer, I would like to say that I'm agnostic and I respect everyone's belief until it becomes dangerous for my, or other's people, freedom and happiness and life. So I got no prejudice at all against any religion, I've got many friends having lots of different beliefs/disbeliefs so I'm not attacking your point from an hate-mongering point of view. Actually, I'm not attacking you at all, just reading an historical book for me, an Holy Book for you.

Sure, understood. I don't think you hate me. (You don't even know me!) It's much more likely that you misunderstand the message of Christ. So let's talk about it.

Originally Posted by Tifone

Said that, I ask you to just read, just for the love of talking, debating and learning from each other:

Jesus says (and I'm just quoting):

"If anyone comes to me and does not HATE his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE." [Luke, 14:26]

When interpreting Scripture, context is key. In Luke 14, Jesus was telling His followers about the cost of being a disciple. He wanted to make it very clear to them that His demands were absolute. There should be no possibility of divided loyalties, because Jesus must be the Lord of your life. Reading the whole chapter makes this point quite clear.

Basically, Christ's message here is not that we have to literally hate our families. Rather, His message is that we must love Him so much that we are willing to sacrifice anything (or anyone) for Him.

It's also instructive to note that the overall message of the Bible is extremely pro-family. Parents are told to love our children. Children are told to love and obey their parents. Husbands and wives are instructed to love each other so completely that they become "one flesh" [Genesis 2:24]. One of the last acts Jesus performed before He died on the Cross was to make sure that His mother would have someone to care for her [John 19:25-27]. When taken in context, the idea that Jesus wants us to hate our families is plainly false.

Originally Posted by Tifone

"I tell you that to EVERYONE WHO HAS, MORE WILL BE GIVEN, but as for THE ONE WHO HAS NOTHING, EVEN WHAT HE HAS WILL BE TAKEN AWAY. But those enemies of mine who DID NOT WANT ME TO BE KING OVER THEM - BRING THEM HERE AND KILL THEM IN FRONT OF ME." [Luke 19:26-27]

This quote is taken out of context. Jesus was telling a parable in Luke 19, the Parable of the Ten Minas. Those words you quoted are spoken by Jesus, but they're actually the words of the king in the parable.

Originally Posted by Tifone

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I DID NOT COME TO BRING PEACE, BUT A SWORD. FOR I HAVE COME TO TURN A MAN AGAINS HIS FATHER, A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, A DAUGHTER IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER IN LAW, A MAN'S ENEMIES will be THE MEMBERS OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD." [Matthew 10:34-36]

This of course, not to go into the Old Testament, as you were talking just about Jesus.

As with the quote from Luke 14, Jesus is trying to warn His followers about the high cost of following Him. The Gospel divides people based on belief. Those who believe Jesus are fundamentally different from those who do not believe. Our priorities are different. Our worldview is different. Our lives are different. When Jesus is Lord, everything changes.

I have experienced the truth of Jesus's warning in my own life. My parents and I are divided on the Gospel. We maintain a cordial relationship as best we can, but our efforts aren't always successful. You might as well ask a Windows user and a Linux fan to share the same PC.

By the way, please don't make the mistake of thinking that Christians ignore the Old Testament. Ignoring the Old Testament is just modern-day Marcionism. The introduction to John's Gospel makes it crystal-clear: Jesus is the Word of God. Therefore, we have to take the whole Word if we accept Jesus as Lord. Ignoring the Hebrew Scriptures won't do.

That said, it is also important to understand that Christians interpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus. He is the "lens" through which we read the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus is the culmination of the Jewish rituals of sacrifice, the perfect High Priest, and the fulfillment of the Mosaic law. So we don't ignore the Hebrew Scriptures, but we do understand them in a very different way from most Jews.

Shalom.

[JaghataiKhan]

By the way, please don't make the mistake of thinking that Christians ignore the Old Testament. Ignoring the Old Testament is just modern-day Marcionism. The introduction to John's Gospel makes it crystal-clear: Jesus is the Word of God. Therefore, we have to take the whole Word if we accept Jesus as Lord. Ignoring the Hebrew Scriptures won't do.

Ok. Care to read the comic ink I gave you then? Old Testament god is f***ing scary.

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by JaghataiKhan

Ok. Care to read the comic ink I gave you then? Old Testament god is f***ing scary.

I'm happy to answer questions about my faith, but I'm not going to read comics by some organization called the Luciferian Liberation Front. Life is too short to spend on such pastimes....

That said, if you have a serious question, I'll do my best to answer it. In answer to your claim that "Old Testament god is f***ing scary," I can only respond that you have underestimated the situation. God can be very scary, even in the New Testament. Read some apocalyptic prophecies....

God is perfectly holy. Humans are not. An imperfect creature standing in the presence of pure holiness should be scared. It's the logical reaction.

God is also perfectly loving. That's why He sent His Son to save us. By accepting Christ's sacrifice, we can be cleansed of our sins. God makes us holy, and He adopts us as His children. When we are in Christ, we have nothing to fear anymore.

Think about a speed trap on the highway. When you see the patrol car, how do you respond? If you've been driving a bit too fast, you probably experience an adrenaline surge. If you were really speeding, you're probably terrified. Guilt is afraid of justice. But if you weren't speeding, then you have nothing to fear. You notice the officer, but you aren't worried.

The stakes are higher with God than with any highway patrolman.

[licker]

The bible is pro family????

chuckle...

That's rich, verily.

Prostituting ones daughters, sacrificing ones sons, god killing all first borns, ...

Yes, how pro family that is.

The bible is not pro family in the slightest, it is pro god. It is also full of contradictions and misleading statements which can be interpreted in any number of ways, and often are for individuals own uses or personal bents. I'm sure this is neither new nor interesting to any christians though, just as christians are not new or interesting to most agnostics.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

All across America, Christianity is being challenged in the courts on a daily basis. Michael Newdow and his quixotic challenges against the Pledge of Allegiance come to mind. (And the Pledge isn't even specifically Christian, just generally theist.) Secularists sue to prevent schoolkids from praying. Teachers confiscate Bibles. Religious monuments are constantly under legal threat.

Despite our whining, American Christians actually have it easy. We just have to put up with lawsuits and social pressure. Christians in other countries are literally in danger of being killed for their faith. See The Voice of the Martyrs for more details about anti-Christian persecution around the globe.

Historically, religious believers have done most of the persecuting. That's shameful, but also true. However, secularists have turned the tables these days, and faith is in the crosshairs.

Shalom.

Despite the Christians "whining", most of those are not attempts to persecute Christians, but to keep non-Christians or non-theists from being required to fund or participate in Christian ritual. No one wants to prevent kids from praying in school. The suits have largely been against organized school/government sponsored prayers. The religious monuments under threat are ones on government land or funded by the taxpayers. I don't know about teachers taking away Bibles, but a quick Google pulls up nothing reputable. Perhaps under the same conditions they'd take away any non school books? Disruption, reading during class etc?

And as an occasional atheist, I do find it a little annoying to pledge "under God". It's easiest to understand with a little substitution. How would you feel if you (or your child) had to repeat "under Allah" or to be as generic "under the Goddess"?
And that time honored pledge that it's such a horror to even consider changing? The "under God" part dates only to the 50s. It was added to distinguish us from the godless commies.

It's always amused me that Christians get to play the victim card in the US where they are in so many ways so dominant. Far more societal and political influence than almost anywhere else in the developed world, but anytime they can't get the government to force their beliefs on the rest of us, someone will cry "persecution"


Even in the rest of the world, most of the persecution of Christians is done by other religions. (And there is plenty of persecution of other religions by Christians as well.) The largest exception would be the remaining Communist regimes, particularly China, where they'll persecute anyone who doesn't toe the party line anyway. Religions are only one target.

[Nikelaos]

I think it is wrong for people to pick out little qoutes to make judgements, being totally conservative here, the bible was written by several people and their scriptures were all written at different times, even the 4 gospels were written with a 30/40 year gap between each one and as such each chapter of the bible will have the individual ideas of a single individual and is insufficient in my opinion to lift an entire faith but instead the fundamentals of the entire collection of scriptures should just be followed.

i myself am a catholic but i feel sometimes it is unsafe to believe little more than there is a god and that i should live a good, honest life wether or not there is a god.

also to clarify i believe most christians take the old testament to be little more than a fable, the fundamental values are accepted but the stories aren't necesarrily taken literally as they are written in the bible.

for instance moses didn't make miracles in my opinion, it was simply scientific knowledge, everyone who has made the effort to read the bible should know that with most of moses miracles the pharoahs advisors recreated them on a smaller scale, explaining to pharoah that moses was a fake and telling him not to release the isrealites. A good example would be the parting of the sea, moses didn't really part the sea and it was more of a large inland lake than an ocean, the lake was and i believe still is connected to a tidal river and so the water level would drop with the tides revealing a landbridge, the israelites would cross and the egyptians would be cut off from them completely when the tides rose.

off course this is only an educated guess on my part but i hope it may clear some things up.

[licker]

So you just pick what you want to take literally and what you don't?

And you accept that even though there are more gospels than what are included in the bible that the others are not important/relevant to the religion?

Look, I have nothing against christians (or any religion), but it amuses me the leaps of logic many people make in trying to make their decision to believe in fairy tales palatable to themselves.

[Agema]

Originally Posted by licker

So you just pick what you want to take literally and what you don't?

And you accept that even though there are more gospels than what are included in the bible that the others are not important/relevant to the religion?

Look, I have nothing against christians (or any religion), but it amuses me the leaps of logic many people make in trying to make their decision to believe in fairy tales palatable to themselves.

I might suggest that saying you have nothing against the religious is a lot more convincing when you don't then patronisingly belittle them for illogicality and believing fairy tales.

I'm an atheist too for the record. But I have plenty of friends and family who are religious, some are smarter than me and many of their detractors, and I think all deserve better than casual mockery.

* * *

I think many atheists are a little disingenuous with "Christians pick and choose" arguments. The Bible is and always was considered a book that works on many levels. Biblical literalism - much of what causes problems in the modern world in my view - was popularised by elements of Protestantism 1500 years after Christ. Even today it is only prevalent in Protestants, and a minority at that, albeit a minority with plenty of money and will to make a disproportionately big noise about their beliefs.

Someone (Slippery Jim?) said that Jesus is the lens through which the Bible should be read. This reflects an important ideal that has existed in Christianity since its earliest day recognised by earliest Christian thinkers like Origen or St. Augustine: that not every last bit of the Bible, especially the O.T., should be carried out to the letter, or is an absolute word of God. Much of it allegorical, inaccurate interpretations by men with primitive understanding, simple historical record or whatever else.

[thejeff]

I think Nikelaos is saying he doesn't take it literally. Which is a fine way to approach it, there's a lot of wisdom in the Bible.
And with someone who took that approach I wouldn't "pick out little quotes to make judgements". That's reserved for those who claim to believe the whole thing it divinely inspired word for word, all literally true. Which is, I agree, a minority of Christians. Just usually the loudest ones.
(Especially in America.)

I particularly like those who claim they simply believe the literal meaning of the text, needing no interpretation, then proceed to explain what the verse means.

I am also reminded of the Gandhi quote: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
So many, and so many of the loudest voices, claim to be Christian, but I see very little of Christ in their behavior.

[licker]

I'm not an atheist, and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. You can take my statements at face value though.

And I don't have a problem with people who believe in fairy tales either, hell my kids love them

I don't think it's casual mockery either when people will say that that bible contains the 'word of god' but then decide they somehow get to chose which of words he actually apparently meant to be taken literally.

So either you accept that the bible is a big fairy tale and don't chose to base an otherwise completely arbitrary belief system off of it, or you stick up for a more literal interpretation of *all* of it. Really the distinction for most christians is between the old and new testament anyway. And there are arguments out there for why the old shouldn't be taken literally, but that the new should be. I think those arguments fail though, so that's why I take the stance I take.