another challenge for christians
I recently issued a challenge to Christians which received little or no uptake. Not deterred, I’ve thought of another one which I’m sure will be better received.
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:18)
I’ve been told on many occasions that my understanding of Christianity and the Bible is somewhat lacking. So I’m asking my Christian friends to help me navigate my way through their holy book. The verse above has me stumped. Why are Christians not stoning disobedient children? Why do Christians freely feast on the flesh of dead pigs? Why do Christians work on Sundays? Why do Christians allow illegitimate offspring in their congregations?
My challenge to Christians is to find me the passage in the Bible which explicitly and clearly explains that they can ignore the vast majority of laws that were established by their eternal and unchanging god in the Old Testament. If someone can pinpoint this clear explanation in the Bible, I’d like them to then explain to me why it doesn’t directly contradict the above quote attributed to the character Jesus.
Or did heaven and earth disappear?
*crickets*
You might get someone who says Jesus changed everything. It’s the usual cop-out.
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Oh, I hope one or two pop along to explain how there’s no contradiction. Otherwise atheism has won. 😉
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Evangelicals ignore Jesus and cite Paul: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the notions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we are held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.” (Romans 7.4-6)
That is why evangelicals are Paulanites, not Christians.
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And another: Galatians 3:24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.
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Thanks John. I really like Romans 7, it’s not in the slightest bit familiar, and has quite a few classically silly lines in it. I am interested to know how they separate the bits worth keeping and the bits for ditching, and then make sense of it all with the verse above. Do you think I can attract anyone sensible?
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Nope, but Colourstorm might pop in 😉
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Well, I guess that would be fun. Did you see SOM stormed off on me a few posts ago? He hates me. 😦
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He was just drunk. Cheap booze and summer heat makes people say and do silly things.
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I don’t know, he seemed very angry with me and I haven’t seen him since. I crossed the troll bridge one time too many.
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He’ll come around. He loves you, remember.
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“I hate coming here because you’re a moron. In the future please leave me alone.”
Sigh. He loves you more.
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That has cheap booze written all over it.
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‘Scuse me? So what have you got against cheap booze? If it weren’t for cheap booze, I’d have no booze at all! Now go to your room –!
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Gasp! Did you say something offensive to a Christian guest? SAY it isn’t so!
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There has never been a christian. We have Paulanites
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Matthew makes it clear that what you say is true – Paul assures us that it is not. Flip a coin —
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But they must reconcile it somehow.
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Why? Must Aesop and the brothers Grimm reconcile?
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John 1:16-17
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Thank you, although that is really a bit vague, and doesn’t suggest the old law could simply be ignored or replaced. The verses John has given above are slightly more convincing. However, none of them explain the contradiction with the Matthew verse. Any thoughts?
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The contradictions with the Matthew verse? You’ve not identified an actual contradiction. You’ve assumed that because Christians do not follow the Law of Moses the have contradicted what Jesus says in Matthew 5:18.
But to answer your questions:
There is Acts 10:9-15 which I would say answers the question about feasting on the flesh of pigs.
I assume that your question about Christians working on Sunday is in regards to the Sabbath, Which according to the law would be Friday evening through Saturday, not Sunday. But aside from that, Jesus had a lot to say regarding the Sabbath. So is it more important to observe the Sabbath by not working or by keeping it Holy and doing good?
Now, you’d have to be a little more clear on what you mean by your other questions about stoning disobedient Children and allowing illegitimate children? I don’t know the references you are pulling those from to really be able to address them. (I know, I’m a terrible Christian who doesn’t have the Bible memorized to know which verses are being cherry-picked…)
Regarding the verse you pulled from Matthew here’s a little more context from my perspective:
Matthew 5:17 …[Jesus] came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
As his audience would have been intimately familiar with the law of Moses and the practices of the scribes and Pharisees, we can clearly say that the passage you pulled was being addressed to the 1st Century Jew (not the 21st Century Christian).
From vs. 18, Jesus says at the end “…until everything is accomplished.” Now, you might think this is referring to “until heaven and earth disappear.” But looking at vs. 17 where Jesus says “…but to fulfill it.” would be key in the context of the passage. So the question that we should ask when reading it is whether or not Jesus has fulfilled the law?
If Jesus has fulfilled the law, then everything is accomplished. If he has not fulfilled the law, then not everything has been accomplished.
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Thank you Theologian, you’re the kind of Christian I wanted to discuss this with. You’re right that the Acts verse could possibly justify eating pigs, in isolation. But do dreams not always have hidden meanings in the Bible? It’s not a direct command, is it?
“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.” Deuteronomy 21:18-21
“A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.” Deuteronomy 23:2
What do you make of earth not disappearing? Does that suggest that everything hasn’t been accomplished?
The contradiction is that fulfilling the law couldn’t suddenly make things that were wrong, distasteful or evil for an eternal god who doesn’t change, into things that are good. You still claim you’re not allowed to steal or to lie.
I know there’s a distinction between the ceremonial and moral laws, but obeying your parents is a so-called moral law, as is the disgust with illegitimate children to ten generations. There seems to be some cherry picking.
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I’m just getting off working overnight so I’ll revisit the Deut. verses a little later. For now all I will say is that Deut. 21:18-21 seems to apply some additional charges than simply a “disobedient” child as you originally asked.
I’ll have to look more closely at Deut. 23:2 after I get some sleep.
My take on the earth not disappearing? Jesus was using a figure of speech, you know like “It’s raining cats and dogs.”
Does this suggest that everything hasn’t been accomplished? No, as it would depend on what exactly Jesus was referring to. As I said, if the reference was to all that Jesus was to accomplish in the fulfillment of the law than my previously closing remark still stands.
I’d say Matthew 5:20-48 pretty much teaches us how we should view the moral laws. But as I keep saying, I’ll be back after some rest.
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I can’t believe I forgot about Matthew 22: 37-40.
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Oh, I’m not so sure about that one. How can you love your neighbour if you spurn her because her grandmother wasn’t born within wedlock? How can you love your neighbour if you tell her to marry the man who raped her? How can you love your neighbour if you tell her that she can’t marry the woman she’s in love with but instead should remain celibate? How can you love your neighbour if you tell them their disobedient child should be stoned? I can’t even see how that would demonstrate love of any kind of benevolent deity. Those two greatest commandments are in complete opposition to many parts of the OT law.
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You originally were asking why Christians do not follow many parts of the OT law.
Now you say that Jesus’ two greatest commandments in Matt. 22:37-40 “are in complete opposition to many parts of the OT law.”
So it appears you have your answer as to “why” followers of Jesus would “not follow many parts of the OT law.” I just hope you didn’t miss this point by asking all of your questions.
I’ll leave you with this regarding your tirade of questions: Is it greater righteousness to throw the stone of judgement or to drop the stone out of love and compassion?
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That’s a good point, it does give the answer as to why Christians don’t follow all those old laws. But it leads us straight back round to the inevitable confusion with the clear statement about Jesus not changing one stroke of pen in the law, and also the assertion by Christians that their god and morality are unchanging. Any thoughts on how that can be reconciled, or where this is explained in the Bible?
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I have responded to a fair amount of your inquires, if you would simply respond in kind to the question I put forth at the end of my last comment: Is it greater righteousness to throw the stone of judgement or to drop the stone out of love and compassion?
I would happily continue this conversation. If however you want to continue beating your dead horse than I will leave you to it.
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“Is it greater righteousness to throw the stone of judgement or to drop the stone out of love and compassion?”
I realize you’re not addressing me, Simple, but this is a free forum, so I’ll just step in uninvited. First of all, I have no idea as to what you mean by the term, “righteousness” – it sounds like a term that refers back to religion, and being non-religious, it would have no meaning for me.
As for dropping the stone, I would have to say that if the Bible commands you to stone someone, dropping the stone would be in direct disobedience to the Bible’s god, and I’m not sure just how “righteous” your god would consider that to be – just remember what happened to Onan —
Interestingly, the entire story about Yeshua and the “lady taken in adultery” never appeared in the original NT. It doesn’t show up anywhere until the 4th century AD, and then, it was originally inserted into Luke until someone pointed out that it sounded more like something that John would write, and so it was moved. I think we may be looking at ancient examples of how legends like Paul Bunyon grew.
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That’s really interesting about the story Arch. Do you have the sources?
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The way I’ve used the term “righteousness” was from the standard English definition of the word. Which from the Oxford Dictionary:
Righteousness – noun – the quality of being morally right or justifiable.
As you are non-religious, do you still want to claim that the following definition of “righteousness” has no meaning for you?
You seem to be a walking commentary on the Bible (and probably the Qu’ran and other religious texts), religion does seem to have meaning to you, even if the meaning is that you think it’s all a complete farce or outdated way of thinking.
While the “woman caught in adultery” did cross my mind, it had little to do with the way I phrased the question. As you’ve mentioned there is controversy over the authenticity of that text.
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“Righteousness – noun – the quality of being morally right” – Can you define, “morally right“?
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Oh brother, I like how you chopped of the [or justifiable] from the definition. Seems to me you are fishing…as the question is being asked rather vaguely.
But to answer your question, defining “morally right [or justifiable] would start with whether you think of morality as being relative, universal, or absolute?
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Apologies, I assumed that was a rhetorical question. Obviously it’s nicer not to stone someone to death, for anything. The question itself is a bit odd though – would it ever have ‘right’ to judge someone evil for having sex with another person and kill them for it?
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I can see now how you would take it as rhetorical, however, I hope you do realize how tedious you are making this?
I apologize for the tangent, but please do not feign the interest of “seeking help from Christian friends to help you understand” when you feel you already know all the answers, And then turn around and badger them with your soapbox responses when they respond to your initial inquiry.
Now to get back on point, I have already provide the answer for you as to “why Christians do not follow many parts of the OT law,” which you may still have some residual animosity towards…
You then said that it brings us back to the supposed contradiction you started with in Matthew 5:18 regarding Jesus’ words. Now, it’s hard to say (but hopefully safe to assume) that put simply, you would say it’s more righteous for a person to act out of love and compassion than out of judgement and vengeance. I was trying to phrase the question based off of your comment I responded to, essentially attempting to contrast OT law thinking with Jesus’ teaching of the two greatest commandments.
The question had the further point of referencing us back to Matthew 5:20 where Jesus explicitly ends the passage you pulled your quote from with this: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You see, as the scribes and Pharisees would have been following every “stroke of the pen in the law,” Jesus appears to be referencing that there is a better interpretation for how to follow the OT laws. Which again is being answered by Jesus in Matthew 5:21-48 and summarized in Matthew 22:37-40. And further all of this regarding why Christians don’t follow much of the OT law and the contrast between OT law interpretation, is also summarized by John 1:16-17.
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How can everything you’re asking be “reconciled” or where is it explained in the Bible?
Simply put: Through Jesus.
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Could you be a little less nebulous and a little more explicit?
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Okay. I guess that’s another supernatural trump card/catch-all you Christians use that I wasn’t aware of. I was wondering if there was any way to logically reconcile it without resorting to placing all your faith in something you can’t see.
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Another “supernatural trump card/catch-all?” Not in the least!
Being able to “logically reconcile it,” means being able to see the broader context of what is being said/referred to, rather than sticking with a pre-existing narrow conclusion regarding Christians, Jesus, and the Bible.
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“said/referred to” – by whom?
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I don’t know, I think the words in that verse in every translation are unequivocal. Every excuse I’ve heard is unconvincing. Even if Jesus had said “these laws will mean nothing when I die”, you’d be left wondering why they ever meant anything for an eternal god – stoning disobedient children, treating women like property, favouring one small race of people in the world. There’s nothing nice about it, never mind perfectly benevolent. But anyway, Jesus didn’t say that, others alluded to it after. His words are that nothing changes till heaven and earth are gone. There’s so way round that (that I’ve read so far).
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The fact that you view any explanation or any attempt to reconcile it as an “excuse” is very telling as to why you find everything you’ve heard as “unconvincing.”
When you keep referring to the Matt. 5:18 verse, you take what Jesus said out of the context of what he was saying and apply your own context to it. Humpty Dumpty would be proud of you as: “When violetwisp takes a verse from the Bible, it means just what she chooses it mean-neither more, nor less.”
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“When violetwisp takes a verse from the Bible, it means just what she chooses it mean-neither more, nor less.” – How Christian of her!
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Is this your third attempt at some sort of drive by comment?
Well, it’s not very surprising to see you miss the nail yet again.
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Drive by? No, I live here.
How sweet you’re counting —
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Actually, you seem more like the drive-by type.
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I’m confused. So what does that verse mean? Does it mean less – as in he had come to overhaul the law? Or does it mean more – as in he didn’t change it but we can reconcile that with changing it? Sorry if I’m missing the point.
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Yes, you are confused and missing the point. Your inability to recognize this is the reason you don’t understand what the verse actually means.
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…. and you really don’t want to explain it?
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Nope. As I’ve already explained it, I’m not about to repeat myself. Not to mention, your looped responses equate to wanting someone to expound the entire Bible to you. And as your goal is not to understand the Bible, there is no point in explaining it further. You really do need to work on reading and understanding context.
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Oh, ok. Thanks for your time anyway. Did you see dp monahan’s response further down? That made much more sense.
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Yep, I saw them.
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As I said – drive-by —
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Oh the wonderful irony, lol!
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See? He slides by, tosses in something incomprehensible, and when asked to explain, says, “No, you should be able to figure it out for yourself.”
At least Monahan, self-absorbed ego-maniac that he is, will stick around to discuss his contentions, largely because he loves to see his own words in print, but still —
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And I didn’t stick around for 3 days discussing and further explaining my contentions?
You do understand the irony of it all, right? It is you who has made at least 4 replies that were directed at my comments where you just slid by saying something incomprehensible, and rather than explaining or discussing you just jump to try and make yet another “quick jab.” Seriously, just give it up already. This is becoming embarrassing for you, at least when you were being a walking commentary of other atheists work it made it appear you knew a thing or two, now it’s just sad.
Or did you forget that I was about to help you with defining what is “morally right,” yet when you were asked whether you believe morality to be relative, universe, or absolute: All I heard was the sound crickets coming from you.
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Actually, nothing I’ve seen you say so far has led me to believe that you have the intellect to embarrass me.
As for the rest,
I don’t recall ever seeing that comment, but then again I don’t hang on your every word – sure you weren’t addressing someone else? And, BTW, I get what “relative” and “absolute” mean, but “universe“?
Morality is based on reciprocity – a sense of fairness, as well as a sense of empathy and compassion. Among humans, like everything else in the universe, it evolves.
Frankly, I think VW would be wise to initiate a No Trolls policy, but it’s her blog —
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Arch, just my opinion, but I don’t think Simple has been trolling, and he has been doing his best to explain his point of view. No need to suggest he’s trolling or question his intellect. If we don’t understand his point of view, all we need to do is ask for clarification. If he doesn’t want to continue, that’s his decision.
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Lol, I don’t need to use an ounce of my intelligence to embarrass you; you’re doing quite well on your own.
Let’s see: Am I sure I wasn’t addressing someone else? You did in fact say:
To which I responded with:
And I apologize for making a typo, universe equaled universal in my original comment.
By your definition of morality, you most likely believe that morality is relative with the slight possibility that you may believe it is universal, not enough is known. But, which one you actually believe it is, is neither here nor there.
As far as your definition.
However, morality cannot be based those things. Morality is the beginning point, not the end. Morality can be used to determine what is reciprocal, fair, empathetic, compassionate, or what evolves, but it is certainly not based on those things. In other words, reciprocity, fairness, empathy, compassion, etc. *should be* based on morality.
An elderly woman has a condition where she suffers tremendous pain and agony at times. When it is at it’s worst she cries out how much she just wants the pain and suffering to end and how death would be better for her. She has never explicitly asked for help in ending her life, nor has she attempted suicide because of her condition, it’s only on her worst days she says that death may be better. On her normal days, she enjoys life and the time she has left.
Her grandson, who has been by her side through normal days and through the worst of days can’t stand seeing his grandmother in so much agony. He has tremendous empathy and compassion for her and wants all her suffering and pain to end. He knows just how difficult it is for his grandmother to live like this. He thinks; “Sure she has a reprieve from her pain and suffering at times. But her condition, in spite of her hope, is not getting any better.”
He is visiting her one afternoon and this is one of the worst days she’s had in a while. She again is crying out how death seems so much better than all the suffering she is experiencing. So he decides that it is better for her to be at peace rather than suffer like this. He concocts a lethal dose of sedative with her tea and ends her life humanely.
The question is, has the grandson acted morally in ending his grandmothers life?
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Oh, and as for VW initiating a “No trolls policy” would be to put you out of a home: https://violetwisp.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/another-challenge-for-christians/#comment-21262
Aside from that. Just a “No Trolls policy” would be immoral for VW according to you. As “No Trolls” would violate reciprocity, fairness, empathy and compassion for “Trolls.”
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Apologies for Arch’s rude reply. You’ve not been trolling in the slightest, obviously, and I do appreciate you taking the time to join the discussion and give your point of view. I don’t think for one minute that because I can’t follow your reasoning that you haven’t joined the conversation with the best intentions. I would advise ignoring Arch’s jabs if you don’t feel they add anything. It’s always a shame with information exchanges deteriorate into personal insults.
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I truly respect your levelheadedness. It’s not that I feel Arch has nothing to add.
Ignoring Arch’s jabs would be like a mother telling her son to ignore the bully when the bully is punching him.
Ignoring the problem does nothing to solve the problem, and in the case with Arch: It would give too much credence to his comments if I were to simply ignore them.
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I ran across this from “Think Always” that I believe puts it all into perspective:
[Brought to my attention by Peter]
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Nicely put.
“God blames everyone for the mistakes of the world he created, despite the fact that he created the people whom he blames”
This one never ceases to amaze me – how do Christians reconcile this, I mean really? I don’t think it crossed my mind when I was one. It was just kind of glossed over …
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Regarding Acts and Peter’s “foody” revelation…
I was always bothered by this throughout my 26 years as a devoted Evangelical. More than almost any other claim, I have always been severely suspicious of a revelation to one individual that 1) happens when they’re alone and 2) is totally self-serving.
Peter wanted bacon (or rather the guy who was writing this shit down was tired of being told he couldn’t eat bacon) so suddenly, while by himself, he has a (very contrived) vision of a big ol’ picnic blanket full of awesome stuff (mostly bacon) with Jesus standing there going, “Come on, Peter, you know you want to…”
Not buying it… anymore.
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That’s an interesting satirical look at the passage in Acts. Of course there is no evidence to support your claim that it’s 2) totally self-serving, rather the passage is relatively clear that it’s the exact opposite of what we would call “self-serving.”
And while you find it severely suspicious (what makes it “severely” as opposed to “simply” would be interesting to understand) Peter’s vision. You cannot simply disregard a revelation, epiphany, conclusion, etc based off of the person being by themself when it occurs. Otherwise you would have to reject anytime you’ve had an idea while you were by yourself.
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Um, dude… revelation =/= idea, epiphany, or conclusion by any stretch of the imagination. I can’t even take you seriously if you’re going to make rank equivocations like that.
I can certainly outright dismiss any revelation that isn’t otherwise substantiated by something other than, “no, really, it happened.” Especially one in which the chief apostle negates an enormous section of Levitical Law because somebody, one presumes the people they’re trying to convert, wants to keep eating shrimp.
Jots n’ tittles n’ all, innit.
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Aside from that, the equivocation is that ideas, epiphanies, conclusions, thoughts, etc. all occur to individuals (often when they are alone). Which obviously you do not dismiss as readily.
You can “certainly outright” dismiss, huh?…again there is no need for the adverbs and adjectives. However, Peter’s vision was substantiated by the entire Chapter of Acts 10. It wasn’t solely about being able to eat shellfish and bacon, but that what God has made “clean” should not be considered “unclean.” And that Jesus’ death wasn’t solely for Hebrews but also Gentiles.
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**Oxford dictionary: epiphany – a moment of sudden “revelation” or insight.**
Seriously? You’re going to pop partial dictionary definitions?
When one engages in dialogue, one hopes that those involved will demonstrate a reasonable level of intellectual honesty.
I think we both know that the common usage of the word “epiphany” does not imply any outside spiritual agency, any revelation from “God” or whomever. Don’t insult my intelligence and that of other readers.
Aside from that, the equivocation is that ideas, epiphanies, conclusions, thoughts, etc. all occur to individuals (often when they are alone). Which obviously you do not dismiss as readily.
If you come downstairs and say, “While I was alone upstairs I had an idea about something,” I’d have no reason to disbelieve you. It’s a very reasonable assertion and an experience we all have all the time.
If you come downstairs and say, “While I was alone upstairs I entered a trance and YHWH spoke to me and negated an entire swath of his law – bacon for everyone!” I’d have every reason to disbelieve you, and maybe have you committed if you persist in making up such wild tales. You’d be expected to substantiate that somehow.
Equating the latter with ideas and other personal insights is equivocation at its worst. Nobody worth their salt would give you a pass on such a ridiculous comparison.
You can “certainly outright” dismiss, huh?…again there is no need for the adverbs and adjectives.
Even when it doesn’t matter you’re still wrong. Adverbs and adjectives have a purpose – in this case, to demonstrate that such assertions could and would be dismissed without any consideration, indicating they’re not at all on par with reasonable dialogue worth careful consideration. Outright is just about right.
However, Peter’s vision was substantiated by the entire Chapter of Acts 10.
Uh, no – Acts 10 substantiates nothing. It is the claim, and is a single tale cut from whole cloth. For instance…
It wasn’t solely about being able to eat shellfish and bacon,
No, really? I’d never have guessed…
but that what God has made “clean” should not be considered “unclean.” And that Jesus’ death wasn’t solely for Hebrews but also Gentiles.
Right. Perhaps I was being a little too subtle for you. Let me put it more plainly. As a story it is entirely self-serving, not because somebody wanted to eat bacon, but because the propagation of the Christian cult into Gentile regions was being hampered by the fact that it was Jewish, and getting adult Gentiles to cut off the tip of their penis and stop eating half their favorite food was making it way too difficult. Whoever wrote Acts, whether Luke – unlikely – or a later pseudepigraphical author, writing in the mode of a Pauline contemporary, interpolated this nice story in order to sanitize Christianity for Gentile audiences, possibly following onto the Pauline teachings and defending against accusations of not being true to its Jewish roots, etc.
It was culturally expedient to dress it up for their audience. It’s akin to the Mormon president in 1978 getting a revelation from God that black people were suddenly okay and eligible for priesthood. He didn’t have a revelation. He made an expedient decision to better tailor their religion to their culture. Or their earlier repudiation of their polygamist past.
So, yeah, expedient revelations from god that nobody else sees… Not buying it, and neither should you.
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The problem with this sort of conspiracy theory (that is what this is) is that one has no more reason to believe it than any other conspiracy theory. Perfectly arbitrary.
Putting aside whether or not Peter’s vision was a supernatural experience, why not just assume that the apostles came to believe that Jesus had a universal and not just Jewish significance, which extended to gentiles as gentiles? Why assume an underhanded motive that is not witnessed in the only textual records we have?
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I’d say it’s really overstated to call it a conspiracy theory. Writers always have an agenda. The writer of Acts had one like everyone else. Key to that is the transition of Christianity from Jewish cult to Gentile/inclusive religion. There’s nothing arbitrary about recognizing the nature of the problems of selling this very Jewish religion into the Gentile world. How better to quell any questions of legitimacy than to have the Rock of the Church have a vision welcoming in all the Gentiles. One story, problem solved. It’s rather linear, really.
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Your argument was 1) that it was a self serving motive and 2) it presumes the apostles had an interest in selling a different Gospel from that of Jesus to a gentile audience.
The texts of Acts and Paul suggest that the apostles were still trying to figure out if and how Jesus’ life related to the gentile world. You arbitrarily insert an underhanded motive and replace a straightforward debate over Jesus’ legacy with a conspiracy to hide that motive. All of it is groundless.
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Groundless? Hardly. You’d like it to be, clearly, and I’ll make a guess that your adherence to closely-held beliefs prevent you from asking pretty obvious questions about such stories.
You’re also adding words to mine and still overstating my position. 1) You’re conflating self-serving with some sort of ominous conspiracy. You’re interpreting a sense of “underhandedness” likely because it threatens to punch a hole in your theology. Just because it was self-serving doesn’t mean it was underhanded. Because it may not have been underhanded also doesn’t mean it wasn’t self-serving. They were spreading a message that was getting caught up in certain details. It was clearly more than just a one-time problem because other writings attributed to Paul (and perhaps written by him, though there are doubts) addressed the issue as well. Paul’s position was that circumcision and dietary laws did not need to be followed. It’s a bit of chicken and egg thing in some ways, but when presented with a very convenient *vision* one should be asking questions of such supernatural occurrences.
Add to the fact that it is a historical pattern that religions adapt to the cultures in which they spread as much as the cultures adapt to the religion. See the Mormon example as well.
If you aren’t indoctrinated with the need to believe the book of Acts inerrant, the pattern is very easy to see. It’s way too convenient.
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@Toon – the following letters, attributed to Paul, are accepted my most reliable biblical scholars to be forgeries:
Timothy I
Timothy II
Titus
Thessalonians II
Ephesians
Colossians
As for The Acts of the Apostles, I suggest you look into Westar Institute’s The Acts Seminar.
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“the pattern is very easy to see. It’s way too convenient”
Words printed on the letterhead of every conspiracy theorist who ever lived.
It has no bearing on my theological opinions whether Peter had a vision (people do in fact have them, whether you believe the the cause be supernatural or not) or if the story is an ex-post facto allegory.
My main commitment here is to history, and the evidence we have is Acts and Paul. (And the main Pauline texts dealing with Gentile incorporation are Romans and Galatians which no one seriously doubts were written by him.)
What motive could a bunch of first century Jews have for preaching Christ to gentiles if not the growing conviction that Jesus, as messiah, had a universal significance?
What possible benefit do Galileans and Judeans derive from preaching to Gentiles, other than the feeling they were somehow doing right by their master? And don’t say the founding of an Empire-wide church, the anachronistic concept would not have occurred to them. Why would the idea of Jesus transcending Jewish law even occur to them except as part of the potentialities already contained in the idea of the messiah?
Why decide that because of Jesus the law was no longer binding in order to make things a little easier for a tiny number of gentiles, when the vast majority of Christians were Jews?
Why focus on ritual and dietary laws for gentiles and not sexual morals? Wouldn’t it be easier to convince someone to join the movement by saying they have to give up pork but can keep their concubine?
A straightforward historical reading suggests the problem was “If Jesus really inaugurated the messianic age, how does this relate to the gentile world and to the law?” There is no reason to assume the solution reached was any other than the apostles best attempt at being true to what they thought Jesus meant for the world.
But your arbitrary and a-historical reading of the essential problem is “How can we con a handful of gentles into our Jewish movement for no apparent benefit or reason? I know, lets say they can eat pork, but have to stop getting drunk and screwing around with boy concubines. That will convince them!”
Maybe your own prior commitments need checking, not mine.
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“Why decide that because of Jesus the law was no longer binding in order to make things a little easier for a tiny number of gentiles, when the vast majority of Christians were Jews?”
Because the Gentiles were in power – do you think it a coincidence that all of the Gospels were written after 70 CE, when the Jews lost theirs, once and for all? Eventually that reach for the Gentiles extended all the way to Constantine.
To reach Jews, one must first convince them they were not committing blasphemy by adopting Christianity – with Gentiles, there was no such 1000-year old belief system to overcome.
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The debates over the inclusion of gentiles and the role of the law in the church dates from the 50s, not post 70 AD.
Your argument is that Constantine and the political arrangements of the fourth and fifth centuries were plotted by a bunch of Galilean fishermen in 50AD? I guess they were the true Elders of Zion, huh.
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That isn’t what I said, Monahan, and you’re well aware of it. Obviously it began on a grassroots level with the telling of stories that, with the telling of them, grew into legend, much as did the legend of Apollonius of Tyre.
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I reread the above exchange to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
To recap:
Me: Why make a ploy to gentiles when gentiles converts were so few?
You: To get powerful gentiles on their side post 70 AD. This strategy culminated in Constantine.
Me: Your dates are wrong and the “reach for the gentiles that culminated in Constantine” is silly.
If you did not mean what you said, then clarify.
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What dates are wrong? Are you saying that Jerusalem wasn’t destroyed by Rome in 70 CE?
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The discussion about gentiles and the law is from late 40s to about 60ad.
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During that time period, who would be the easier to convert, a Gentile, whose religious background contained multiple gods, or a Jew, who would consider it blasphemous to believe that his god had a physical son who died on an ignominious death on a Roman cross?
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Interesting question, but probably unanswerable.
A Jew would have to ask himself if the eschatological hopes of Israel were being fulfilled in this way, if God had really dared to act like this in human history.
A pagan wouldn’t understand that question at all. Christianity grows out of the eschatological hopes of Judaism and makes sense in that context.
A pagan would have accepted the story of Jesus either as an a-historical myth, a story about a god among other gods, or in a Platonic sense. We see that happen in India today: Hindus are more than happy to worship Jesus as the human manifestation of a god who taught nice things (a guru), it is the uniqueness and historical concreteness of Jesus they can’t wrap their heads around: it is not part of their mental furniture.
That is probably why the catechumanate took so long in ancient times, there was a long process for a pagan to really “get it”.
Historically when Christianity started becoming majority gentile the temptation was to promote a version that was Gnostic and syncretic, which are pagan attitudes, not Jewish. Looking back, many historians think Arianism was an attempt to “paganize” or “mythologise” Christianity, to make it more rational to the pagan mind.
Also, Christian language and ritual would have been familiar to Jews, not pagans. A 1st century synagogue and first century church were almost identical, except after the scripture readings would have come the Eucharist, which a Jew would recognize as imitating the sacrifices in the Temple. Christian sexual morality was more or less the same as Jewish, so there would have been no shock there.
So a Jew would either have accepted the message or vehemently rejected it. A pagan would most likely have thought it a pretty story without any impact on his life.
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“the pattern is very easy to see. It’s way too convenient”
**Words printed on the letterhead of every conspiracy theorist who ever lived.
It has no bearing on my theological opinions whether Peter had a vision (people do in fact have them, whether you believe the the cause be supernatural or not) or if the story is an ex-post facto allegory.**
You’re really hung up on trying to make this out to be more than it is. Your wish to emotionalize it by creating an aura of conspiracy around it seems to be your way of avoiding rational examination. That’s okay. We’re used to that response. Cognitive dissonance and all.
And yeah, people do have visions, but people who have visions and claim they’re from god and that everyone should abide by them better have a little more to go on than “Hey, I was upstairs and guess what!” If you want to equivocate along with LT, then I’ll accept your capitulation right there. Personal idea/epiphany/vision =/= Divine Revelation. Period.
**My main commitment here is to history, and the evidence we have is Acts and Paul. (And the main Pauline texts dealing with Gentile incorporation are Romans and Galatians which no one seriously doubts were written by him.)**
LOL – your commitment is not to history, it is to doctrine. The sooner you admit that the sooner we can get past this. Because as long as your focus is doctrine, historical and other factors that may conflict with your focus won’t really carry any meaning for you anyway, making this futile. Acts/Paul is not evidence. It’s the claim in question – in this case Acts 10. Furthermore, I have no problem, for sake of argument, granting that Paul wrote the passages regarding Gentile assimilation. I’m pretty sure I started with that grant because I wouldn’t be surprise if this passage was created to support Paul’s position. So I guess I’m not sure what point you’re trying to score with that one.
**What motive could a bunch of first century Jews have for preaching Christ to gentiles if not the growing conviction that Jesus, as messiah, had a universal significance?**
You seem to be mistaken. I don’t doubt their conviction. Religions/Superstitions of the day were pretty malleable (and in fact still very much are in many respects.) It wouldn’t surprise me at all, in fact I think it likely, that such a conviction was at the heart of their cultural adaptation. If their belief in Pauline theology of salvation by faith alone, without works or other outward demonstration, was key to them, then shedding other outward aspects of the Jewish roots of their religion would be a pretty natural progression, no? That does not make it divine.
What possible benefit do Galileans and Judeans derive from preaching to Gentiles, other than the feeling they were somehow doing right by their master? And don’t say the founding of an Empire-wide church, the anachronistic concept would not have occurred to them.
I never intimated anything of the sort. This is more of your attempt to mischaracterize my viewpoint. You really need to let that go. It’s not fooling anyone.
Why would the idea of Jesus transcending Jewish law even occur to them except as part of the potentialities already contained in the idea of the messiah?
I already gave you ample reason – the same reason that religions change all the time – cultural expediency. You keep talking past that, then reiterating your question as though you’ve made a point.
Why decide that because of Jesus the law was no longer binding in order to make things a little easier for a tiny number of gentiles, when the vast majority of Christians were Jews?
I would think this obvious to just about anyone. Because they weren’t winning any more Jews. They were after Gentiles, and there were a helluva lot more of them to go after and save.
Why focus on ritual and dietary laws for gentiles and not sexual morals? Wouldn’t it be easier to convince someone to join the movement by saying they have to give up pork but can keep their concubine?
Goodness – I would think this would be obvious too. Sexuality – big deal. Food – meh. Sexuality is always a central issue in life. Eating shrimp vs chicken vs beef vs pork. Whatever – it doesn’t even make any real sense to a lot of folks not already steeped in a certain culture, whereas sexual mores were a lot easier to understand and address. Add to that, which is a bigger “Whoa” moment? Wait, you ate a shrimp? or Wait, you had sex with the servant boy?! It’s not more unreasonable to expect they let go of what they considered the smaller sins to address the bigger ones. Such still happens today. How often do believers gloss over each others’ divorces while marching against gay marriage?
A straightforward historical reading suggests the problem was “If Jesus really inaugurated the messianic age, how does this relate to the gentile world and to the law?”
I wouldn’t call that straightforward at all, honestly. There’s a well-documented and much-argued disconnect between the specific teachings attributed to Jesus in the gospels and Pauline theology. If one were to take Jesus at his purported word, that he came to uphold the law, that he came for the children of Israel, that the crumbs were all that were left for the Samaritans even, that not one jot nor tittle would disappear from the law, but that the spirit of the law was key, not only the letter, you would expect the law itself to still be upheld, but with a focus on integrity and honesty. When Jesus himself defied tradition, it was in service to a greater good. The law should be followed to the letter, but its practice should not prevent the believer from doing the greater good. If on a Sunday you have to do work in order to save someone from being killed, then the saving is key, not the work.
So why would the teachings have to change for Gentiles? Because it was culturally expedient. It’s the same answers with religions all over the world, and that’s what I mean by it being obvious in this case. You can go back to crowing about conspiracy, but it’s way off the mark.
There is no reason to assume the solution reached was any other than the apostles best attempt at being true to what they thought Jesus meant for the world.
In the same way that the leader of the Mormon church had a revelation that black people should be allowed to become priests – it’s what Jesus meant for the world… and it was culturally expedient.
But your arbitrary and a-historical reading of the essential problem is “How can we con a handful of gentles into our Jewish movement for no apparent benefit or reason? I know, lets say they can eat pork, but have to stop getting drunk and screwing around with boy concubines. That will convince them!”
I’m sorry you think it’s arbitrary and ahistorical. It’s neither, but either you operate under a severe confirmation bias, or you just haven’t read enough about your subject. Your hyperbole is funny, because that’s exactly how that goes down over and over and over again throughout history. You’ve got the cart before the horse.
Maybe your own prior commitments need checking, not mine.
I had to overcome my prior commitments in order to examine things rationally. You should try it sometime yourself.
As I said before, this is probably getting out of hand for this forum. I’m going to write on this topic on my own forum. I’ll ping violetwisp who can choose to let you know when it’s up.
Thanks for spurring me to dig deeper. Here’s hoping you do too.
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1. Where exactly did I assert that either Peter had such a vision or if he did it constituted a divine revelation? I’m agnostic and indifferent on the point.
2. If Acts and Paul do not constitute evidence of anything, then what are you arguing about?
I’d think they would be evidence of what first and second generation Christians were thinking about. We know there was tension over the assimilation of pagans. We know Paul’s opinion on it – no one seriously doubts Romans, Galatians and Corinthians 1 & 2 are his. We know that things eventually worked out one way, and not another.
If you don’t accept the only evidence at hand as having any value, I suggest you shut up. But yet you argue, so you obviously think they have some value.
3. I certainly do use hyperbole, and am often an asshole. But the argument that it all goes back to expediency is facile & shallow, and that is the heart of my objection. It is easy (and dumb) to create post-facto analysis with 20/20 hindsight and say “how convenient!”; easier still to do if you do it without regard for the available texts. It is hard to ask what the internal logic of first century Christianity might have been, and how it worked itself out.
4. Not enough Jews? Pshaw. Jews were about 10% of the Empire, same as ethnic Greeks, and every city had a Jewish ghetto. When these debates were taking place Christianity was not 20 years old. Your answer also begs the question: where did the idea of preaching to pagans come from at all? If they really were running out of Jews, why not just declare the mission completed?
I absolutely do not get your comments on why pagan sexuality is easier to change than pagan eating habits.
5. The Jesus vs Paul theory is much argued and little proved. And if Paul’s letters are not evidence of anything, then neither are the Gospels, are they.
6. Does it happen that Christians bow to cultural expediency? Yes, there are plenty of churches where you can get gay-married and gay-divorced as often as you please, and be made Bishop. Ancient Gnosticism and Arianism were matters of cultural expediency. So is contemporary syncretism. Yet all these things were and are resisted too, often on the basis of something that is not culturally expedient, the belief that the first duty of the church is fidelity to Jesus.
So rather than take the snooty and facile position of “how convenient” with 20 centuries of hindsight, why not wonder how a first century christian would struggle with this issue while trying to be faithful?
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Sorry, I wrote my reply with a couple of ad hominem digs that were out of hand.
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LOL – you probably got them from me – apologies on my part too 🙂
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One would think that with all of his undergraduate work in psychology, he would be more astute.
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You’re remind me of Dora from Finding Nemo…”Just keep trolling, just keep trolling…”
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Cartoon movies – now that’s a genre at which I would expect you to excel. How are you coming with Kohlberg? Or should we need to wait for you to wade through Dick and Jane first?
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If your referring back to your comments regarding “moral development” I’m quite positive I responded to you already. Do I need to provide the link or are you capable of finding it yourself? To help you out, it’s the comment before the one about my undergraduate work being in Psychology…
The interesting thing I found in a quick review of Kohlberg theory is Stage 6 “Universal ethical principles driven” as this is pretty much what I have been referring to as morality being “universal” which you clearly had a difficult time understanding. It also contradicts much of what you have stated regarding morality. Yet, for some reason, you have missed this entirely.
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Amazing! Either you actually DID scan it, or had someone read it for you.
It’s been my personal observation that most Conservatives, and that would include most Fundamentalist Christians, fit into the #4 Stage:
While most Liberals (and Atheists) have at least advanced to Stage 5:
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Not exactly sure why you find it so amazing that I glanced at Kohlberg’s theory…My thoughts; it has to do with you compensating for your lack of ability in intellectual discourse by constantly needing to make disparaging remarks.
It’s not surprising that you feel the way you do regarding what types of people fall into stage 4 and stage 5. That you feel the type of people you associate yourself with are those who have primarily “advanced to stage 5.” That somehow you yourself have advanced to Stage 5 via association. When in reality it’s not based on political or religious affiliation in the least. And your “personal observation” is nothing more than prejudice.
But again, these stages are not actually defining morality. Mainly they are describing how people view rules and regulations and in some instances moral dilemmas and possibly ethics.
Of course, these moral stages of development appear to be too fixed. I would suggest that the majority of people do not fit rigidly into any single stage once they become adults. While they may function primarily out of one stage or another, you would still see some fluid movement occur between stages 4-6.
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Has it occurred to you that your attitude invites “disparaging remarks”?
And if my “’personal observation’ is nothing more than prejudice”, what would you call your last paragraph? Opinion?
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Has it occurred to me that my attitude invites disparaging remarks?
That’s your justification, I really do wonder what “attitude” you seem to be reading into my comments?
Not to mention that the facts are that you’ve made the disparaging remarks, and now you want to turn around and try and blame the other person for your actions? How classic. Thinking for one second that your comments are “justified” because the other person’s attitude “invited” them, is quite honestly the most ignorant thing I’ve heard from you yet.
As far as my last paragraph, I would call it a hypothesis. But regardless, it’s certainly not prejudice: Like when someone tries to claim…”the group that I associate myself with have generally reached Stage 5 but the group I associate this other group [which I’m including you in] is stuck in Stage 4.” If you really can’t tell the difference between why your comment was prejudice and why mine is not then I don’t know what to tell you.
I guess I would start with that your comment was a categorization where one group is viewed as “better” than another based off of whether or not they share the same political of religious affiliation as you. And that my comment is regarding the fluidity between stages found in *all* adults at varying levels regardless of the persons political or religious affiliation compared to my own.
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As for Stage 6:
If you noticed, the article elaborates: “While Kohlberg always believed in the existence of Stage 6 and had some nominees for it, he could never get enough subjects to define it, much less observe their longitudinal movement to it.”
It would seem that Stage 6 principles were too elusive to quantify, and doubtless, if they exist at all, are by necessity possessed by only a minute fraction of the world’s population.
Feel free to go back to your cartoons.
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To summarize your latest comments regarding Acts 10 you have stated that it is:
1) [Christian propagation] into Gentile regions…
2) That a later pseudepigraphical author writing as a Pauline contemporary had interpolated this story to sanitize Christianity for Gentiles
These are some wildly outrageous claims, can you substantiate them? Do you have any evidence to support these claims?
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You probably need to do a little more reading – you know, more than one book?
And honestly, off the DTS recommended reading list..
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Don’t get all bent out of shape now that I’ve asked you to do an tremendously simple task.
If you can substantiate your claims, or provide evidence that supports them, please do?
Otherwise, I can certainly outright dismiss your claims as purely unadulterated fodder.
Also, there is no need to regress to the intellectual dishonest behavior of assuming that the person you are speaking with “probably needs to do a little more reading” or assuming they type of material they read. I mean, seriously, if there is reading material you fell I should be reading that supports your claims then provide the source like I have asked.
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I’m not bent out of shape. I’m perplexed that you’ve never heard of the internet.
A tremendously simple task to provide you a bibliography and a summary of the work of many historians over years and years of research? Uh, yeah, sure.
If you dismiss my claims, you do so out of ignorance. That is your right, and it’s what you’ve demonstrated so far.
But for simplicity’s sake you can start with Ehrmann. Avalos, Price, and Carrier are interesting, as well as Dennett.
But you’re a big boy, I presume. Do your own research. I’m reading up on linear algebra and quantum physics rather than expect my debate opponent on another site to educate me. This is a comment thread, not your nearest collegiate history department.
That said, when I look through my library this weekend, I’ll be happy to provide more sources if you really are struggling to master Google.
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More insults, how wonderful.
I certainly did not ask for you to provide a “bibliography and summary of the work of many historians…”
The biggest contention for dismissal of your claim is that of interpolation, is there evidence that Acts 10 was interpolated into the rest of the book at a later date or is that merely the assumption being made without actual evidence to support it? Surely that is a simple enough task to be able to provide evidence for.
Your claims were dismissed on reason, in fact they were dismissed on the same “reasoning” you yourself were using to dismiss Peter’s vision in Acts 10. I’m surprised you didn’t notice this?
I assumed that Ehrmann would likely be a source you would cite, I mean I might not agree with his take on the Bible but I’m certainly aware of him. I might have to look at some of the others you provided, as I don’t recognize them from a last name basis.
Again, I didn’t ask you to do the research for me, I asked where your research was coming from and to provide the source of it. It seems you do need your debate opponent to educate you…
Linear algebra and quantum physics, that sounds simple enough. But what I don’t get is why you are becoming so defensive over asking a simple question of “Can you substantiate or provided evidence for the claims you have made?”
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My, aren’t we prickly? Let me quote two things and maybe you can read them over and over again until you figure out why you don’t make any sense:
I certainly did not ask for you to provide a “bibliography and summary of the work of many historians…”
and
Again, I didn’t ask you to do the research for me, I asked where your research was coming from and to provide the source of it. It seems you do need your debate opponent to educate you…
No, I need my debate opponent to think for himself. Try really, really hard.
One thing I will admit is that the word interpolation really wasn’t the correct word. I don’t think that story is stuck in there by someone else. I think it’s all from the same (not Luke) author who has stuck this story in there to justify the change.
The authors I have mentioned have written books that provide a myriad of sources. I’m not going to go through my whole damn library and create for you a multi-year reading list. Do a little work yourself.
It’s not defensive. It’s impatience. The other authors I mention fall on different parts of the scale. Richard Carrier is a historian and a staunch mythicist. Robert Price is probably the most interesting, but very dry source. He sort of falls on the mythicist side, but he’s a lot more realistic about the deficiencies of both points of view.
It’s important to take some time with at least some of their sources, where they can be accessed, or at least to understand where they got their info.
Anyway, all in the fun of spirited debate. Much more interesting than the freakshow on Fox Nooz tonight.
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Prickly? Nope, simply pointing out how ironic it is for someone to lecture on intellectual honesty and then repeatedly be intellectually dishonest in their responses.
My question was for you to substantiate or provide evidence of your two claims. No one
would quantify that as asking for a “bibliography of sources” or for you to “do the research for me.” As the question is quite plainly asking for where you were getting your information. Which a simple: “Start with this guy’s book,” would have sufficed.
Now that you have provided a couple sources, I can certainly do the work for myself.
But again, no one is asking you to go through your library and provide a multi-year reading list. Please quit with these baseless assumptions that you’re being asked to do anything more than your fair share in supporting your statements.
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Re: Intellectual honesty. Never been anything but. You, on the other hand, have tried to equivocate “idea” with “divine reveloation,” so I’d say you’re in no position to lecture anyone on intellectual honesty regardless.
You did not say, “Give me a place to start.” You said, “Substantiate your claims.” Well, that would require me to dig back through 4… well, really nearly 7 years of reading, dialogue, essays, etc., which I’m in no position to do.
You know, I might get the breakdown here. You’re probably used to getting all your answers in one neat book. I’m sorry it doesn’t work that way.
Aside from the snark, and in all seriousness, I have given you a place to start. They are not assumptions and they are not baseless, much as you’d like them to be so. If you expand your library, you’ll find out why. You’ll find that the assumptions made by Christians are made by subverting history in the service of doctrine. Christian scholars go some way in marking out the most obvious interpolations or questions of authorship, but scholars not laden with the requirements of a doctrinal statement find much more ambiguity than you’ll hear about from the pulpit.
But, I’ll add this, I’m already doing more than my fair share. You take the document at face value and insist that the supernatural events described therein be taken as true. You provide no substantiation for those events. You work from text only. Doing the same thing, I find something very different than you do, informed by a significant amount of research into the history of religion and of Christianity from a more objective viewpoint (not burdened with doctrine.)
So, really, you’re in no position to wag a finger until you put your own viewpoint under the same scrutiny you put mine. If you’re willing to interpret the passage and the entirety at face value, then I’ll be happy to do the same and tell you what I find.
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After thinking a bit, I want to thank you for challenging me on this. I think it worth a deeper look, which really isn’t appropriate for a comment section. I’ll prepare an article for my blog, hopefully to be published sometime next week, if I can get through the other two or three I keep thinking I’m working on 😉
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I know what you mean regarding “posts I want to write about” I have 3-4 swimming around in my head but whether I’ll sit down and put thought to keyboard is another story…
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Some of us think contradictions in the Bible are a strength, because they help to prevent people from imagining they can live by it. Unfortunately, it does not prevent them trying. Though Acts 15 shows the Apostles deciding not to impose the Law of Moses on Gentile Christians.
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How would you explain this one?
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I don’t explain the contradictions, I just allow them to be. Having to eschew shellfish and mixed fabrics would be a pain.
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not sure this is what you are looking for but here it goes…
Christians believe that Christ ‘fulfilled’ the righteous requirement of the Law in his own obedience and paid the final penalty and debt for us, not only as a sacrifice for Sin but also a Substitute for our Righteousness. His work and life ‘for us’ was and is comprehensive in it’s scope and application.
basically, the OT laws, requirements for righteousness, penalties for disobedience and sacrifice for payment, were fulfilled in Him. hope that helps.
-mike
.
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Mike, what kind of supreme being requires a blood sacrifice for breaking laws that he, himself, created?
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Thanks Mike, I have heard all that before. What I’m looking for are explicit verses that explain all this clearly – not just the botch job, post-script justification of a contradictory belief system. 😉
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I will have to reach back for my kjv only, fundamentalist, literalist Side to try better for you. Thx for the reply and the challenge
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Jesus’ words in the verse just preceeding the one you quoted, in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
(Just a quick note–you listed your quote from Matthew 5:16 it comes from Matthew 5:18)
As a Christian I had a lot of trouble with the concept of Jesus “fulfilling” the law instead of “abolishing” it. There are numerous verses that talk about how people are under the curse of the Law, how the Law helps us to realize our sin and how Jesus changed things through his sacrifice so that we can be justified by faith instead of the Law. I have never understand how Jesus “fulfilled” the actual Law, though, only the curse of it.
I’ll be interested to follow to see what response you get. I tried to search the Bible to find something to answer this seeming contradiction but it is really making my head hurt. As a Christian I would have just accepted this by faith, like, “Of COURSE Jesus FULFILLED the Law!” Now I realized I don’t really know what that even means.
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Quixie, try finding a copy of Bart Ehrman’s textbook (for his actual University class), entitled, “The New Testament” – he explains that pseudo-Matthew tried to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus, but stressed that Jesus taught what the law MEANS, rather than strictly what the law says. The Pharisees, pseudo-Matthew has him saying, emphasized the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of it.
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Thanks for pointing out my slopping referencing, ooops. I hope Simple Theologian will expand on her/his thinking – seems much clearer in thinking and referencing than many other Christians who take time to comment.
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Christian brains must be impervious to dizziness. If I was running in circles and changing directions that fast, I’d pass out.
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It’s all about putting words in a way that sound plausible and appealing, whether or not they make any sense is another matter. Ask ColorStorm or Insanity. 😀
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If you read further down the page you will see that all of the concrete examples Jesus gives to illustrate his point refer to moral, not ritual purity. In fact, he seems to be hammering home the distinction that being ritually pure is not the same as being holy in the eyes of God.
So when he mentions the Law, he is most likely talking about the moral law and not things like ritual ablutions, though maybe that is only my opinion.
His attitude towards ritual purity is evidenced elsewhere: he generally follows ritual law (with notable exceptions) but does not place much emphasis on it, and even says it can be an obstacle to true spiritual life.
So I would think this sermon is included in MT to remind readers that whatever Jesus might have said about ritual law, he never encouraged moral licence. Paul makes the same argument to the Corinthians: you are free from ritual law, not the demands of the commandments or of prudence.
Judging from Acts and Paul, in the early church obedience to ritual law was permitted for Jewish Christians as long as it was not exaggerated or exculsionary, but gentile converts were not expected to obey ritual law, in fact Paul discourages it (Galatians).
Even prior to Jesus there was an attitude among some Jews that gentiles could be considered “righteous” and “God-fearing” by obeying the ten commandments without actually converting to Judaism and taking up the ritual law, so the distinction of moral and ritual purity predates Jesus. However, these fellow travelers could never belong to the Jewish community. Such characters appear in the NT. In the early church however they could be baptized and considered fully functional members of the new community, which was something new.
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Thanks dp for providing further context. Do you think the laws about bastards not joining the congregation or stoning rebellious offspring are ritual or moral?
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Neither. They are prescribed punishments, which are social norms.
It is like asking if mandatory jail sentencing for drunk drivers is ritual or moral when it is a tertuim quid. Drunk driving is immoral, the punishment is a matter of social prudence.
Jesus does not seem to concern himself with questions of what the state should do about individual sinners, since it was a non-issue in his time: Israel was not an independent country, Jesus was not founding a nation, and those rules were probably never enforced anyway, certainly not in his time.
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Interesting. So you’re saying being the granddaughter of someone born out of wedlock is immoral? That’s the stroke of a pen, I’m sure.
Also, is the punishment of death by the impact of stones on your body for disobeying your parents a matter of social prudence? And given our understanding of relationships and societies today, could that punishment ever have been prescribed by a benevolent deity?
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Fornication is immoral, not being born. I did not imagine you would interpret me so obtusely, but since to you a believer is some kind of zoological specimen to be poked at through the cage bars I suppose I should not be surprised.
My impression of Leviticus is that a bunch of Levites wrote about what they considered to be a perfect religious society which lived up to the holiness of God, which in the ancient world was understood mostly as separation and purity. In Leviticus the sons of Korah are swallowed by the earth for using the wrong incense. Did that really happen? No, that is just the Levites’ way of saying “take the incense seriously, because God is holy.” The best way to read Leviticus is as a liturgical handboook.
I sincerely doubt its rules were meant to be enforced. It was not written as history or as a social program, but as a book for priests working in the temple.
This is the structure of your argument: you think you are going to entrap a Biblical literalist by pointing out Jesus’ statement about jots and tittles. If jots and tittles don’t pass away, you want to argue, what about stoning the gays, etc.
Well, I answered the jots and tittles in a way most respectful of the Christian tradition and the text. Rather than open your mind and learn something you just plow along with the original game-plan, which does not apply to me because I am not a literalist.
Ever consider sitting down with a book by a real theologian? Say a Bonhoeffer or von Balthazar? N.T. Wright is very contemporary and an easy read. Give it a try, you might learn something.
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“The best way to read Leviticus is as a liturgical handboook. I sincerely doubt its rules were meant to be enforced.”
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“Fornication is immoral” – REALLY? You must not be doing it right.
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The advancements in literary analysis like the historical-critical method or form theory that were developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries are simply how we read ancient literature today, whether the Bible or 13th century folk tales.
Any medievalist, classicist or theologian knows this. They are simply the tools of the trade.
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Thanks dp. I enjoy discussing this sort of thing and you make some reasonable points that definitely make more sense than the literalist interpretations (plural, because oddly enough even taking the Bible literally, one can go down many paths). I know it seems like I’m trying to set traps and go “ah-ha!” but that’s really not the case. I’m interested in how all these points can be reconciled, although not enough to spend any precious book reading time I have on theology. If you’re happy to continue discussing it though, I am intrigued to understand why an illegitimate child or grandchild, and so on down the 10 generations, should be shunned or excluded for anything. You tell me that ‘fornication’ is immoral, but that’s only on the part of the people who ‘fornicate’ surely.
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In John’s gospel the disciples ask if a man born blind is being punished for his fathers sin, and Jesus’ answer is an unequal ‘no’.
Jesus does not hesitate to correct the Pentateuch, which is why Christians do not feel bound by it, but by the life, teaching and example of Jesus.
The problem of reconciling the texts of the OT with the NT has had different theoretical solutions but the principle has always been the same: the OT is interpreted in the light of Christ.
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So you think the Deuteronomy 23:2 is wrong and Jesus would have corrected it?
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Jesus did correct it, blowing off notions of inter-generational guilt.
The more interesting question is the reasoning that the authors of Deuteronomy at the time of Josiah would have putting something like that in there, which was impossible to practice. Who is not likely to be a bastard going back ten generations? They had to know that. I think what they are attempting to do is project an ideal purity and perfection onto the Mosaic past: this is what Israel is meant to be, utterly pure and fit for Temple worship. They are saying: Look at your ancestors in the desert, and how demanding they were willing to be on themselves! Look at the holiness -understand as transcendence and separation- that being the people of God implies.
It was not a description of what Israel actually was, much less a public policy recommendation.
It seems very hard for atheists to not read scripture like biblical fundamentalists, with isolated texts and binary logic, and instead put themselves in a foreign context. These books were written and read in a cultural context, they are the books of a people, and they don’t bear interpretation apart from that.
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Okay, that’s interesting. So you’re happy to see the Old Testament as a cultural backdrop to the development of your own religion? Is that how Catholics generally see it?
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Cultural backdrop is too weak a description: the OT does not exist in a vacuum, it is the book of a real, historical people, the Jews. It is part of broader Jewish traditon. We are not talking cultural abstractions, but God entering a relationship with a real people.
So trying to understand the OT in historical context and seeing how the understanding of God develops seems to me to be the natural approach.
In some ways Jesus can be understood as another step in that development, bringing Judaism to the next step. Of course he is also the definitive step.
I don’t know if that is Catholic. Maybe insofar as Catholics tend to read scipture differently than protestants, as only making sense in the context of the church, which is a continuous historical body with its own structure and culture.
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“Snark Atheism”
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/camille_paglia_takes_on_jon_stewart_trump_sanders_liberals_think_of_themselves_as_very_open_minded_but_that%E2%80%99s_simply_not_true/
Discuss
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I got bored. But the idea I got was that this person is criticising people for ‘sneering’ at religion, and that she/he greatly respects all religions in spite of being an atheist.
I personally criticise religion because I was brain-washed with it as a child, and think it did me harm. I see it did and does harm to other people around me. Now that I’m free from the nonsense I want to help other people escape and live more sensible lives based on actual facts as humans currently understand them.
Sorry if that seems like sneering, but it’s kind of like trying to tell a bunch of adults who you expect should know better that Santa doesn’t exist. The only difference is that the Santa story doesn’t have the negative side effects that come with most/all religions, so I might be inclined to leave them be.
I’m still interested in the story of Santa as it’s developed in history, much like most religions.
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Bored? I always find Camilla Paglia interesting, even if I disagree -feminist, lesbian Freudian that she is. She is practical, fun and unpredictable.
Anyway, my takeaway was the complaint about the way snark replaces intelligent debate: all it is is tribal signaling. I’m guilty myself: sometimes I sneer so hard I inhale my own upper lip.
I have no business telling you how to interpret you childhood, but I do suggest you take the time to read a real theologian or two and not wordpress bloggers, if only to have a better idea of what you are up against in your struggle.
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A struggle? I’m just blowing off steam because I have to continue dealing with religious people at close quarters, and I can’t vent full steam at people on such delicate and precarious delusional crutches. But you’re right, I spend enough time thinking about all this that I should go into it deeper. Perhaps when I have a bit more time to study rather than simply skim-and-rant I’ll get stuck into a ‘real theologian’.
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Well God knows I’m not a real theologian, just a blowhard. N. T. Wright has both scholarly and popular works and is an easy read. Joseph Ratzinger is surprisingly accessible. I think it is important to get beyond the kiddie pool apologetics. That’s why I was reading Nietzsche a few months ago and I actually learned something.
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@Simple —
I suggest you study Piaget, and/or Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development – when you’ve done that, get back to me.
Piaget studied many aspects of moral judgment, but most of his findings fit into a two-stage theory. Children younger than 10 or 11 years think about moral dilemmas one way; older children consider them differently. Younger children regard rules as fixed and absolute and believe rules are handed down by adults or by God and that they cannot change them. The older child’s view is more relativistic. He or she understands that it is permissible to change rules if everyone agrees. Rules are not sacred and absolute but are devices that humans use to get along cooperatively.
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“I suggest you study Piaget, and/or Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development – when you’ve done that, get back to me.”
I should have added, “or, when your frontal lobes are fully developed, whichever comes first.“
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I see you avoided my question regarding a moral dilemma I’ll blockquote it again for you: Link – https://violetwisp.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/another-challenge-for-christians/#comment-21315
Back to citing others work I see. And here we have you describing “relative” and “absolute,” you still seem to be ignoring the whole “universal” aspect…maybe it’s not my frontal lobes that need further development…
But rather than speaking on morality, your argument shifts to “rules.” Stating that “rules” are viewed in “relative” terms as opposed to “absolute” ones as we get older. However, changing the “rules” does not change whether or not something is moral. If this was the case, than you’re following the “rules” determining your morality is on par with the Nazi’s following the “rules” of their regime to determine their morality. And neither your nor the Nazi’s morality is any “better” or “worse” than the others.
The same view on “rules determining morality” would then have to be extended backward further in time to an Ancient people group who had rules where stoning disobedient children and not allowing the granddaughter to join the congregation because her grandmother was born out of wedlock.
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I’ll also add that my undergraduate is in Psychology, so bringing up Piaget and Kohlberg only adds to the irony of your attempted “attacks.”
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It is so tiresome to hear the same arguments over and over when people simply don’t understand the rudiments of interpreting literature. Perhaps this will help you argu with more aplomb in the future. The following is an article by Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. It was titled:
Making Sense of Scripture’s “Inconsistency”
I find it frustrating when I read or hear columnists, pundits, or journalists dismiss Christians as inconsistent because “they pick and choose which of the rules in the Bible to obey.” Most often I hear, “Christians ignore lots of Old Testament texts—about not eating raw meat or pork or shellfish, not executing people for breaking the Sabbath, not wearing garments woven with two kinds of material and so on. Then they condemn homosexuality. Aren’t you just picking and choosing what you want to believe from the Bible?”
I don’t expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus and God’s plan to redeem his people, but I vainly hope that one day someone will access their common sense (or at least talk to an informed theological adviser) before leveling the charge of inconsistency.
First, it’s not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality. The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus says, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3–12, that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that (v. 12), persons should abstain from marriage and sex.
However, let’s get back to considering the larger issue of inconsistency regarding things mentioned in the Old Testament no longer practiced by the New Testament people of God. Most Christians don’t know what to say when confronted about this issue. Here’s a short course on the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament.
The Old Testament devotes a good amount of space to describing the various sacrifices offered in the tabernacle (and later temple) to atone for sin so that worshipers could approach a holy God. There was also a complex set of rules for ceremonial purity and cleanness. You could only approach God in worship if you ate certain foods and not others, wore certain forms of dress, refrained from touching a variety of objects, and so on. This vividly conveyed, over and over, that human beings are spiritually unclean and can’t go into God’s presence without purification.
But even in the Old Testament, many writers hinted that the sacrifices and the temple worship regulations pointed forward to something beyond them (cf. 1 Sam. 15:21–22; Pss. 50:12–15; 51:17; Hos. 6:6). When Christ appeared he declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19), and he ignored the Old Testament cleanliness laws in other ways, touching lepers and dead bodies.
The reason is clear. When he died on the cross the veil in the temple tore, showing that he had done away with the the need for the entire sacrificial system with all its cleanliness laws. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin, and now Jesus makes us clean.
The entire book of Hebrews explains that the Old Testament ceremonial laws were not so much abolished as fulfilled by Christ. Whenever we pray “in Jesus name” we “have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). It would, therefore, be deeply inconsistent with the teaching of the Bible as a whole if we continued to follow the ceremonial laws.
Law Still Binding
The New Testament gives us further guidance about how to read the Old Testament. Paul makes it clear in places like Romans 13:8ff that the apostles understood the Old Testament moral law to still be binding on us. In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship, but not how we live. The moral law outlines God’s own character—his integrity, love, and faithfulness. And so everything the Old Testament says about loving our neighbor, caring for the poor, generosity with our possessions, social relationships, and commitment to our family is still in force. The New Testament continues to forbid killing or committing adultery, and all the sex ethic of the Old Testament is re-stated throughout the New Testament (Matt. 5:27–30; 1 Cor. 6:9–20; 1 Tim. 1:8–11). If the New Testament has reaffirmed a commandment, then it is still in force for us today.
The New Testament explains another change between the testaments. Sins continue to be sins—but the penalties change. In the Old Testament sins like adultery or incest were punishable with civil sanctions like execution. This is because at that time God’s people constituted a nation-state, and so all sins had civil penalties.
But in the New Testament the people of God are an assembly of churches all over the world, living under many different governments. The church is not a civil government, and so sins are dealt with by exhortation and, at worst, exclusion from membership. This is how Paul deals with a case of incest in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 5:1ff. and 2 Cor. 2:7–11). Why this change? Under Christ, the gospel is not confined to a single nation—it has been released to go into all cultures and peoples.
Once you grant the main premise of the Bible—about the surpassing significance of Christ and his salvation—then all the various parts of the Bible make sense. Because of Christ, the ceremonial law is repealed. Because of Christ, the church is no longer a nation-state imposing civil penalties. It all falls into place. However, if you reject the idea of Christ as Son of God and Savior, then, of course, the Bible is at best a mishmash containing some inspiration and wisdom, but most of it would have to be rejected as foolish or erroneous.
So where does this leave us? There are only two possibilities. If Christ is God, then this way of reading the Bible makes sense. The other possibility is that you reject Christianity’s basic thesis—you don’t believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God—and then the Bible is no sure guide for you about much of anything. But you can’t say in fairness that Christians are being inconsistent with their beliefs to follow the moral statements in the Old Testament while not practicing the other ones.
One way to respond to the charge of inconsistency may be to ask a counter-question: “Are you asking me to deny the very heart of my Christian beliefs?” If you are asked, “Why do you say that?” you could respond, “If I believe Jesus is the resurrected Son of God, I can’t follow all the ‘clean laws’ of diet and practice, and I can’t offer animal sacrifices. All that would be to deny the power of Christ’s death on the cross. And so those who really believe in Christ must follow some Old Testament texts and not others.”
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I don’t expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus and God’s plan to redeem his people – Redeem them from what, Chosen? From the way he made them in the first place? So he’s blaming them for his faulty craftsmanship? Oi!
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Thank you for taking the time to comment and for copying the very well expressed information about the change Christians believe took place on the death of the character Jesus.
Unfortunately it doesn’t address the core challenge of this post – Jesus very clearly expressed he wasn’t changing one jot of the law (with no qualifications about moral or ritual aspects). I’m looking for a passage from the New Testament that makes it clear why his statement from Matthew 5:18 given above isn’t contradicted by everything Christians today practice. Any thoughts?
In terms of looking in more detail at the explanation itself, the pastor describes, with no sense of surprise or confusion, an eternal and supposedly loving god who wanted people to slaughter sentient beings to say sorry for the bad behaviour the same god created them to have. The same basic ‘killing something to appease invisible gods’ that most human societies came up with around the same time. It just sounds like the standard conclusion that humans come to in fear and ignorance, with more ridiculous detail about how to kill and sprinkle blood. Don’t you think?
Also, like most man-made religions, there are a few sensible guidelines about how to live (after all, how could any religion make it past the village gates if it wasn’t practical in some way?). But, like all man-made religions, it contains many parts that reveal it’s a product of the human society in the time of ignorance that invented it. Women keep quiet, homosexuals are bad, slaves obey their masters – where is the ounce of logic that point to an eternal god with sensible eternal rules in these beliefs?
If your god existed, he wouldn’t just have basic things to tell humanity like ‘love your neighbour’ – an obvious way to promote healthy societies that has sprung up in many forms all over the world, across cultures and time. He could have said, “Stop treating women like property as I used to say in the Old Testament” or “Stop treating gay people like they’re bad. Of course it’s not, used you head!” or “Free all the slaves, no woman or man should be owned by another person!”. But the rules don’t have such obvious extensions of the golden rule. Love your neighbour runs much deeper than a 1st century moral teacher could possibly have understood, thereby proving he was no god.
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Well they would point to romans 14:20 for the food thing..
“Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.”
They would also say Jesus came to be pure love and his commandment love god and the neighbor covers the stoning as well as allowing illagitamet children into church.
/shrug
Hey least I tried and it ain’t even my faith.
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They might point to lots of things, but none of them explain the contradiction with Jesus saying he wouldn’t change anything in the law …
Nice try though. 😉
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Like I said it ain’t my faith. But hey I gave it an honest try to answer the questions. A for effort Michelle, a gold star. Why thank you teacher violet. 🙂 /hugs
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Might be of interest to the topic, even if a little wordy.
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I saw that on my reader and yawned without even investigating further. 😀
Might have a look later on this evening if I’m not distracted by reading about how the Jews run the world.
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Hello 🙂 with (again!) the qualifier that I am brand new to your blog and therefore don’t know what has or hasn’t been discussed here before (I’m reading through many of your thought provoking posts and discussions as fast as I can!) – I’d like to add a few things (in addition to the helpful comments that Simple Theologian, chosen rebel and dpmonahan have already made, which by the way, I think do largely answer your question about inconsistency)
– it strikes me as very, very difficult for christians and atheists to have truly helpful discussions unless some basic starting points are whole-heartedly embraced –
1. An Christians and Atheists have an obvious and fundamentally different worldview.
The starting point for the atheist (correct me if I’m wrong) is that: the atheist sees the world, the universe, nature, people, all the good and the bad things, and thinks “Wow, that’s kind of amazing that all this is here” and “only the things I can see are the things that exist. I find it hard/impossible to believe that anything exists outside the physical universe we can know see and touch”.
The starting point for people of various religious persuasions is something like: “I see this world with all its complexity and it makes me wonder if it’s been created/designed/made…. also, the worlds mix of good and bad…makes me wonder…what does it all mean?”
To me, either basic worldview seems like a rational and logical response to the world we all live in. So people, generally, have a think about it and make an informed decision of some kind…or struggle to know which way to go (agnosticism I suppose).
But it seems to me very helpful to acknowledge that many people think that the world does have a divine creator of some kind, and then pursue more info about said divine creator (especially if said person is looking for info about what life might mean). Which brings us to the Bible which you are currently trying to understand….
2. There are many different reasons one would read the Bible and your reason for reading naturally influences how you read it.
The Bible is one of those places people go to to try and understand the world and what it all means. Obviously if you are an atheist, you would not look to this book to find out anything. It is essentially meaningless to the atheist. Fair enough. But again, if a persons thinks that perhaps someone/something did create what we see, the Bible is one of those obvious places where one does find an answer to those kind of questions (again, only if you are asking those kind of questions).
Other reasons for bothering to read the Bible might be –
(a) as part of a broad study of ancient near eastern history (e.g. Egyptologist K. A. Kitchens from the University of Liverpool (not a theologian) who uses his expertise to comment on the origins of Israel, especially the Exodus from Egypt in his book “On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2006)
or (b) to seek to genuinely understand another persons worldview and how they came to it (as it seems you are trying to do. I recently read a book, you may have heard of it?, by an American English Professor, would began a rigorous study of the Bible as part of her critical research into the extreme-christian-right. The book is called “Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert” by Rosaria Butterfield http://www.amazon.com.au/The-Secret-Thoughts-Unlikely-Convert-ebook/dp/B0097G05F8, if you’re interested. It’s a well written and honest read.
3. The bible which you are critiquing actually makes itself rather clear from the very beginning – from the opening pages it is clearly a story about a divine Creator and his Creation, between God and humanity- and the interaction between the two. It seems to me that really is one premise one has to accept before one can fully understand the very helpful explanations that have already been made in this feed ( Basically, there is a very real sense in which, if you accept the notion of a Creator and His creation, then we as the created beings we kind of aren’t in a position of knowing everything, so revelation of some kind is needed, and the Bible much discussed on this blog, is one of those accepted (by some) and helpful revelation of said Creator.
Finally, VW, I think others (Simple Theologian, chosen rebel and dpmonahan) really have given good answers to your question about Matt 5:17. I would add though, that as you read on through the rest of what Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew 5:18-Matt 7:27, he is making a very big, clear point – namely that “unless your righteousness SURPASSES that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven…..You have heard it said to the people long ago ‘You shall not murder…’ but I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement…etc”. He is saying very clearly that in order to be “right with God” one has to have always kept not only the entire Law, but the intentions behind the law [i.e. it is not enough for God that you simply refrain from murdering. To be acceptable to God, he expects that we never even allow hate into our hearts (hate being the very beginning of a murderous thought)]. Jesus is telling this crowd on the mount, very clearly, that unless they are PERFECT in every way, they cannot ever fulfil God’s demands. And He makes the rather bold claim that He has come, not to change this demanding law in the slightest, but to fufill it (as many people have already pointed out to you).
Underlying all this, is the matter of belief – as many have already clearly pointed out, including yourself VW, one doesn’t have to accept that anything Jesus said is true, one doesn’t have to trust the gospels as accurate historical records, one doesn’t even have to accept that Jesus even existed at all.
Great questions though! As you know from my little blog, I think its great to ask hard questions 😉
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“many people think that the world does have a divine creator of some kind, and then pursue more info about said divine creator” – “more info about said divine creator” – I’m SO disappointed you didn’t say, “more evidence about a divine creator,” as I find that there is a plethora of “info” about your creator, but little to no evidence.
“The Bible is one of those places people go to to try and understand the world and what it all means.” – The Bible is one of those places people go to try and understand the world as 3000-year old, anonymous, superstitious, scientifically-ignorant Bronze and Iron Age men saw it.
“Other reasons for bothering to read the Bible might be –
(a) as part of a broad study of ancient near eastern history”
He writes of archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as having been “discarded as a fruitless pursuit.”
“The bible which you are critiquing actually makes itself rather clear from the very beginning – from the opening pages it is clearly a story about a divine Creator and his Creation, between God and humanity – I have a collection of at least 100 fables of the creation of the universe by 100 different cultures – none have more value, or validity, than another.
“I would add though, that as you read on through the rest of what Jesus is quoted as saying in Matthew 5:18-Matt 7:27” – It matters not what “Matthew” wrote, as neither you, nor anyone else, has the slightest idea what Yeshua (his real name) said, if he said anything at all, as none of the gospel writers ever met the man, but were writing entirely on the basis of hearsay information that would not be accepted as valid in any court in any land.
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So what do you think about John’s gospel?
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For one thing, “John” was written about 100 CE, or shortly after, by an anonymous author who never met the NT’s Yeshua. It completely discounts the “fishers of men” story, told by the synoptic gospels. Further, that beautiful story of Yeshua and the ‘woman taken in adultery’? Turns out that little episode wasn’t even added to the NT until the 4th century CE, and even then, it was placed in the Gospel of Luke before someone decided that it sounded more like something pseudo-John might say.
I’m sure there’s more, but I haven’t even had a sip of my first cup of coffee, and even I don’t like me before I’ve had my coffee.
Is this Chialphagirl? Lovely children —
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Yes, I knew about the ‘woman taken in adultery’ section of John. My bible has that section clearly marked out separately with italics and this insert [The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38, or Luke 24:53.]
Now, as to the authorship of the gospels, and the rest of the New Testament, I must confess it has been about 10 years since I researched things like purpose, intended readers, date and authorship of the gospels etc…plus names and dates are really not my forte…However, yes, I am aware that all the gospels come to us as anonymous, I just had a vague recollection that because of the references to the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ (13:23; 19:26-27; 20:1-10; 21:7, 20-24)…but a quick check of one of the scholarship books we have lying around concludes that “a common understanding of the beloved disciple is that he is a person who heard and followed Jesus, although he was not one of the twelve…one or more of his disciples wrote the Gospel, but who this author is remains unknown to us. He preserved, shaped, and interpreted the witness of his master, the beloved disciple, who had in tern interpreted the teaching of the Master himself.”
“I’m sure there’s more, but I haven’t even had a sip of my first cup of coffee, and even I don’t like me before I’ve had my coffee.” 🙂 Yes there is more! There are lots! ..and I actually find that fascinating really. Wish I had more time to do more reading about it…
Something I did manage to read captures some of my understanding regarding the ‘problem’ of all the inconsistencies….
“…evangelists and teachers were using and adapting genuine traditions* freely and uncritically, with an eye chiefly upon their main task of edification.
Thus, if the data were sufficient, various stages of tradition might be plotted along a ‘trajectory’ leading up to the canonical documents and out beyond them into the post-canonical literature. The NT documents, it has been well said, are “traditions…caught at various moments…in the course of their development” , they represent teaching and practice frozen in particular writing at particular points…” (C.F.D. Moule, 1990 – no special/fancy scholar as far as I am aware, just happened to be on our bookshelf as my husband had to read it as part of his ‘NT in its times’ course when he was studying Law/Ancient History…it’s the only thing I had on hand to best explain my line of understanding)
*by tradition, I take the author to mean school/line of thinking
There is a substantial degree of unity however, amongst the NT documents, and I think the only reason that could have come about was because they are all convinced of the same things about the person they are proclaiming.
Anyway, long somewhat rambling response, sorry. This probably doesn’t even properly convey what I think. Suffice to say, yes, I am aware of all the inconsistencies, and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest because of – what I consider to be, weird/unlikely – the degree of unity ( which probably leads to questions of the process of selection…for another day perhaps).
Thanks for complimenting my kids – can’t go wrong with complimenting a parents kids 😉
Not Chialphagirl…sorry!
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“Not Chialphagirl…sorry!” – She’s been through two name changes so far, I just thought you might be her third – nice lady though.
Let me leave you with a thought to consider, Serenity:
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Have pondered that before…we are all prone to confirmation bias…so I’m not sure how this helps with the whole argument?
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Hi myisleofserenity
“it strikes me as very, very difficult for christians and atheists to have truly helpful discussions unless some basic starting points are whole-heartedly embraced”
I see this statement of yours as the key to reasonable and respectful dialogue. I have been frustrated on so many forums by both sides of the debate refusing to accept that there is a possibility that the other side might be correct.
My question is “Is it possible for Christianity to be the true and for the for the Bible to contain error?”
I say this because my own Christian faith fell away when I concluded that the Bible contained errors. It was then that I dared ask myself the question “what if all this is false?”. Once I asked myself the question all the issues that I had stored away that had troubled me in the past burst forth like water through a breached dam.
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“I have been frustrated on so many forums by both sides of the debate refusing to accept that there is a possibility that the other side might be correct.”
Peter, I don’t see how it can be otherwise. If I could believe that there is a possibility that a bunch of illiterate, nomadic goat-herders in the Levant stumbled across a supernatural being that created the vast universe magically, I would be as deluded as the anonymous authors of the Bible were. I think too highly of myself to sink to that level of thinking.
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According to the tradition, they didn’t stumble across him. He chose them because they were his favourite people in creation. Does that make it better?
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Actually, they weren’t chosen because they were his favourite people group (see Deut 7:7) and they certainly didn’t attract God’s favour by good behaviour of any kind. They usually behaved appallingly.
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Oh yeah, when you put it that way —
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Just correcting how the story actually goes 😉
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I know – I actually meant my sarcastic remark as a response to VW’s, “Does that make it better?,” but my comment was placed beneath yours, so I can see how you might think I was aiming it at you. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
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no worries
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On the other hand, I can see their point of view – if just for an instant, they consider the possibility that their religion is riddled with falsehoods and fables, they risk, according to their own belief system, losing forever that carrot of eternal life that was ever-so-wisely contrived and held ever just out of their reach.
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If you look at Judaism, it is a religion for a defeated people. Their God is the most powerful but they are an insignificant conquered people, how can this be? Make up a historic back story and then say that is promised, plus more in the future. Then when it does not happen say it is not our god’s fault, it is our fault because we sinned and did not obey. But it will still happen, soon!
The modern version of this is “we should of prayed more”. Then when disaster happens, God “is mysterious, but still good”.
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Hi Peter, with respect to your question about error in the bible, I know this might seems silly as the word “error” is pretty straight froward…but what exactly do you mean by error? Because I think we could have slightly different things in mind when we talk about error…Maybe, could you point me to the biggest/most important errors that lead you to conclude that its all false? Then I might have a better idea of what you mean by error…
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There are different categories of ‘error’. I would put them into three broad categories:
– incorrect history;
– contradictions; and
– failed prophecy.
An example of each is:
– the Census in Luke’s Gospel associated with the birth of Jesus: – there is no record of this ever occurring;
– contradictions: – such as the different birth stories in Matthew and Luke. The post birth part in particular is contradictory;
– failed prophecy: – book of Daniel, where the fourth kingdom clearly refers to Greece (not Rome as many suggest) which means the prophecy failed.
There is a further category being what I call fanciful tails that seem most unlikely, such as Garden of Eden, Noah’s Flood, Tower of Babel, Joshua’s long day.
I am fully aware that all of the ‘issues’ I raised have been considered and rejected by apologists. It is always possible to explain away an individual difficulty, such as how Mark implies Jesus started his ministry after John the Baptist was put in prison which contradicts the account in John. It is the sheer volume of issues that have convinced me the Bible is a human book. A comparison of the Books of Samuel and Chronicles raises many issues. Even arch apologists like Gleason Archer admit there are errors in 1 and 2 Samuel. However his argument is that there was a problem in the transmission of the book. The NIV adopt a similar attitude and have changed many passages in 1 and 2 Samuel to make them accord with Chronicles.
But what really tipped me over the edge was the understanding that archaeologists now have concluded that the Exodus account was a fabrication.
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Yeah pete, it was the consensus that after searching high and wide through mountains of sand, and buried cities……….among broken pottery…………the shoe laces of Moses could not be found!!!!!!!!
Therefore: the Exodus never occured! Oh how He who sits in the heavens must laugh. Don’t you ever tire of trying to dull the lustre of God’s word and the truth therein?
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God’s word? You mean like Charley McArthy’s word was really Edgar Bergen —
Are you really claiming that two and a half million people can wander around in the Sinai for 40 years and never leave a trace? I’ll bet you’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you’re trying to sell, too!
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Hi Serenity, thanks for your thoughtful comment. In some ways I’d love to discuss all this with you, and in other ways I’m hesitant to attempt to chip away at a belief that clearly brings you peace and contentment. You same like a nice person who is unlikely to promote the truly harmful beliefs and practices common in some versions of Christianity (e.g. objecting to gay people in love forming relationships, campaigning to outlaw access to abortion facilities, promoted ideas that place men over women). But I’ll respond to some of your points and see how we go.
“To me, either basic worldview seems like a rational and logical response to the world we all live in.”
Yes, I do agree with this. I think theism is completely natural for human beings. We look for explanations naturally, and in their absence, will create stories – these superstitious story develop over time into organised religions in most cultures, usually based around some sort of unseen deity figure. But I think in general, human knowledge, about ourselves and the universe around us, has begun to strip away all the causes of ignorance that made us rely on belief in these invisible forces. Fear, tradition and ongoing gaps in our knowledge keep many people there, along with this natural pull to explanations for a kind meaning in life.
” to seek to genuinely understand another persons worldview and how they came to it (as it seems you are trying to do.”
I am trying to understand, but I must admit to you it’s because I’m fairly confident it’s all nonsense. There are so many clear contradictions that are talked back to front and upside down to try and bend the words to mean something that could make sense. In this case, I am interested in hearing what Christians make of it, but I haven’t heard anything that doesn’t require a heavy dose of cognitive dissonance to accept.
“It seems to me that really is one premise one has to accept before one can fully understand the very helpful explanations that have already been made in this feed”
Like many others who comment here, I used to be a Christian and did obviously read the Bible at one time as a believer. I often pull out the verses that troubled me then.
“Jesus is telling this crowd on the mount, very clearly, that unless they are PERFECT in every way, they cannot ever fulfil God’s demands. And He makes the rather bold claim that He has come, not to change this demanding law in the slightest, but to fufill it ”
Yes, this seems to make sense to the Christians on the thread. But what does that mean? For example, your god didn’t want people eating pigs, but now he doesn’t mind? Your god wanted lambs kill to say sorry but now he doesn’t mind? Can you not see the barbaric concept of the barbaric, invisible god? It really puzzles me trying to remember how I accepted all this as making sense. I guess it interests me to hear how people who continue with the tradition rationalise it. And also I like to point out how open to interpretation that WHOLE thing is for people who preach messages of discrimination.
By the way, I’m think of doing a post about talking to children about death. Do you mind if I reference you? It won’t be in any kind of critical way, just to give you the credit for getting my cogs going a bit more on the subject. Let me know, I don’t want to send any negative traffic your way if you’d rather avoid it.
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Hi VW, thanks so much for your patient reply…I’ve been reading more of your older posts (like ones from back in 2013 where you are discussing whether you are agnostic or atheist) and I’m realising more how many of my points in the comment above are things you’ve already been discussing here…so again, sorry about that! I have being a late arrival to blogs like yours …there’s so much back story I’ve missed! (BTW I love your blog! And you handle all comments so well…have you had some kind of training as a diplomat?)
Anyway, thanks for your patience with my comments 🙂
“Fear, tradition and ongoing gaps in our knowledge keep many people there, along with this natural pull to explanations for a kind meaning in life…” – I agree – and I suppose I would add, what;s wrong with trying to find a kind of meaning in life? It’s interesting, I think there are many reasons that drive people to search for meaning – seeking answers to suffering, pain or evil…or even seeking to understand things like love and beauty. Anyway, sorry to move into the fluffy philosophical arena…It’s kind of where I naturally sit.
“There are so many clear contradictions that are talked back to front and upside down to try and bend the words to mean something that could make sense. In this case, I am interested in hearing what Christians make of it, but I haven’t heard anything that doesn’t require a heavy dose of cognitive dissonance to accept.” – I think I get it. And you are absolutely right in one way. There are what I would call “seeming contradictions” in addition to genuine “this-doesn’t-quite-add -up” bits…I’m not sure how best to explain how, in spite of this, there is no cognitive dissonance about this for me…I’m working on it…I’ll have more of a think and get back to you…but it does all hang on the idea that this God of the bible is both loving and just (I know, I know, I know it doesn’t seem like it with all the killing of children and the violence and just all the OT killing…but really, there is a little more to the story than what seems like meaningless and murderous violence…I’ll get back to you on this though ; )….Not that I think I have a snow-flakes chance of changing your mind or anything, simply because it seems like you’ve asked this kind of question lots and lots and not had a satisfactory answer…?
“Like many others who comment here, I used to be a Christian and did obviously read the Bible at one time as a believer. I often pull out the verses that troubled me then.”
OK, fair enough. But, I’d say, if you still have questions about it you should still be reading it. And fair enough to pull out the bits that still trouble you, BUT, I’d say have a read of the bits surrounding those troubling verses, because, honestly, with all those seemingly utterly horrid verses, there sometimes is context immediately around it that at least explains a little bit of what’s going on. As someone else commented here before, the bible is part history of a people group (the Jews), and they did live in a historical context and were subject to violence themselves (just the same as any other people group at the time) e.g. treated harshly as slaves in Egypt, later the Babylonians and Assyrians all but wiped them out. Basically, it was a pretty violent time to be living in. Not that God’s chosen people were at all or in any way better than the nations that surrounded them, and they certainly never acted, on the whole, better than any other people group that they lived alongside (e.g. Amos 2:6-8) in fact at times God declares them to actually be worse than other nations (can’t find that reference now..).
“Yes, this seems to make sense to the Christians on the thread. But what does that mean? For example, your god didn’t want people eating pigs, but now he doesn’t mind? Your god wanted lambs kill to say sorry but now he doesn’t mind? Can you not see the barbaric concept of the barbaric, invisible god?”…Ok, again, going to have to get back to you soon (I am no where near as smart and articulate and quick witted as your other readers 😉 ….but God is not barbaric in the ways that you suggest, and he never changed his mind…
“By the way, I’m think of doing a post about talking to children about death. Do you mind if I reference you? It won’t be in any kind of critical way, just to give you the credit for getting my cogs going a bit more on the subject. Let me know, I don’t want to send any negative traffic your way if you’d rather avoid it.”
Don’t mind of you reference me, thanks (in advance) for the credit. It’s an important topic and I’m curious to see what your blog people think about it. I’ll cop the negative traffic if it comes my way 😉
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Hi myisleofserenity
If we look at some of the acts of genocide in the Old Testament:
– Midianites – Book of Numbers
– Canaanites – Book of Joshua
– Amelikites – 1 Samuel
Each of these were specifically commanded by God according to the Bible.
The traditional interpretation of the Bible has sought to balance three principles:
– God is good, loving and just;
– The Bible is a true historical record of what actually happened;
– Killing whole peoples is morally wrong.
These three principles cannot be reconciled for these events so interpreters of Scripture have had to decide which of these is discarded to make sense of the text. Most often it is the last of the three which is discarded with interpreters arguing that is God commanded it, then it must be just, even if we don’t understand how.
But actually there is a good reason to challenge these events based on the second criteria. As modern Archaeological evidence has now cast doubt on pretty much all of the Bible up to Kingdom of David. The consensus among Archaeologists is that the Exodus and Joshua conquest are at best highly exaggerated, but more likely are total fabrications. When Israel was founded as a modern nation they put much effort in archaeology to prove the Jewish Scriptures as true, they now admit that they are not true history, there may be elements of history there, much like King Arthur legends but not much more than that. The situation starts to change in period of the monarchy but not eve then there is doubt about Solomon as no evidence has been found for his kingdom outside of the Bible.
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“The situation starts to change in the period of the monarchy” – There’s a reason for that, Peter – the Hebrews didn’t develop the written word until around 1000 BCE (the oldest Hebrew writing has been dated to around 950 BCE), and that coincided with the establishment of the monarchy.
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Hi Peter…can you tell me more about your understanding of the traditional interpretation of the principle of Gods goodness, lot and justice? How have you traditionally understood these to play out?
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Good – I would suggest primarily means benevolent.
This would contrast to the John Zande alternative of a malevolent deity.
https://thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com/category/sketches-on-atheism/
Just – refers to fairness. Everyone receiving as they deserve and not what they son’t deserve. So justice would suggest that children are not punished for the sins of their parents.
When I was a Christian I saw it in the following way:
I had no problems with the theology of Christianity, my problem is whether it is actually of human or divine origin.
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“So justice would suggest that children are not punished for the sins of their parents.”
What? Do you mean that Adam and Eve were alone responsible for their “fall,” and none of the blame was passed on to the rest of us? But wait, doesn’t that mean we don’t need a “Savior”?
As I pointed out (or tried to) on Colorstorm’s blog, “sin” is entirely a religious construct – outside of religion, it doesn’t exist in any moral philosophy – right/wrong, good/bad, yes – but not sin.
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Fair enough.
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“what;s wrong with trying to find a kind of meaning in life?”
You’re right, there’s nothing wrong with it and it’s clearly a natural pursuit for humans. I personally find it a waste of time. If you scan through history at the breadth of conclusions that people have come to, after wasting their whole lives pondering it, it just seems much more logical to accept that there is no apparent meaning. If there is a meaning, that’s nice, but based on the religions and ideas that have been formulated and debated down the centuries, we don’t know what it is.
I’ll get round to that death-for-kids post when I’ve more time to look into it.
Thanks for sticking around, it’s good to have Christian input from someone like you – you ask interesting questions and seem a lot more grounded than a lot of blog Christians. Maybe it will help temper some of the angry atheist ranting. 🙂
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Naaah —
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One last thing…if the question of inconsistencies is still bothering you there is a book I can point you in the direction of (have not yet had a chance to read it, but it looks good – Brian Rosner, ‘Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God’ (InterVarsity Press, 2013).
And here’s a quote from a book I actually have read recently
“…when Christians read the Old Testament, they interpret it through Jesus. The light of the OT law is refracted through the prism of the Christ-event….Chrisitans have always read the OT this way….It is the way Jesus taught his followers to approach the OT. It is how the OT itself said it would one day be read. This is no to say that we won’t stumble across parts of the OT law that we found confusing or even distasteful, but critics have to pay Christians the respect of listening to how they read their own documents. The continuity between the Old and New Testament is real – the shape and premise are the same. The discontinuity emerges not from some patch-up job of a pick-and-choose religion. The OT itself spoke of its own inbuilt redundancy…” John Dickson, ‘A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible’ (Zondervan, 2014)
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“‘Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God’” – I would certainly hope, if you are any student of the Bible, that you are aware that of the 13 epistles attributed to Paul, the following are forgeries —
Timothy I
Timothy II
Titus
Thessalonians II
Ephesians
Colossians
In fact, except for the 3-page book of Micah, the first eight of the fourteen chapters of Zechariah, and those legitimate epistles of Paul, the entire Bible was written entirely anonymously by superstitious, scientifically-ignorant Bronze and Iron Age men. As a history book, it is a significant failure.
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Ok archaeopteryx1…I definitely consider myself to be a student of the bible and I am certainly aware of the challenges of establishing authenticity, but as far as I’m aware, there are scholars all along the spectrum for each point that we can debate about, and to be honest, if the above letters are forgeries, they are pretty good ones, because they fit pretty well with the other ones.
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“if the above letters are forgeries, they are pretty good ones, because they fit pretty well with the other ones.”
Did you know that nearly every episode of Star Trek was written by a different screenwriter? Yet they all fit together, don’t they? I’m not sure what that proves.
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What I meant was, there is a thread of unity in these books (as I think christians have suggested on this blog before) which exists, as well as the differences.
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I’m sure that you’re implying (whether intentionally or not) that there was some supernatural reason as to why, as you put it, “there is a thread of unity in these books.” If that is so, it far more likely has to do with the fact that the Catholic Church, at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage in 394 and 397 CE, respectively, threw out all of the books that didn’t contain such a “thread.”
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Well, not so much a supernatural reason, just that the writers that we now have grouped together agreed on many main/key/points, where as the writings that weren’t included were in key ways different to the others or made claims/asserted truths that were quite different – such that we end up with two different croups of writings – those that have a certain consistency to them/are all agreeing about certain important things, and those that are distinctly not.
I don’t have time tonight to point out examples of of types of reasonings used to establish the NT canon, but there are hundreds of people who have sifted through this stuff over the years, especially when new documents are found.
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“the writers that we now have grouped together agreed on many main/key/points” – If you’re referring to the gospels, a lot of that could be attributed to the fact that pseudo-Matthew copied upward of 90% of his entire book from pseudo-Mark, often word for word, while Luke copied roughly 60% – under those circumstances, one could expect a bit of agreement.
But I’ve been neglectful – you already mentioned being sleepy, so obviously you’re on the other side of the planet. If you’d like to get some sleep, we can always take this up again later if you like.
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The main selection criteria for the NT was authorship by an Apostle (or closely related party). However I think it is now generally accepted by Scholars that Revelation was not written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of John.
Most scholars conclude that 2 Peter was not written by the apostle. When I studied the NT I was puzzled why 2 Peter copied most of Jude, but if it was a later work that makes sense. 2 Peter was almost excluded from the NT because of the suspicion over its authorship.
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Something else you might like to look into is the Westar Institute’s Seminar of ‘The Acts’ – it will give you a whole new outlook on pseudo-Luke’s “The Acts of the Apostles,” as being a corroboration of Paul’s work.
One more thought I’ll leave you with:
🙂
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And here’s a little something I can point you to – http://contradictionsinthebible.com
How many inconsistencies do YOU need to see before the thought begins to creep in, “There’s something wrong here —“?
“…critics have to pay Christians the respect of listening to how they read their own documents – An interesting statement. Which Christians? How many denominations has your Christian religion broken up into so far? Over 4,000, isn’t it? It would seem that Christians ‘read their own documents‘ at least 4,000 different ways – do I really have to sit through all 4,000 of them? I was really hoping to spend the next few years doing something else – ANYthing else —
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Thankyou for your, and others, concern that I (and all christians) should be alleviated of our erroneous beliefs.
Personally, I have thought this stuff through before, many years ago. And I don’t find that there is anything wrong. I just keep on finding comprehensive, compassionate, and complex answers to big problems I see facing people, such as issues of origin, meaning, suffering, evil etc. The main thread throughout the book, and indeed throughout christian traditions/denominations etc is one I am pretty happy with. There certainly is no other worldview/religion that comes close to providing satisfactory answers to the kind of questions I’m interested in.
BTW, doesn’t atheism have many ‘branches’ too, as it were?
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“…there is a book I can point you in the direction of…”
Here’s an excerpt from a book, Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God,” with which it would seem you would feel right at home:
First of all, that statement could be placed in the dictionary as a definition of circular reasoning. Secondly, is this man actually saying that he is privy to Yeshua’s view of the Bible? Isn’t that just a bit presumptuous? And upon what is that presumption based – the words of the four anonymous Gospel authors who never met the man, or the words of Paul, who never met the man?
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Haven’t read this one of Tim’s yet. Would probably have to read it read it first before I say if I’m right at home with it….
On face value, I’d say yes, I’m at home with that statement.
And yes, he is actually saying that he is privy to Yeshua’s view of the bible and yes that is presumptuous.
And the presumption is based on – working backwards – the documents of the NT which were themselves evidently based on a number of fragmentary documents in circulation e.g. sayings, collections of miracle sorties etc (which were by various individuals or groups of individuals compiled to form gospels) which were in turn based on apostolic proclamation. And it is important to recognise the kind of two-way traffic that would have being going on at the time – the living community of the early christian community (or church) were subject to the natural check and balance of the eye-witness accounts firstly and the written deposit of that witness later on. Not to argue, that all these accounts line up perfectly, but I’ve thrown in some ideas earlier in this feed about that.
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Let me tell you a story, Serenity, that comes from the same kinds of information gathering as your gospels:
About 44 CE, Josephus reports, a certain impostor, Theudas, who claimed to be a prophet, appeared and urged the people to follow him with their belongings to the Jordan, which he would divide for them. He secured about 400 followers. Cuspius Fadus sent a troop of horsemen after him and his band, slew many of them, and took captive others, together with their leader, beheading the latter (“Ant.” xx. 5, § 1).
Another, an Egyptian, is said to have gathered together 30,000 adherents, whom he summoned to the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem, promising that at his command the walls of Jerusalem would fall down, and that he and his followers would enter and possess themselves of the city. But Felix, the procurator (c. 55-60), met the throng with his soldiery. The prophet escaped, but those with him were killed or taken, and the multitude dispersed (ib. xx. 8, § 6; “B. J.” ii. 13, § 5; see also Acts xxi. 38)
Another, whom Josephus styles an impostor, promised the people “deliverance and freedom from their miseries” if they would follow him to the wilderness. Both leader and followers were killed by the troops of Festus, the procurator (60-62; “Ant.” xx. 8, § 10).
Even when Jerusalem was already in process of destruction by the Romans, a prophet, according to Josephus suborned by the defenders to keep the people from deserting announced that God commanded them to come to the Temple, there to receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Those who came met death in the flames (“B. J.” vi. 5, § 3).
With the destruction of the Temple the appearance of Messiahs ceased for a time, but the one you follow is just one of many, and with about the same degree of reliable evidence. In my opinion, you believe what you do because you were taught at an early age, when your mind was young and pliable, that this particular story was true, and you’ve had that bias confirmed ever since through your association with others who think as you were taught.
You see the same thing in children’s belief in Santa, with the difference being that that belief is easier to grow out of, as it doesn’t promise eternal life or eternal damnation.
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Yes, messiah’s abounded. I’m not sure I would agree that there is the same degree of reliable evidence for them all, but it is interesting, to me at least, that there is only one that has had a significant following for quite some time.
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“Fear, tradition and ongoing gaps in our knowledge keep many people there, along with this natural pull to explanations for a kind meaning in life…”
Along with long-established needs to relieve our natural anxieties —
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And now for something completely different —
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Good one 🙂 Covers a lot of ground.
“You can’t know that because there could be something you don’t know that you don’t know and you’d never be able to say there isn’t because you wouldn’t know it if there were.” – could this ironically be also used as an argument against atheism? Or am I getting too sleepy to think straight?
Interesting. I suppose we won’t live long enough to see how things pan out as humanity starts to grow up and puts away childish things…
It’s been interesting conversing with you arch. (At least for me anyway – you’ve probably found my contribution in line with every other christian you’ve ‘debated’. Pedestrian well-indoctrinated christians! I’ve enjoyed thinking through some things again and have certainly got more insight into different atheist perspectives. Thanks.
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“could this ironically be also used as an argument against atheism?” – Of course! There’s always something that we don’t know that we don’t know.
“I suppose we won’t live long enough to see how things pan out as humanity starts to grow up and puts away childish things…” – You already have, most of us here have done exactly that – it happens one person at a time. Church attendance is down, churches are going bankrupt, the “nones” (as opposed to the Nuns) are rising – it’s happening as we speak. We’re slowing outgrowing supernatural belief. Hopefully we will gradually quit praying for something to happen, and get out and make it so.
(And I don’t feel like we were debating, merely discussing –)
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Debating/discussing/presenting different argument, research or ideas…I don’t feel as though we are in an argument, like you, I am really interested a calm discussion over a virtual cup of coffee (except I hate the stuff ;)…thanks for explaining though. I didn’t mean to imply a sense of out and out argument. Be kind to me – I’ve never commented on an atheists blog before! I’ve enjoyed reading the comments but have never felt inclined to comment myself. But Violet seems to have set a really excellent tone (very respectful) here on (well done Violet! No easy task I imagine!) I’m glad you’re not going soft on me simply because of what my picture reveals about me and my life…but I’m a bit lost with your reference to atheists eating babies?
It’s interesting, I definitely aware of the possibility of confirmation bias in my thinking regarding religious beliefs etc (I completed a Masters in Clinical Psychology so I have come awareness about it, especially as it relates to scientific research. In fact it’s so funny to see how frequently confirmation bias affects apparently unbiased scientific research – it happens ALL the time!)
I’d love to stay on this feed discussing all these cool points of difference, but other things in my life are demanding attention right now, so I’ll have to bow out for the time being.
Great points of discussion though. It’s hard to convey in these kind of forums (with perfect strangers) but christians by and large (and believe me, I’ve known/know a few! I’ve moved around a bit am have mixed with a fair number of the good, the bad, and the downright weird among them) – christians, as I have met them generally fall into categories. Firstly, those raised in that faith (and who stuck with it OR ditched it then came back to it) and those who converted from atheism/agnosticism/another religion. Now, I want to be clear – I actually strongly dislike religion of any kind – anything that says you have to do this to get God’s favour/get into heaven etc Religion is man-made – and this is where I am guessing you will have trouble following my line of reasoning, for all the reasons you have explained above – religion is man made and that applies to christianity as well, and dare I say it, even schools of atheistic thought can become a bit ‘religious’ in the sense that that have humanly defined rules as to what you can/cannot, should/should not believe in order to be part of a club (I think Violet raised this kind of thing a while ago when she was wondering if she could call herself an atheist and still leave room for the teeny very unlikely possibility that there may be a God). I actually have no time or patience for religion, christian or otherwise (in fact I at times have scorn for it for how it is used sometimes). I do have a general curiosity for any school of thought that explains the value and meaning of human life, speaks to things like dealing with suffering grief, has some ideas about general meaning of life etc etc and amongst people I have met I am most impressed and taken aback at times, with christians (not all of them, just some). They often induct themselves very differently to others, especially at times of great suffering, loss, grief – that stand out in that arena as having something different. That intrigues me. I have many beautiful friends of all backgrounds, and I’m not trying to say I think christians are better (they’re not) they use have something I like.
Anyway, that is a far cry from debating the nitty gritty of historical analysis – but I thought I’d try and explain, that while I am very interested in historical details, that only takes me so far in my own inquiries. Anyway must go now, I have a child to pick up from school 😉
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I should say – its the match between the christian themselves and the christian teaching/ideas that intrigues me. I may well admire some buddhists or muslims but I cannot say I admire the buddhist or muslim worldview.
Anyways, just thought I’d explain. It not very scientific (but then again, what with confirmation bias and all the other things/mistakes humans are capable of) important as it is, I don’t; think science is exactly the be an and end all.
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“I don’t think science is exactly the be an and end all” – Actually, it is, if you wish to be factual, but admittedly, it has no bearing on the emotions, and yes, we humans are laden with those (and how empty would life be without them?), but none of those things are supernatural.
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“(except I hate the stuff)” – That’s it, we’re done! (Not really, I’m far more tolerant than I may at first seem).
“I’m a bit lost with your reference to atheists eating babies?” – That’s an old theist wives’ tale, regarding atheists – it is claimed that we eat babies, which is nonsense, with all that baby-fat, the cholesterol risk is far too high.
“Great points of discussion though. It’s hard to convey in these kind of forums (with perfect strangers)” – Yeah, but see, the longer you stay on these kinds of forums, the more you get to know us, then suddenly – it’s a miracle! – we’re not strangers!
I have a number of Christian friends – we don’t agree, but that doesn’t stop us from finding things to appreciate in each other. I mean, you hate coffee – what could be worse than that?
Come back and see us – I’ll be here all week, if enough people send in their dimes and dollars – I’ve been known to accept Euros if the exchange rate is right —
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Here you go with the argument again! I don’t see us as arguing, I see us as sitting down to a virtual cup of coffee and calmly discussing. Believe me, there are religious jerks I would readily trash, despite the recent posting of “rules,” but you are not one of these – and no, it’s not because you’re a pretty lady with two lovely children on your lap, atheists eat babies, remember?
Confirmation bias is something we all experience, but rarely REALIZE that we are employing it – I brought it up just to increase your awareness.
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