posted
Fair enough, Christianity does get complicated. But it still invalidates the argument somewhat. If someone said "Christianity is false because Christians reject evolution" it wouldn't be a very good argument, because most Christians don't.
Edited for clarity
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posted
Javert, you are wrong. It is like I wrote to Pixiest at the top of the (last) page, you start with the truth of an infinite and loving God. If what we understand doesn't correspond to that, we are probably interpreting it wrong.
Last night I discovered, by the way, that when I wrote that to Pixie I was channeling St. Augustine. This really isn't just something I invent.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Javert, you are wrong. It is like I wrote to Pixiest at the top of the (last) page, you start with the truth of an infinite and loving God. If what we understand doesn't correspond to that, we are probably interpreting it wrong.
Last night I discovered, by the way, that when I wrote that to Pixie I was channeling St. Augustine. This really isn't just something I invent.
OK.
Not to get into an argument, but I would say that reality doesn't correspond with an infinite and loving god. (That is, an infinitely loving god...which you may not have meant.)
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quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: You say God gave us free will? Well, being born a sinner by default certainly wasn't my will!
I have to agree. Of all the things about Christianity that squick me out, the idea of original sin is definitely the worst. The idea that we could be born into spiritual debt is just so grossly unjust.
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quote:I have to agree. Of all the things about Christianity that squick me out, the idea of original sin is definitely the worst. The idea that we could be born into spiritual debt is just so grossly unjust.
Yeah, it stinks and it's not fair, but it could also be deduced from observation without needing religion. How many people do you know that lead perfect lives? And by perfect I mean they have never hurt anyone, are at peace with themselves and are generally happy?
One of the things that strikes me as true about Christianity is that it occasionally presents truths that are unpleasant to swallow. Sure, I'd like to believe that humanity is naturally good and selfless, but history has proved otherwise time and time again. I'd like to believe that when we get something wrong, God in his wonderful warm fuzziness will make it all right without me having to put forth any effort and without any wide-reaching consequences, but that doesn't add up either.
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quote:How many people do you know that lead perfect lives? And by perfect I mean they have never hurt anyone, are at peace with themselves and are generally happy?
None. What does that have to do with Original Sin?
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quote:I have to agree. Of all the things about Christianity that squick me out, the idea of original sin is definitely the worst. The idea that we could be born into spiritual debt is just so grossly unjust.
Yeah, it stinks and it's not fair, but it could also be deduced from observation without needing religion. How many people do you know that lead perfect lives? And by perfect I mean they have never hurt anyone, are at peace with themselves and are generally happy?
The fact that we aren't perfect can be deduced from observation. However, the conclusions that this is because of "original sin" or that we have a "spiritual debt" cannot.
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quote:How many people do you know that lead perfect lives? And by perfect I mean they have never hurt anyone, are at peace with themselves and are generally happy?
None. What does that have to do with Original Sin?
That is the reality that the doctrine of original sin is an attempt to explain. Why, if we all are created good, none of us actually manage to live like it.
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posted
You're throwing another religious assumption in there, that we were created good (or rather perfect).
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quote:I have to agree. Of all the things about Christianity that squick me out, the idea of original sin is definitely the worst. The idea that we could be born into spiritual debt is just so grossly unjust.
Yeah, it stinks and it's not fair, but it could also be deduced from observation without needing religion.
Um... no, it really couldn't. There's a reason why only Christianity of all the world's religions has such a concept. Judaism doesn't have it.
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: How many people do you know that lead perfect lives? And by perfect I mean they have never hurt anyone, are at peace with themselves and are generally happy?
Not being perfect doesn't equate to inherently sinful. There's no "state of sin" that causes suffering. Suffering is caused by actual things. Not some hereditary onus.
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: One of the things that strikes me as true about Christianity is that it occasionally presents truths that are unpleasant to swallow. Sure, I'd like to believe that humanity is naturally good and selfless, but history has proved otherwise time and time again.
False dichotomy. People aren't born natural good and selfless any more than they are born naturally sinful. God gave us free will. No one is a complete sinner and no one is a complete saint. We do our best and muddle through.
The idea of raising up perfection as if anything short of it is evil is probably the root of much of the evil in the world itself.
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: I'd like to believe that when we get something wrong, God in his wonderful warm fuzziness will make it all right without me having to put forth any effort and without any wide-reaching consequences, but that doesn't add up either.
That's another false dichotomy. God gave us the option of repentance to clean the slate long before Christianity came into being, and it's still there. And it does require effort. It requires recognizing that you did something wrong and admitting it, aloud, to God. It requires regretting the action and committing not to do it again. And in the case where another person was the victim of the wrong, it requires that we at least make a serious attempt to right the wrong.
None of which has anything to do with the notion that people are born with a sin-monkey on their backs.
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quote: I have to agree. Of all the things about Christianity that squick me out, the idea of original sin is definitely the worst. The idea that we could be born into spiritual debt is just so grossly unjust.
Thank you for getting my point, there. I was originally a Catholic, so original sin was probably a larger component than in some creeds, but oh, well.
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quote: Why is it that Christians are always slammed for creating false dichotomies, and yet atheists get to pull stuff like this? There are millions of Christians who believe that, like Aurelius said, God will judge you on the virtues you live by. If you are cast into fire, it won't be because you didn't believe but because you were selfish, greedy, prideful, hateful, etc. (Not that you are any of these things, especially not from what I've seen so far, but hypothetically speaking)
I've read the Bible, and I've seen both sides within the New Testament.
I'm pretty sure, though I could always be wrong, that if you told the authors of those books the concept that those who did not follow Jesus would go to heaven because they were good, you'd be laughed at.
Anyway, I'm aware some Christians don't believe that nonChristians go straight to hell. Forgive my lack of qualifiers on the statement, but there are as many different Christians groups as there are areas where you can disagree, within Christianity.
Even the Trinity is not held by all groups, so, well, whatever.
But regardless, Eoywn, many disagree with you, portions of the Bible disagree with you, and while portions do agree, it's funny that the different parts of the Bible get so... contradictory.
How much more contradictory do you get than "The only way is X" or "X is NOT the only way?"
Both cannot be true.
quote: OMeg, it sounds like you'd like to believe in God, but you're angry and frustrated that he hasn't proved himself to exist, so you've stopped believing. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe he is offering proof, but you just won't accept it? I'm actually curious as to what proof you would accept? (this is a serious question, I've never had a good answer for it) Does God have to break his natural laws in order to show his face? Does it have to be shown that the universe as it exists can't do so without some force or guiding principle we'd call God?
Honestly? In that post I was merely responding to the concept. My own feelings of the matter are not quite so angry. There's no god to be angry with, after all, merely humans whose beliefs can be annoying, and in some parts of the world would lead to my death.
There was no anger and no frustration, just an interesting realization: All the prayers I ever gave, all the faith I'd given, every single sign I'd ever seen, were merely my own thoughts, my own interpretations. There was no god there answering, and there never had been.
Further: You assume the universe as it exists can't do so without a God. Based upon what evidence do you hold that assumption?
Based upon what evidence, further, do you hold God in the first place? Existence itself, btw, is not actually evidence in and of itself of any god, but merely of existence.
And even if you could prove that a god existed, based upon what evidence would you hold that it is the god you worship?
That, I think, would be even harder than proving the existence of a god in the first place.
As for evidence I'd actually believe?
How about God doing something unambiguous, like, say, I dunno, what he does in the stories in the Bible all the time.
You know, where large groups tended to see things unambiguously miraculous all the time.
If he could do it for Lisa's people, further, if he could show Thomas Christ's wounds, he can do it for me. Nothing's changed, nothing's stopping your god now, no magic spell has been cast to stop your god from doing what he supposedly used to do.
But it's funny, isn't it, that these events all happened long ago, and your god's lack of similar miracles in the modern age has to be attributed, by some groups, to a change of policy or somesuch.
quote: The very things that make us human? No, sins are a perversion of the things that make us human. We are built to be attracted to the opposite sex (or same sex, whatever) but the sin comes in having the pleasure of sex without the pleasures of love and commitment. The sin is not the the human desire for sex, but the unrestrained, ridiculously overblown desire for sex. Wanting to eat good food is also something we're programmed for, but if we only eat one thing that tastes best to us and constantly eat that one thing, it's a disgusting perversion of the pleasures of food.
Did Christ not say that looking after a woman in lust was the same as adultery?
That's one example. Our brains, our bodies, are designed to do such a thing.
If doing so is a sin, and human beings, as it has been shown, do so due to their very design, then we are designed sinful. Thus, what I said above.
So. Are you going to disagree with your Christ?
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posted
0Megabyte, you have an erroneous and simplistic idea of Scripture*.
Stop thinking of it as all one, big, book. It is a collection of people writing about their experiences with God. From their own particular contexts. Letters, stories, poems, songs, prophecy, "how-to" manuals..."
Of course, some writers are going to contradtict other writers. We don't all have the same experience. Nor would we all understand and articulate that experience the same way for different audiences.
*edit to add: this is probably not your fault.
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Of all the things in the Bible, I'd imagine you'd at least try to listen to what Christ himself is supposed to have said.
Where is the interpretation? I merely pointed out what Christ is supposed to have said. Where am I interpreting?
As for kmboots:
I'm fully aware that the Bible is a large number of separate books.
Of course they contradict each other due to that.
Further, they were not speaking to us, but a fudnamentally different audience. I'm aware of all of this.
Further, that kind of kills much of the idea that it was made by God, is in any way infallible, since it tells you to do contradictory things, oh, and it isn't exactly a coherant source of morals or truth, since you can so easily get a vast range of different contradictory moral lessons from it, to support any viewpoint imaginable.
But, don't Christians have to care what it says? Particularly when Christ himself is supposed to have said something?
Or is the religion of Christianity just picking whatever pieces are convenient, and throwing away the rest whenever the parts disagree?
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quote: Or is the religion of Christianity just picking whatever pieces are convenient, and throwing away the rest whenever the parts disagree?
I think km has already answered this--you start with a loving God and throw away the bits that don't agree, because we realize that the Bible has been filtered through time and different personal viewpoints and a completely different worldview. You may not agree that God is loving and benevolent, (even a hypothetical God, if you like) but that's how Christians approach it.
I wish I could address some of your other points, but I've gotta get some housework done tonight, so maybe later ^_^
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posted
Eowyn and kmbboots, I get that you both believe in a loving and benevolent God. And I gather from your recent posts (please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth) that you don't believe that rejecting Jesus' saving grace dooms you to eternal damnation. But I'm sure you know that many, many Christians take a harder line and do believe many are damned for that and for a variety of reasons, and that God can be vengeful and judging as well as loving.
Now for the bludgeoning :
quote:Hebrews 10 26-31 26If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." 31It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
posted
Yup. Sinning when we absolutely know better can really suck. Consequences, guilt that can consume you, fear of being found out...not pretty. Paul paints a vivid picture of this for the Hebrews. Paul was a pretty smart guy, not perfect, but we can learn a lot from him.
posted
"A raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." That goes way beyond guilt and fear, all the way to Hell in fact.
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posted
And what, in your knowledge of ancient literary convention, leads to you assume that Paul meant this literally?
Also, Paul, smart guy, inspired guy, not actually God. Nor had he experienced the afterlife.
edit to add: Look, I don't mean to be snarky. I get that you have issues. But we have been over this. Scripture is a collection of writing of inspired people trying to record and share their experience of God and how to be in a relationshi with God as best they can.
posted
Well, some of it is intended to be taken that way. Thousands of years of study, examination, research, contemplation and so forth have been spent on uncovering their meaning.
And there vast stores of untold wisdom and inspiration contained in them about how to be with God and with each other.
But, honestly, unless that is valuable to you, I don't know why you would take any of it any way at all.
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posted
kmbboots, I got the impression that Javert was pointing out the flaws with taking the Bible literally.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Well, some of it is intended to be taken that way. Thousands of years of study, examination, research, contemplation and so forth have been spent on uncovering their meaning.
And there vast stores of untold wisdom and inspiration contained in them about how to be with God and with each other.
But, honestly, unless that is valuable to you, I don't know why you would take any of it any way at all.
Well, I think my question is, who's interpretation are you using to decide what is literal and what is metaphorical? A particular scholar? Yours? How can you know, in either case, if you've come up with the right interpretation?
Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that you believe in a loving, fair and just supreme being. But unless you take a lot of what appears to be written in plain language and justify it away, your view of a loving god doesn't seem to be backed up.
And if you have to justify it so much, what's the point of saying you believe in the book in the first place?
Why not say 'I believe in this type of god because it makes sense to me and I would want god to be like this if I had a choice in the matter.'
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Orthodox Christian theology holds that Christ spent the time he was dead in hell, not in heaven. And the gates of hell are opened to let people out, not to transfer them in. [/QB]
This may be possible. As I said, I might be wrong. It's been a while since I had heard the idea or even thought about it, so my memory of it had faded.
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posted
Pretty much all of mainstream Christianity will hold the Ecumenical creeds (Apostle's Creed, Nicene Creed, and that Athanasian creed) to be true, and in the Apostle's creed and the Nicene creed it makes reference to a period of Christ spending time in hell.
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posted
"I think km has already answered this--you start with a loving God and throw away the bits that don't agree, because we realize that the Bible has been filtered through time and different personal viewpoints and a completely different worldview."
Honestly? I have no trouble with that. Forgive me for being, perhaps, more antagonistic than needed towards you.
However, there are vast numbers who would... disagree with your approach. They don't throw away the parts you do, and many others disagree with the act of throwing away a single word.
In fact, some people I know would point out to a phrase in Revelation, warning against such a thing. (Of course, the verse was meaning the book of Revelation itself, and not the entire Bible, that didn't exist as a single collection at the time, but they dismissed this fact when I pointed it out. It was... a depressing day.)
While many of these people would agree that God is good, they'd basically make the word "good" meaningless by merely saying that good means "anything that God does, without question, no matter what he does, even if he decided to copy Hitler for a day, or something." That anything the Bible says God did or said is not only true, but good.
You guys, Eowyn and kmboots, I'm pretty sure you're good people. But too many Christians, even ones that ARE good people, surrender their ability to tell right from wrong when it comes to the Bible, and in fact would willingly commit evil, in some cases, if that is what the Bible instructs.
But there's no guarantee that the people I speak to are like that. Too large a number of Christians out there are not, in fact, anything like you.
But anyway, honestly? That's not anything to do with why I'm an atheist.
It's because of evidence, mainly, not at all any anger. But people supporting evil bothers me, and some things in the Bible are in fact evil, and many Christians support said evil within the Bible, and thus...
Well, starting with the OT I'd go with the easy bits, such as the genocide and mass murder God commands the Hebrews to do, but then again, the god of those books was a rather different animal than the one most Christians worship.
Ooh. Noah's Ark story includes the destruction of everybody and everything, except an implausibly small number of people an umplausibly short amount of time ago.
Including babies. Babies, friend, drowned in said flood. Luckily, it didn't happen in real life, but the story doesn't exactly say it's the worst thing God did or anything.
Laws that are pretty clearly grossly unjust to the point of ridiculousness (but we all know that humans made said laws, but it's always useful to put a stamp of "God did it" to the laws to give them even more legitimacy.)
The entirety of the book of Job... I mean, it's really a great story, focusing on why bad things happen to good people in the most expressive and heart-wrenching of manners, but holding the god who allowed this as "good" kind of stretches my imagination.
Those are a couple easy ones.
New Testament is a little trickier, of course, but I'm not too keen on the whole "God sacrificing Himself to Himself to save mankind from the wrath of... Himself" thing. But that's more weird and inefficient than evil.
Now, thinking of Jesus as an individual, however, you get into the whole "sacrificing your own son's life (he gets better)for the purpose of forgiving a bunch of people who were condemned by you and the rules you chose, knowing with your omniscience what would happen beforehand (unless you notice the times in the Bible where God acts surprised, of course)" thing. Which I can't really see anyone but God doing this without us noticing it as kind of silly if it weren't so horrible.
And anyway, myriad different ideas and sermons in the letters which I won't list due to my tiredness and faltering coherance. Forgive me, but they aren't too very hard to find. Of course, the writers of the letters certainly weren't God. But some people fail to see a difference, and take it all at face value, as if their most of the time perfectly proper to their own audience values still apply and can still be reasonably considered valid today, when we're at a bit of a higher level of morality and empathy than the old days.
Listing everything would take a long time, so I just kind of skimmed very, very lightly.
Don't think it too bad, there's plenty of things in the Bible that are totally awesome and which I still find quite beautiful and good.
But I won't ignore the bad just to focus on the good. Nor shoulod I ignore the good just to focus on the bad. I suppose I do so more in debate because, well, most of us have read the Bible and we already know the good, and most of the time people focus too much on the good parts anyway, myself included in the past.
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posted
Shawshank - Infinite punishment for finite crimes is one of the most evil doctrines I know of.
(You could turn the above statement into a charge against the death penalty. And I don't have a problem with that. )
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quote:Originally posted by Javert: Shawshank - Infinite punishment for finite crimes is one of the most evil doctrines I know of.
(You could turn the above statement into a charge against the death penalty. And I don't have a problem with that. )
Agreed.
It's also interesting to point out that the idea of infinite punishment doesn't appear in the Bible until the New Testament.
So while god did some pretty terrible things in the Old Testament, at least there when you were dead you got to stay dead.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Okay. I give up. You guys have fun misunderstanding stuff and then getting mad about what you think it means.
It is rather annoying (and counter productive to what you claim you want) that you keep perpetuating this error, but you really don't seem to want to actually understand. Just to be outraged and feel superior to people.
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Okay. I give up. You guys have fun misunderstanding stuff and then getting mad about what you think it means.
It is rather annoying (and counter productive to what you claim you want) that you keep perpetuating this error, but you really don't seem to want to actually understand. Just to be outraged and feel superior to people.
Enjoy.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe you could do a better job of explaining what you believe the correct interpretation is?
No one here is stupid. Don't assume it's someone else's fault if they "misunderstand" something.
If anything is counterproductive, it's comments like this. If you give up, fine. But do so respectfully.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Okay. I give up. You guys have fun misunderstanding stuff and then getting mad about what you think it means.
It is rather annoying (and counter productive to what you claim you want) that you keep perpetuating this error, but you really don't seem to want to actually understand. Just to be outraged and feel superior to people.
Enjoy.
What are we misunderstanding, Kmbboots? I think we all understand that you have different interpretations and understandings of what the Bible means. We all have different interpretations and understandings.
All I, or anyone, can do is look at it from our own understanding and see if it makes sense and whether or not it is good. If presented with other interpretations, we can address those.
I'm sorry if this frustrates you. I enjoy this conversation, but if it is angering you or offending you then I understand why you would choose to leave it. Sorry.
I can assume you won't be giving an answer to my earlier question?
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posted
rollainm, I have not called anyone stupid. As a matter of fact I specifically noted that a simplistic understanding of scripture was not 0Megabyte's fault.
quote: All I, or anyone, can do is look at it from our own understanding and see if it makes sense and whether or not it is good. If presented with other interpretations, we can address those
This, for example, is not really true.
Scriptural understanding is complicated. Thousands of books have been written explaining and interpreting scripture. Sometimes whole books on one particular chapter or verse. People who do this seriously need to learn whole other languages. We have centuries, millenia of gathering the wisdom of people who have recorded their inspired understanding of their relationship with God. Human beings with different literary conventions, different cultural outlooks, different science, different languages.
Yet no matter how many times I explain this, the discussion always comes down to taking a verse, out of context, and ripping on how horrible God must be. That God must be evil because Paul (for example) describes the pain of sin as fire. Or reading the Hebrew Scriptures as if they were written by 21st century journalists.
I get that there are people of faith that do this. I don't understand why you would want to do this except that it is so much easier to take potshots at it that way.
And I can understand that. I can. Religion has some serious problems and it is easier to discard it all than really examine it. And far easier to make your case for pitching it if you look at the worst of it. And way more gratifying.
quote:And I can understand that. I can. Religion has some serious problems and it is easier to discard it all than really examine it. And far easier to make your case for pitching it if you look at the worst of it. And way more gratifying.
I think you're making an assumption that we haven't really examined it or don't continue to do so.
Just to be clear, I didn't just try to examine it and then chuck it when it got confusing.
I don't think that's what you meant, but I want to be clear about my own position.
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posted
How about this then. Why don't you change roles in this discussion? What 0mb just did was come up with his own examples of evil in the bible.
(by the way, did you catch this at the end of one of his posts:
"But anyway, honestly? That's not anything to do with why I'm an atheist.
It's because of evidence, mainly, not at all any anger. But people supporting evil bothers me, and some things in the Bible are in fact evil, and many Christians support said evil within the Bible, and thus...
Well, anyway."
It seems to me you think he's using these examples to justify his atheism, which he is not. Like he said, that is a separate issue.)
And it's true that his criticism is based on a particular interpretation. So why don't you offer your explanation of whatever passage he's referring to, whatever ideology you feel is important or necessarily true, and then open yourself up for criticism. This way, anything that is objected to will fall within the boundaries of your understanding.
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posted
I'm also in agreement with rollainm. My apologies if making a judgment about something in the bible being evil (or at least how I interpret it is evil) is offensive. There are a number of things in the bible that I find wonderful, moral, and really interesting.
None of that has anything to do with justifying my atheism.
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posted
I don't have a problem with any of you being atheist. More power to you. I have little interest in converting you or convincing you.
I do have a problem with perpetuating the idea that Scripture is always either literal or easy or obvious in its meaning. Or that it is the only way to know God that we have available to us.
When you do that, you are aiding the very fundamentlist, right-wing mind set that frightens and disturbs both of us. You do this by assuming the argument on their terms. You let them define what religion means. You give them power.
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posted
"I don't have a problem with any of you being atheist. More power to you. I have little interest in converting you or convincing you."
No one said you did have a problem with their atheism or that you were trying to convert anyone. What we are saying (or at least what I'm saying) is that it appears you believe 0mb and perhaps others are justifying their atheism based on interpretations of evil in the bible. I wanted to make it clear that this is not the case because it seems to me this is what is causing your frustration.
"I do have a problem with perpetuating the idea that Scripture is always either literal or easy or obvious in its meaning. Or that it is the only way to know God that we have available to us."
No one here is saying that.
"When you do that, you are aiding the very fundamentlist, right-wing mind set that frightens and disturbs both of us. You do this by assuming the argument on their terms. You let them define what religion means. You give them power."
So then present the argument in your terms. You are quick to say when someone has "misunderstood" a particular passage or verse, but you have yet to justify this or present your own understanding.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I do have a problem with perpetuating the idea that Scripture is always either literal or easy or obvious in its meaning. Or that it is the only way to know God that we have available to us.
When you do that, you are aiding the very fundamentlist, right-wing mind set that frightens and disturbs both of us. You do this by assuming the argument on their terms. You let them define what religion means. You give them power.
The point of analyzing literalist viewpoints is to expose their flaws. From what I've been able to gather, the people trying to do [what I view as] damage to our society are generally fundamentalist in nature (ex: teaching ID [aka religion] in a science classroom). Their views are fallacious for reasons entirely unrelatedly to belief in God.
I like your beliefs even if I don't agree with all of them. I do share your belief that the Bible is not meant to be interpreted literally.
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posted
I believe kate’s point is that an understanding of scripture is not something than can be summed up in a bulletin board web post. It’s something that is lived into and worked out in community. So far when she’s tried to offer the bottom line conclusions of that kind of life-time study she’s been accused of picking what she likes and “throwing out” the rest.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I do have a problem with perpetuating the idea that Scripture is always either literal or easy or obvious in its meaning. Or that it is the only way to know God that we have available to us.
I think the problem is that it's difficult and time consuming to go through everything you say or write and add caveats to please everyone.
So when I speak about a particular line of scripture, what I mean is "This looks like it says 'this'...and if it does say 'this' then it is an evil doctrine", but what I say is "'This' is an evil doctrine." It's simpler to say it that way.
Maybe that's just laziness on my part.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Javert, it is simpler. It is also usually incorrect, since Scripture is usually more complicated than it looks.
I am not a theologian. I have neither the years of education, the knowledge, nor the time to go verse by verse through the Bible explaining the various possible ways to interpret them.
I do know enough to know that it I don't know enough to say, "this means x" without doing a great deal of study. That is the knowledge that I am trying to pass along to you.
I could recommend a couple of books that might give you a glimpse into this if you are interested.
For myself, I (now on purpose channeling St. Augustine) start from the premise of a loving God and figure that if my interpretation of a certain passage doesn't fit that, then I am probably missing something and need to do some investigation.
I don't expect you to do that; you aren't starting from the same premise. But the idea that the meaning in Scripture is clear to anybody who can read is an incorrect and pernicious one that has popped up in the last couple of hundred years. And I believe it is a bad thing. It is too easy to use Scripture to justify anything if one goes about it that way. It is not how Christians have traditionally understood Scripture and it is not how Scripture was intended to be understood.
posted
"And I believe it is a bad thing. It is too easy to use Scripture to justify anything if one goes about it that way."
Did you not notice this as being a significant part of my point?
Look, I know you assume God is good from the get go, and thus, of course saying anything that God does is evil will therefore disagree with your interpretation, or holding up the things which were unambiguously evil done within the Bible as things done by God would disagree with you, or whatever.
However, your interpretation is not the only one. Your frustration seems somewhat silly.
Particularly since there's no more evidence for your beliefs than the ones I'm more actively fighting. But that's neither here nor there.
Further, kmboots, my interpretation obviously differs from yours.
I don't assume God is good from the get go.
Assuming your answer is just silly. It makes you biased, and you are actually actively trying to find ways to make your god fit that ideal, even if the book you use does not in fact support it.
I'm well aware how much of the Bible is not ltieral, how much requires interpretation, especially since, duh, it wasn't written for us, the metaphors used, the stories used, the meanings used were focused on a slowly shifting target of Jews over a period of a thousand years or so.
Anyway, the mental gymnastics required to shift something as relatively unambiguous as "Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. "
into
""Go out and tell people that there is more to being, that we are part of something that goes beyond death. Explain to them about the God of love and that we are to love each other. Give them the opportunity to have new lives with this understanding. Those who don't believe this are condemned to live without this knowledge." "
Or twisting anything else into a doctrine that fits your views in a similarly convoluted manner reminds me of the sort of mental gymnastics Star Trek fans use to deal with contradictions within the story.
Forgive my irriation, but your frustration regardless of what I say, obviously since my interpretation disagrees with yours, regardless of my attempts to be as friendly and clear about it as possible, is actually quite irritating.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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If you forgive my irritation, how about this:
Why do you assume from the get-go that God is good?
Based upon what information do you hold it?
Because nothing about it is required to be true by the world itself, just as gravity is not obligated to work by Newton's laws and doesn't, precisely.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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You say that you get my point, but then demonstrate that you are missing it entirely. I really don't know how to make this clearer to you.
Let's take your Star Trek example. Pretend that Star Trek was 2000 years ago. None of the episodes have survived, but over the centuries, fans have written about Star Trek. There are bits of reviews in obscure dead languages, some fan fic, poems that people wrote about the joys of watching Star Trek, records of the commercials, stories that people wrote down from memory, letters to friends telling them about watching Star Trek or a dream that they had about Star Trek.
Now these things may add up to a confusing and contradictory picture of Star Trek. That doesn't mean that Star Trek never existed. People who have watched Star Trek, who have a personal experience of Star Trek are able to put them in perspective.
Does that help?
edit to add: Just out of curiosity, why do you think gravity works?
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