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The Christians
oneeyedjack909
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm an agnostic who was formerly a Catholic and also a Mormon (not at the same time Catholic first then Mormon second). I walked away from both religions due to personal conflict about Christianity. Namely the old testament vs new testament.
You may remember the Old Testament as being that wonderful book about stoning an killing and pillaging and raping unbelievers, also its chock full o crazy and contradictory shit. Yea thats the one. And the new testament is full of that one hippie with the beard who keeps dissing on the hard line right wing religious fanatics. Well my personal question involves that hippie..ya know, Jesus. He said several times that he was there to stamp out Mose's law (the shit in the old testament including the 10 commandments as I understand it) and replace it with a new one: love God, and love your fellow man. Well it seems to me that The Old Testament, that a lot of the evangelical right throw back to, is basically nullified by this Christ fellow. Sure theres some good stories back there but the point to those calling themselves CHRISTIONS is all made in the new testament. And as I understand it the old testament was only included to give Christianity a sense of its roots and was not there to be taken seriously except for its historical content. The real point resides in the new testament which could have read as follows: And Jesus spake-"DON'T be a dick."
So why the fuck is all this shit coming out of conservative Christianity, that they ripped out of the wrong part of the bible, so drilled into modern Cristianity? Shit involving anti-gays, anti-cussing, stereotypes and this no sex until your marrried and all that other stuff about how to live a 'pure' life. Some of this kind of stuff has eased up of late but most of it is still policy in more conservative Christianity. Now I'm not wagging any fingers but why aren't you guys following your own rhetoric? This just doesn't make any sense. It seemed to me that Jesus didn't care about weather or not you broke the sabbath or paid tithing or even if you fucked for money so long as you were a good person who was trying to become a better one. And Christians should be more concerned with what Jesus said than anyone else right? So why are Christians adhereing to a book that was written for Jews?
You may remember the Old Testament as being that wonderful book about stoning an killing and pillaging and raping unbelievers, also its chock full o crazy and contradictory shit. Yea thats the one. And the new testament is full of that one hippie with the beard who keeps dissing on the hard line right wing religious fanatics. Well my personal question involves that hippie..ya know, Jesus. He said several times that he was there to stamp out Mose's law (the shit in the old testament including the 10 commandments as I understand it) and replace it with a new one: love God, and love your fellow man. Well it seems to me that The Old Testament, that a lot of the evangelical right throw back to, is basically nullified by this Christ fellow. Sure theres some good stories back there but the point to those calling themselves CHRISTIONS is all made in the new testament. And as I understand it the old testament was only included to give Christianity a sense of its roots and was not there to be taken seriously except for its historical content. The real point resides in the new testament which could have read as follows: And Jesus spake-"DON'T be a dick."
So why the fuck is all this shit coming out of conservative Christianity, that they ripped out of the wrong part of the bible, so drilled into modern Cristianity? Shit involving anti-gays, anti-cussing, stereotypes and this no sex until your marrried and all that other stuff about how to live a 'pure' life. Some of this kind of stuff has eased up of late but most of it is still policy in more conservative Christianity. Now I'm not wagging any fingers but why aren't you guys following your own rhetoric? This just doesn't make any sense. It seemed to me that Jesus didn't care about weather or not you broke the sabbath or paid tithing or even if you fucked for money so long as you were a good person who was trying to become a better one. And Christians should be more concerned with what Jesus said than anyone else right? So why are Christians adhereing to a book that was written for Jews?
"A mans first duty is to his conscience and honor"- Mark Twain
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberties for a little safety diserve neither liberty nor safety"-Benjamin Franklin
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberties for a little safety diserve neither liberty nor safety"-Benjamin Franklin
oneeyedjack909 on
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The whole New Deal thing Jesus did was basically just "you're all too big a bunch of losers to follow the rules right, so, hey, just at least make sure to kiss my ass or you're going to be all unhappy and on fire and smelling like farts for all eternity."
"My dad killed me so that if you believe in me he will let you into heaven. If you don't believe in me then he will send you to hell. Don't look at me, he's the one who made the rules."
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If you need something to work with, you could always try secular humanism. But for the most part, just don't be a dick, and it's good.
But yeah, all this anti-gay, anti-sex stuff are fanatics who find meanings in the wording of a text that's been translated millions of times over thousands of years across multiple languages. They're using the Christian faith as a boat in which to advance their own agendas.
Welcome to the Real World
Personally, I blame this on a combination of America's tradition of aggressive individualism and the post-Reformation notion that anyone with the ability to read is free to interpret the Bible for themselves.
So like a great many things it's all Martin Luther's fault.
I'll join Harrier and blame Luther because I enoy it.
Actually, the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin in a rather straight-forward fashion.
The Christian fundamentalists aren't espousing anything that isn't present in the text already.
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No they're aren't, but they have no problem ignoring the parts about slavery and subjugation of woman, and sticking to the parts about God hating fags.
Of course, if you want people who actually stick to the entire old testament, you end up with Fred Phelps.
As many others have said, it's better to just adhere to 'Don't be a dick'-rule, and things ought to work out.
On a side note, I agree with Goatmon in the sense that a lot of the 'true christians' or whatever the fundies want to call themselves, have an extremely selective way to read the book. They also have a sick fascination of trying to convert me all the time. NEVER mention to a fundie that you've left the church.
Incorrect. Even the Phelps' clan buys in that silly "ceremonial law" and "moral law" double-think that lets you pick and choose from the OT.
I know this because I asked his son how he could tell the difference between the two and he got very angry with me.
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It was hilarious as long as it lasted.
I wouldn't really care about any of it, except he makes himself 100x more annoying by falsely presenting his videos as 5-star quality. I'm pretty sure he has multiple alt accounts that he uses to rate his own vids, because each one of them is rated 5 stars by 5 or 6 users, and then the ratings are disabled so they can't be downvoted. He also filters out any comments from his vids that aren't sucking his dick.
But that fact is depressing, so feel free to dismiss it.
Yes, you demonstrate the point rather nicely. Being a good person is complicated, in one of many ways, because sometimes people decide that their personal goals, such as "getting into Heaven", are more important.
But like you said, that isn't the point of discussion.
I think by sidestepping the details you completely missed the point. Namely,
Maybe not to you, but to me, someone who's not a dick to others is a good person. You don't have to give all your money to charities and spend all your waking hours helping the homeless to qualify as being "good".
I didn't mean that at all. The keyword in my post is deciding. There's always a choice that you didn't know you made, that you can look back on and realise was a dick thing to do. The kind of thing you never can see in the present.
Lets try to have a nice mature discourse here.
Is it possible that a political group has latched onto a set of beliefs in order to further their own goals rather than any religious or moral objectives?
Should people judge a set of beliefs by only one group of people who hold them?
You might not agree with the answers it gives, but at least you'll know the details of why we're so hard to understand.
STEAM
Well we all agree communism is a nice idea in principle, but you have to judge the idea on how it is set in motion.
In the southern United States or the world?
Personally, the religion I follow being judged by nationalistic power seekers is sickening. If you wanna know what Christianity looks like, watch the senior handing out soup to drug addicts, not the bigwig flying around on private jets spewing hate.
You can't say someone isn't representative of Christianity just because you don't like how they represent it. The Phelpses of the world are an equally good represantation of Christianity as the folk who help the less fortunate, they just represent the different facets of it.
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Why is the person whose behaviour reflects negatively on the religion working on a false interpretation of it? Why isn't the charitable fellow working on a false interpretation of it?
*ding ding ding*
"You could see". I'm not saying either is correct, devils advocate and such.
Also hating the gays is arguable, the whole "hate the sin, love the sinner" thing. Too bad that's not an actual quote from the bible, or that could lead to some ...interesting circumstances.
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"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Matthew 7:2
"9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
1 Corinthians 5: 9-11
'Hating the gays' is right alongside with hating the greedy, the slandererous and the drunk.
"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
Romans 3:23
Demonizing a single group of people, withholding basic human rights, Christianizing a secular government, using political maneuvaring to enforce a belief of the some on the whole, is NOT Christianity and it is NOT supported by the Bible. Phelps condemns himself by condemning homosexuals.
Actually, the Bible is vague enough that it can mean almost anything that you want it to mean about anything it mentions.
Were any of my examples that vague? Vague is the wrong word, difficult to interpret may be better. But then again, a Biblical interpreter has to understand the cultural and linguistic obstacles that stand in the way of the true meaning of the text. Dont confuse these difficulties with weakness of the text, its just that modern english people cant understand ancient greek and hebrew texts very easily. This situation is easily abused.
So since the way a homophobe judges gay people is by determining whether or not they're gay, and the measure they use is "does the subject like hot gay buttsecks", the homophobe is in the clear to hate gays according to Matthew. Or was the bible not meant to be read logically?
What else is there in life?
I think a more accurate term would be "ambiguous", maybe. And yes, all of your examples were ambiguous. Subject to interpretation. For example, the one about homosexuals "not inheriting the kingdom of god", that was it, wasn't it? That could be interpreted as "No need to harass them because they'll get theirs in Hell" or it could be interpreted as "Send those fags to Hell" (Not to imply that one is really any better than the other; it's faith-justified bigotry, either way). The key factor is what the reader wants to believe.