Peter, Paul, and circumcision.

Daniel,

We just completed a study of how the Bible was created. At the end, our minister summarized by saying "Do I believe everything in this Bible to be true? Absolutely not, because of the way that it was put together, the human intervention in its creation and the many translations. But do I believe Jesus's messages from this Bible? Absolutely."

So, as we can agree about the creation of the Bible, but we can also disagree on how we choose to believe Jesus' messages that are contained within the Bible. Of which he says "Love thy neighbor as thyself" is the most important one.

How Christians choose to follow his teachings is another story, as many of you have pointed out.

Dwight

 

Neurotheology --A Scientific Explanation for "God?"

And then there is [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotheology]Neurotheology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame], standing squarely with one
foot in each of the generally thought mutually exclusive domains of
religion and science.

"Neurotheology, also known as spiritual neuroscience, is the study of
correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of
spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. Proponents of
neurotheology claim that there is a neurological and evolutionary basis
for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or
religious."

Would this be considered an evolutionary advancement or a dead end?

 

Here is an excellent cataloguing of much that is inconsistent, wrong, and ethically repugnant in the KJV, complete with links to full contextual text to quell the specious (and childish "It's not fair mommy!") complaint about "out of context".


About.com: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html

Perhaps not about burning unbelievers (although today's sermon in some churches around the world will very likely advocate precisely that). But your sermon may very well address the "problem" of the laity not having enough faith in their god's capacity to protect and heal, which will convince some parents not to take their afflicted children to a doctor in the belief that their god will remedy the ailment, even when this is explicitly a crime.

Your sermon may discuss the importance of "belief" over "works", and that eternal forgiveness is yours for just believing properly, removing incentive to shape up and behave properly. The Catholic ritual of "confession" is a particularly heinous "get out of jail free" concoction.

Your sermon may remonstrate against the "evils" of gay marriage, a bigotry that is the exclusive province of religion.

And so on.

 

Ha, the first thing at the site I saw was this disclaimer:

"IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind that by "inconsistencies" I do not necessarily mean "contradictions." Even though accepted and common definitions of the two terms often make them synonymous, I make a subtle distinction which is reflected in at least some of the accepted definitions."

 

Sure. Stand by.

I am not religious. Implication that "belief" in and of itself constitutes "religion" is a corruption of definition: belief is merely a set of inferences drawn from premises, whereas religion is not religion unless it embodies a supernatural component. None of my beliefs, belief in gravity, belief that we need food to eat, belief that people act irrationally, etc. have any supernatural component. So I am not religious.

Your're correct, I should not have said "perhaps". I should have said "definitely".

Is your thesis here that "society" is the faction of society that is irreligious? The irreligious faction of society recognizes that whatever "right" is, we probably aren't there, based on the amount of misery we still experience, and that defining what "right" is in any absolute sense is unattainable; we can only approach it obliquely and with a lot of uncertainty. However, if the experience of life today is generally less miserable and lasts longer than at any time in the past, and that trend has consistently improved across history, then whatever the driving factors are seem to be "right" (assuming reduced misery and increased longevity would constitute a major share of whatever it is that defines "right").

It's only the religious faction of society that insists it's already got it "right", in full, an utter absurdity from just about any perspective you look at it from.

See above.

See above. We're approaching it, but will never fully reach it. Which is a good thing: if we were to reach that pinnacle, look around and say, "son of a gun, life is perfect, there's nothing more we could want", some inconsiderate jackass with an imagination will say "yes, but we don't yet have _____ !" What goes in that blank could be anything. It's like the list of integers. Get to the biggest integer and some idiot will wreck everything and add 1 to it.

Avoid superstition like a plague. Acquire knowledge. Those have done the most to take us where we are compared to where we were.

Stand by for an example from the KJV problems catalogue.

 

That's not a disclaimer, he's simply making an important semantic distinction. Inconsistent is NOT an exact synonym of contradiction. The list Blue, Red, Yellow, Green, Diesel lacks consistency, but holds no contradiction.

The catalogue lists BOTH inconsistencies and contradictions in the KJV, and it would be improper to claim something that is merely inconsistent is also a contradiction, if there isn't a contradiction.

But inconsistency in the KJV, even without contradiction, is a problem in a work its adherents insist reflects a "consistent" set of precepts.

 

My comment wasn't a personal attack on you, but simply a comment on how society forms self-propagating groups. Cults, religions, hate groups, nationalist parties, and other such organizations often start from one charismatic leader and a small group of devoted followers. These followers are drawn to the leader for a variety of personal reasons: ideology, personality, power, or whatever that works for each individual. If the group is benign, it stops there, but often these groups seek power and control. New members are coerced, as with the Spanish Inquisition, Stalinist purges, or the Nazi party. These new members have families, and their children grow up fully indoctrinated and assimilated. The next generation requires little or no coercion, but happily goes on producing more indoctrinated members. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, all depending on your own personal view of the current group in power. The process continues indefinitely unless someone takes a stand and attempts to break the chain, which is often a dangerous proposition.

It is this hijacking of of individuals to produce the group's new offspring that I liken to a virus. Virus hijack cells to reproduce more virus, with no regard to whether it is good for the individual cells being hijacked. So it is with human culture.

Tom

 

You contradict yourself in the first paragraph and then your last statement. We are all human beings and are not perfect. As you say, everyone makes mistakes. Just because we cannot achieve perfection does not mean that we cannot always strive to do so. Just because we cannot obtain Jesus' level of perfection does not mean that we do not believe his message.

 

Note to the Mods, this thread really belongs over in politics, although its tone so far has managed to mostly avoid the usual personal acrimony. The only problem is if it gets moved over there it will lose its originator and prime participant.

Dilemma.

I mention this because its presence here may spawn new simliar threads, and I believe the FHOP quarantine serves as an excellent firewall between the genteel discussions in the Pancakes parlor and the full scale nuclear wars going on over in FHOP.

Perhaps if it gets moved we can persuade Daniel to follow it over there, give him a helment and protective cover and a promise not to fire at him from other threads.

Just a thought.

 

Hi all,
Before I part this thread, I thought I would leave some food for thought. It is something that nearly all of here have in common: the Prius.
Have you been to the Anit-Prius Facebook? Wow! I couldn't believe the hate for the car and the people that own the car. Where in the world did that come from? Do you think these people are religious fanatics? Are they right or are they wrong? Who is to judge? They have almost 2,000 participants.
My pastor came up with a word that might describe what is going on here: Ignorance.
Anyways, the questions where rehtorical in nature.
Bye and God bless you.

 

was 'jeremiah" over there?

 

Like quoting the old testament verse about homosexuality while conveniently ignoring all the ones about shellfish and bacon and touching a woman when she's menstruating.

 

So why have the whole Bible if you only need the Jesus quotes?

 

So sad you had to leave without responding to any of my posts... (I guess you took that first proverb out of context by ignoring the other one)

I have to agree with Daniel that there are LOTS of people who claim to believe in the Bible and follow Jesus's teachings - but haven't even read the whole New Testament, much less the entire Bible.

That's not "righteousness" - it's self-righteousness.

 

Not exactly. I think (based on the huge amount of empirical evidence) that most humans have extreme difficulty living with ambiguity. Religion resolves this by definining one possibility as the only "real" possibility - which eliminates all other possibilities and resolves the ambiguity. This is what makes religion "the opiate of the masses".