xepherys

So, I recently attended a Christmas concert at a friend's baptist church. It was my first pleasant church-going experience in a while. However, during the brief sermon at the end, the pastor made an interesting comment that I found quite contradictory. While talking about a few points he found faith critical to CHristian doctrine, he touched on the virgin birth being paramount in the belief system. That without believing that, you cannt be a true Christian. He further went on to say, "A true Christian cannot pick and choose what parts of the bible to believe."

So, I almost wanted to ask him whether he felt stoning homosexuals was still a good practice. Of course, as with many (most?) Christians, the old testament seems to hold much less weight. However, he did further talk about Joseph and how he kept things under wrap about Mary because she would be mocked by the townsfolk. He further said, "Though adultery provided for punishment by stoning" and quoted that portion of the old testament, he then said, "but this was no longer practiced at the time of Jesus' birth". So then, EARLY Christians (or really Jews at that time) were allowed to pick and choose which portions of 'God's Word' to believe, but we are no longer granted such right?

Can anyone explain in a LOGICAL manner why this might be?

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ScottKuma

You should have asked the pastor if he keeps a Kosher kitchen...since that is also outlined in the old testament.

I remember there being a reason WHY this is, but don't remember what that reason is.

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ratbastid

Ironically enough, I resolve things like this by... not taking him literally. I know he said to take the bible literally, but he didn't really mean that literally. It was a figure of speech underscoring the importance of belief in the virgin birth. Sort of a,"you knew what he meant" kinda deal.

Ourcrazymodern?

In a word: No!

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Yakk

Yes.

The priest is a shaman. Most shamans insist that it is very important to believe in the belief system that gives the shaman a special status.

It is also important that the shaman is the person who should interprit the belief system. Not many religions encourage individuals to interprit the scripture by themselves without serious guildance -- those that do tend to end up becoming quite fragmentary, and tend to disappear in a whirl of chaos after a short lifespan.

Religions that persist tend to have shamans that provide pre-packaged dogma, encourage parents to train their children to follow the dogma, and consider non-believers to be "less" than believers.

Religions who don't have that structure "drift" a huge amount. They lack the self-replication advantages of strong-shaman belief systems.

That a logical enough reason for you?

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Ourcrazymodern?

[QUOTE=Yakk]Yes.

The priest is a shaman. Most shamans insist that it is very important toIt is also important that the shaman is the person who should interprit the belief system. Not many religions encourage individuals to interprit the scripture by themselves without serious guildance -- those that do tend to end up becoming quite fragmentary, and tend to disappear in a whirl of chaos after a short lifespan.


Yakk, is this what's wrong with suicide bombers?

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Yakk

What do you mean by "wrong"?

Suicide bombers are a quite effective low-intensity-war weapon.

They have a decent kill ratio, and are pretty cheap to produce. You just need people who feel as if their lives on this earth are hopeless, and have alot of hatred for your target, and some explosives.

Hatred is always easy, and hopelessness just requires enough poverty.

So, if while fighting a low-intensity-war, having shamans encourage people to engage in suicide bombing is a pretty good idea.

On the other hand, religious strains such as this do get in the way of domestic tranquility. Eventually some set of shamans will get pissed off at how society is run, and the nation will have internal suicide bombing attacks.

If being a stable, productive nation is your goal, having shamans encouraging suicide bombings and other forms of zealotry isn't ideal.

But if that isn't your goal, and instead your goal is to attack nations with far more resources than you can hope to muster, the suicide-bomb tactic is pretty decent.

None of this really is good for the individuals involved. But I'm talking about the survival of elites and shamans, not the pleebs. The welfare of pleebs only matters insofar as it helps the elites/shamans (giving pleebs enough wealth to be content helps keep crime and revolution down -- so once your elites get rich enough, letting the pleebs have some resources is a pretty decent strategy), as far as the welfare of the elites/shamans is concerned.

There are advantages to religions that aren't centrally controlled. They exibit natural selection -- those more capable of convincing pleebs and shamans to follow them grow, others shrink, and others borrow from the successful ones. Nice groups of pleebs get snatched up by small cults. Overall, this should increase the religious infection rate amoung the populance.

This is backed up by patterns -- American Christianity is very decentrialized, and Americans have amoung the highest religious infection rates of first world nations.

In most other nations, as people become better educated and wealthier, shamans get less effective at maintaining or growing the infection.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Ourcrazymodern?

By "wrong" I guess I meant it's wrong to kill yourself.

Of course I could be wrong.

Is religion really philosophy, or is it sophistry?

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asaris

Isn't there a difference between insisting that someone must agree with every bit of 'holy writ' and insisting that someone shouldn't ignore bits of that writ without good reason?

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Dilbert1234567

wasn't the virgin birth a mistranslation, young to virgin?

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asaris

Not necessarily. I don't actually know Greek, but it's pretty common for the same word to mean virgin and young woman. So it's probably ambiguous. But given that the belief in the virgin birth goes back to when the theologians actually spoke Greek as a living language, it's probably not a mistranslation.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

dlish

you cant mix meat and dairy together, you've got to have a seperate kitchens with seperate utinsils. so that would excludes a vast majority of foods..there goes one of my favs..pizza...

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Jolly Johnny

Well, that's damn right. If you are a Christian you believe in God, and that the Bible was inspired by Him (not sure if the term is correct in English, but you get the drill). If you are picking parts of it then you are almost saying God ins't right in some matters. And to Christians, id est, those who believe in God, he is always right!

Who cares, if I recall in the New Testament homosexuals are condemned as well.

Just put a bit of common sense to it, do you know of any custom that hasn't hold remnants? Just because it was not officially practiced, doesn't mean it wasn't practiced at all, or that it wasn't where Joseph and Mary were living.

Having said that, I never heard such a story, I'm not saying it is not true, just that I wouldn't put my hand on fire because of that.

How can you take this any less literally?

If any one lie with a man se with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them.

Leviticus 20:13 (Douay-Rheims)

asaris

Easy enough. Some would argue that it's simply part of the purity law, and so doesn't apply to Christians any more than keeping kosher does. (The kosher laws were explicitly abrogated by the NT.) Others would argue that the sentence prescribed by the law was to be handed down by the Jewish civil state, and since we don't live in ancient Israel, we don't have to follow the prescribed punishments for those acts. And there are probably other explanations one could give.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Ourcrazymodern?

HEY GOD! A little help here?

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Jolly Johnny

The kosher laws were, most others weren't...

No one said so, now that the Church and State have nothing to do with each other, apart from some states like the Vatican, for instance.

However, for the believers it is still the word of God, therefore their actions are justifiable to them.

Btw, if you read only the new testament you will notice several passages where homosexuality is considered, among other things, an abomination deserving punishment.

host

Disclaimer: I did not know that people in the US, interpreted the bible literally until I moved to the state of Georgia, five years ago. It's been an eye opener.

Here's a description of why the "old law" no longer must be followed:
Here are examples of why there is till confusion of the validity of old testament law:

Jolly Johnny

Just a note, Jesus didn't come to replace the Old Law, but to fulfill it. It says so in the Bible, you can trust that on me that have read it (I had strange ideas to get out of boreness when I was a teenager, yes...), but to be honest, can't really remember the passage...

Ourcrazymodern?

"I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly"?

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asaris

Yes, that's the fulfillment of the law.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Ourcrazymodern?

Well, let there be light!

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