The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

One man's perversion of religion is another man's true religion. As stated repeatedly on here, you don't get to ignore the bad Christians while accepting credit for the good.

The Westboro Baptist Church is Christian to the extent they believe in Jesus and follow what they believe the Bible tells them. The KKK had strong ties to some segments of Christianity. The Promise Keepers are still advocating that women know their place in society.

You may not like any of that or accept any of their beliefs as your own, but that doesn't make them something other than Christians.

So again, it seems most here sign up for the enormous value that the Jesus doctrine has delivered modern society, but have questions only of negative behavior of some self proclaimed Christians.

If there is nothing that resembles Jesus' doctrine in their behavior (and is fact, is often the antithesis of Jesus doctrine), how can you blame the doctrine?

 

[joecct]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I think the Evangelist said it best

1 - IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 - The same was in the beginning with God.

3 - All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.

4 - In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

5 - And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

6 - There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 - This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him.

8 - He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light.

9 - That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.

10 - He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 - He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 - But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name.

13 - Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 - And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

 

[unofan]

So again, it seems most here sign up for the enormous value that the Jesus doctrine has delivered modern society, but have questions only of negative behavior of some self proclaimed Christians.

If there is nothing that resembles Jesus' doctrine in their behavior (and is fact, is often the antithesis of Jesus doctrine), how can you blame the doctrine?

Christianity is a broad encompassing term, just like "humanity," or "Americans" or any other term describing a group of people. Surely you would agree that humanity as a group has engaged in numerous wonderful acts and numerous downright awful acts. I doubt you would say that those who engaged in horrible acts were somehow not human.

I am a lapsed Catholic. But even when I was going to Catholic school and attending church weekly, I knew part of my religion's history included things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the trial of Galileo, etc. All of which were conducted by the church itself or with its permission.
Just because we now recognize them as historically bad events, am I supposed to retcon them and act as though they had nothing to do with "real" Catholicism?

I don't see why it's so hard for you to accept that Christianity has had its share of less than stellar moments in its roughly 2000 year history. That doesn't take away from the good it brought around, it just removes the veil of naivety and acknowledges that any sufficiently large group of people will have some bad actors.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I think the Evangelist said it best

1 - IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 - The same was in the beginning with God.

3 - All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.

4 - In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

5 - And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

6 - There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 - This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him.

8 - He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light.

9 - That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.

10 - He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
himself
11 - He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 - But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name.

13 - Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 - And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

None of which has anything to do with Jesus. It's an alien neo-Platonism deliberately grafted on to Christianity as a way of appealing to the Greek intellectualism popular in the period.

Jesus himself seems to be an evergreen Rorschach test. His message itself was crystal clear, simple, and essentially the same as the inklings of "Perennial Philosophy" that emerge in all ages and places. These Baroque ornamentations are methods of carjacking the force and clarity of that message for some later ideological agenda.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Just because we now recognize them as historically bad events, am I supposed to retcon them and act as though they had nothing to do with "real" Catholicism?

It's necessary to do this whenever people have the idea that their philosophy is god-given. If that's the case, then the only "authentic" practice of that philosophy must lead to grace (by definition). If bad things happen, then the practitioners have to be impure, or the whole edifice of divinity collapses.

That's what you get when you make up a "perfect" being to contrast with the actuality of reality.

 

[WisconsinWildcard]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

If there is nothing that resembles Jesus' doctrine in their behavior (and is fact, is often the antithesis of Jesus doctrine), how can you blame the doctrine?

Do you think the doctrine is clear? Do these people you state are the antithesis of the doctrine think it is clear? Maybe the work is pretty ambiguous and easily perverted, making it the target of blame.

One thing is clear, religious knowledge is a mass exercise of divergent thinking which is quite ****ing if you are trying to examine the clarity of a doctrine.

 

[MissThundercat]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Last night, I was told that working on Sunday was a sin and that my god was Sam Walton (I work for the local Sam's Club).

 

[Foxton]

Last night, I was told that working on Sunday was a sin and that my god was Sam Walton (I work for the local Sam's Club).

Well, to be fair the bible does say you should be killed for that or Saturday depending on your retcon. Maybe next time ask why they are willing to shop on Sundays then.

 

[joecct]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Last night, I was told that working on Sunday was a sin and that my god was Sam Walton (I work for the local Sam's Club).

If you lived/worked in Bergen County, NJ, you probably would not be working on Sunday.

 

[Spartanforlife4]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Last night, I was told that working on Sunday was a sin and that my god was Sam Walton (I work for the local Sam's Club).

Ah, nice to know there are still some of those true Hollanders left. I figured they had all died out by now.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Last night, I was told that working on Sunday was a sin and that my god was Sam Walton (I work for the local Sam's Club).

We're all told many things in life that are wrong and many people see have no qualms in pushing stuff like this onto other people. Whoever told you this is wrong and please don't give it another thought.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

It's necessary to do this whenever people have the idea that their philosophy is god-given. If that's the case, then the only "authentic" practice of that philosophy must lead to grace (by definition). If bad things happen, then the practitioners have to be impure, or the whole edifice of divinity collapses.

That's what you get when you make up a "perfect" being to contrast with the actuality of reality.

It comes down to what your concept is of what your religious beliefs are supposed to do. If you believe religion's purpose is to make people perfect and the goal is to never fail, that's one thing. If measuring human performance and improving it isn't the goal of someone's religious beliefs, then that's a whole different story.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

It comes down to what your concept is of what your religious beliefs are supposed to do. If you believe religion's purpose is to make people perfect and the goal is to never fail, that's one thing. If measuring human performance and improving it isn't the goal of someone's religious beliefs, then that's a whole different story.

This is an interesting line of thought, and it leads me to ask: is the purpose of religious belief to describe reality or to create it? If the former, quite frankly it's got a terrible track record and it has been largely superseded by the physical sciences (for is) and ethics (for ought), except for those dwindling cases in which it is still forwards compatible. But if the latter, then all sorts of otherwise absurd religious claims begin to make sense.

Take the rules of baseball. Examining the statement "there are three strikes in a strikeout" scientifically makes no sense, since in the natural world there are neither strikes nor outs. But if "there are three strikes in a strikeout" is taken as a prescriptive statement, it makes complete sense and is true tautologically. In fact, the appeal to authority of religion then also makes sense, since that is typically how such rule sets are grounded. There are still doctrinal questions -- for example, in 1887, (let's call this pre-Nicean baseball), there were four strikes in a strikeout. And there is the possibility of alternative interpretation driven either by schism (the DH rule) or even by popular consensus (reducing games to 7 innings for child players by agreement of parents (parishioners) and league officials (local clergy).

We function within arbitrarily-created yet still vital codes all the time (money, law, morality, aesthetics). Thought of in this way, religion simply extends the scope of the code to metaphysics.

And it certainly casts a whole new light on the statement "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Viewed this way, it carries the same meaning and moment as Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Christianity is a broad encompassing term, just like "humanity," or "Americans" or any other term describing a group of people. Surely you would agree that humanity as a group has engaged in numerous wonderful acts and numerous downright awful acts. I doubt you would say that those who engaged in horrible acts were somehow not human.

I am a lapsed Catholic. But even when I was going to Catholic school and attending church weekly, I knew part of my religion's history included things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the trial of Galileo, etc. All of which were conducted by the church itself or with its permission.
Just because we now recognize them as historically bad events, am I supposed to retcon them and act as though they had nothing to do with "real" Catholicism?

I don't see why it's so hard for you to accept that Christianity has had its share of less than stellar moments in its roughly 2000 year history. That doesn't take away from the good it brought around, it just removes the veil of naivety and acknowledges that any sufficiently large group of people will have some bad actors.

All I can say is that authority and power was nearly always brutal and corrupt during this period. The vast majority of these events happened before the Bible was mass distributed/fully understood by the populous and have no resemblance to the Word of Jesus. All this turned around when the printing press put the actual word in folk's hands.

I do feel bad about the past. Issues like this mean that events that have nothing to do with the Word cause people to not even give it a chance.

Do you think the doctrine is clear? Do these people you state are the antithesis of the doctrine think it is clear? Maybe the work is pretty ambiguous and easily perverted, making it the target of blame.

One thing is clear, religious knowledge is a mass exercise of divergent thinking which is quite ****ing if you are trying to examine the clarity of a doctrine.

I should have clarified. Gaps between actions of self proclaimed Christians and Jesus' doctrine are caused by some who misuse the Bible for their own ends and others who IMO misinterpret it. This latter outcome happens when you credit some dude in xx BC with the same weight as (or more than) Jesus. Some may disagree of any sort of prioritization...but you put Jesus first things clear up very quickly. What matters is that Jesus is the priority as he was son of God, was well documented and came relatively recently so as to set the record straight.

None of which has anything to do with Jesus. It's an alien neo-Platonism deliberately grafted on to Christianity as a way of appealing to the Greek intellectualism popular in the period.

I think its better said that these other parts of the Bible are simply context for the big story. But its nice to see that others get the major difference between the Gospels and the rest.

 

[burd]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

A few questions for literalists. These aren't traps--I don't have enough literalist background to know, and I'm curious.

A while back, someone, I believe it was Timothy, commented that man had a perfect relationship with God until Adam and Eve disobeyed his word in the garden, after which evil came into the world. From whence did the imperfection in the God/man relationship come? And was Satan just standing in the wings before that time, waiting for his chance?

What was the last straw that caused God to send his only son to die for our sins? Man had been up to his usual bag of tricks for a long time before Jesus came around. Did God lose patience?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

But when the fulnes of the time was come, God sent foorth his Sonne made of a woman, made under the Law -- Galatians 4:4

So, "the time was right." There's lots of suggestions sprinkled around the web why this was so (all of which seem specious), but it's probably best left to the Escape Clause:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your wayes my wayes, saith the Lord. -- Isaiah 55:8

 

[MissThundercat]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

If you lived/worked in Bergen County, NJ, you probably would not be working on Sunday.

Ah, nice to know there are still some of those true Hollanders left. I figured they had all died out by now.

We're all told many things in life that are wrong and many people see have no qualms in pushing stuff like this onto other people. Whoever told you this is wrong and please don't give it another thought.

Over the past couple days, I had to dismiss the rant as the ramblings of someone who lost their mind. I run marathons and participate in other endurance events, which sometimes happen on Sundays. I was also told THAT was a sin, that I was elevating myself above God, and that I really, really needed to be in church every Sunday.

Another thing that's been a thorn in my paw is a few from church, showing willful ignorance of science and medicine, are inferring that I have severe clinical depression because I don't pray enough. I'm sure they also think, just like King Saul, the Spirit of the Lord has left me.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Over the past couple days, I had to dismiss the rant as the ramblings of someone who lost their mind. I run marathons and participate in other endurance events, which sometimes happen on Sundays. I was also told THAT was a sin, that I was elevating myself above God, and that I really, really needed to be in church every Sunday.

Another thing that's been a thorn in my paw is a few from church, showing willful ignorance of science and medicine, are inferring that I have severe clinical depression because I don't pray enough. I'm sure they also think, just like King Saul, the Spirit of the Lord has left me.

More nonsense people are trying to burden you with. The expectation that one must attend a Sunday morning meeting to demonstrate anything in particular is a misplaced piece of western/American Christianity that is unreasonably used to burden people. We typically attend a Sunday morning meeting, but feel the freedom to not go on a Sunday if we don't feel to, whether because a kid is sick or we just don't feel to or whatever.

 

[Timothy A]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Last night, I was told that working on Sunday was a sin and that my god was Sam Walton (I work for the local Sam's Club).

That's just wrong. The Bible does not say how often/when/where you should work or go to a service. You could be a Christian, never go to Church and work 7 days a week and as long as you believe in what you read in the Bible, you are good with God. Sure it helps strengthen your Faith if you go to Church, but it's not a requirement.

 

[Timothy A]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

A few questions for literalists. These aren't traps--I don't have enough literalist background to know, and I'm curious.

A while back, someone, I believe it was Timothy, commented that man had a perfect relationship with God until Adam and Eve disobeyed his word in the garden, after which evil came into the world. From whence did the imperfection in the God/man relationship come? And was Satan just standing in the wings before that time, waiting for his chance?

What was the last straw that caused God to send his only son to die for our sins? Man had been up to his usual bag of tricks for a long time before Jesus came around. Did God lose patience?

I will get to this, but I do not have enough time right now....