EADD Theology Megathread

[Raasyvibe]

Which is, erm... an attempt to put distance between the new and old covenants, if I'm not mistaken. Can't you see that you've failed to clarify anything?

My aim of the post was to clear up misconceptions about scripture (Partiulcarly that Jesus agrees to the Old testament word for word), and to smash through all these false understandings about Christiannity and Christians, being fools subscribing to this barbaric God....Just like Jesus... when he set out to smash all the misperceptions of the OT, that people held after the Pharisees corrupted the meaning of Gods law...

[places tongue in cheek]

I think the issue - for me at least - is more the problems in using scripture to "clarify" scripture when most of us here seem to agree that scripture is often deeply flawed (for any of a number of reasons). It's all well and good saying that you've explained "the vulgarity" but all I can see is assertions. How do you know what is really meant? Why is your interpretation more accurate than other interpretations? It's not just folk like me and others here who pick up on some seriously shady stuff in the instruction manual - there are many "proper" and devout Christian theologians who also find some of that stuff deeply troubling and will admit there's no easy way of avoiding the kinda conclusions many non-Christians come to: that it's just plain shady, bizarre and repulsive in places. Obviously you have your firm belief in the interpretations you favour but the way you're coming over is that it's a done deal and us heathens are just plain wrong when that is far from a decided matter even amongst believers. How do you determine which interpretation is "correct"? Or is it just a case of choosing the least troubling?

No I've not, I've challenged some of your assertions, which seem entirely based on your own interpretation of scripture. Which is that of a believer, not a skeptic. As Shambles points out, there's little agreement even among believers, let alone scholars.

That's a poor response. (sorry to be so candid) Why you are both totally correct that interpretation of scripture is something even scholars are still split on, and even divides Christians, it's not really applicable to the passages I gave you.

I gave examples where Jesus is, irrefutably, opposing what is written in the Old testament and the Pharisees who added laws. The only verse which which isn't immediately clear is the Matthew/Luke one where Jesus says he has "not come to abolish the law" (I've edited the post now with the Matthew quote, still doesn't read any different)... so for that verse I have only quoted all over the NT to demonstrate Jesus was not referring to the law which the Pharisees corrupted.

That is anything but an assertion, but a best-fitting interpretation backed up heavily with many verses in the NT to show it's context.

And this isn't just my own personal interpretation either. It's an interpretation held by, i would imagine, every educated Christian. It's an interpretation found in Christian theology books over the centuries (I'll dig up some examples, if you wish) I think you'd be hard pushed to find a Christian who didn't agree to the interpretation that God and Jesus believe in peace and goodwill, and these verses in the OT do not always reflect God.


But not to worry, though you'll always find something to niggle on, because you're unwilling to accept a christian explanation, you're only affirming exactly what I wrote in the post to begin with:

Simply, if you're not willing to accept God in your life. You won't accept the bible either. And if you're blind towards scripture, you won't listen to theology. And if you won't listen to the theology, you won't listen or relate to me or any other Christian.

"'Go to this people and say, "You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving." Acts 28:26

________________

Scripture aside

And you've still evaded my very first question (just how did Jesus 'come into your life'?). Though on the evidence I've seen so far, you're probably going to continue to do so.

Was bought up in a Christian family, was taken in by it all until the age of 12, as I went into secondary school realised not everyone was a Christian and I couldn't prove Gods existance. By the age of 17 I had no doubt in my mind that Christiannity was a load of nonsense. Would read up (And later post on this site) about my atheism, remember being intrigued by a case study where a woman had brain damage. Her right side of her body (Controlled by negative brain emotions)was trying to kill her, where her left hand (Controlled by positive emotions) was trying to save her life. Funny case, but it showed me that free will was an illusion.

At the age of 21 I had relationship trouble and became very depressed. For the first time in years, I prayed. The next day a very comforting gesture came from the person concerned, and I began to grow suspicious that my prayer was heard and began to become open to the possibility that God may be there to help.

From there on, I became more open to Christian values, and for the first time saw some sense to the philosophy behind it (particularly marital values, after my relationship trouble), and though I didn't know if the religion was genuine, I was open towards it.

And at this point, I started to have religious experiences. I spoke to Christians and shared my experiences with them, read of many other Christian religious experiences and related to them.... from then on I started attending church and reading the bible.


Though I will admit to you, as peachy as it sounds, coming to Christiannity was not an escape of lifes troubles. To this day I sometimes wonder whether God came into my life as an enemy or a friend.

 

[parttime crackhead]

I think you'd be hard pushed to find a Christian who didn't agree to the interpretation that God and Jesus believe in peace and goodwill

Checkmate.

At the age of 21 I had relationship trouble and became very depressed. For the first time in years, I prayed. The next day a very comforting gesture came from the person concerned, and I began to grow suspicious that my prayer was heard and began to become open to the possibility that God may be there to help.

Also known as a coincidence.

remember being intrigued by a case study where a woman had brain damage. Her right side of her body (Controlled by negative brain emotions)was trying to kill her, where her left hand (Controlled by positive emotions) was trying to save her life.

You have brain damage if you believe that to be true.

 

[Myshkin]

My aim of the post was to clear up misconceptions about scripture (Partiulcarly that Jesus agrees to the Old testament word for word), and to smash through all these false understandings about Christiannity and Christians, being fools subscribing to this barbaric God....Just like Jesus... when he set out to smash all the misperceptions of the OT, that people held after the Pharisees corrupted the meaning of Gods law...

For the sake of the thread then, we'll agree to disagree, though thanks for providing the background.

Anyway, if you're correct then I face eternal damnation. If I'm correct then neither of us do. And the former is more or less deserved anyway, so...

 

[Albion]

You have brain damage if you believe that to be true.

raas's interpretation of that case study may be somewhat idealistic, but there is a condition called Alien Hand Syndrome that has basically the same effect. It's caused by detaching the left and right sides of the brain.

The woman in that case often found her left hand would act to disrupt her at every opportunity...For example, she would answer the phone with her right hand, and her left hand would grab the hook and hang her up.

 

[Shambles]

^^^ Ha! Indeed. Not all denominations are as liberal in their interpretations as others. And you don't even have to go to such an extreme example either. Plenty of "mainstream" type denominations like to emphasise the more hateful and intolerant sections of the Bible (and the same goes for other religions too obviously). It just seems that the interpretation depends almost entirely on the individual believer's own personal values. Let's face it, you can find Biblical passages that support more or less any views if you dig about a bit. Whilst the Xtians who emphasise the more hippified Jesusy stuff may be considerably less offensive than Mr God Hates Fags up there I just don't really see that their approach is any more valid really. They just choose to focus on the less objectionable sections and either ignore or try to rationalise the nastier stuff. The whole thing just reeks of a god created in man's image. Yet to see anything that even vaguely hints at it being the other way around. Feel free to point anything out I've missed though.

 

[Raasyvibe]

^^^ Damn you boys reply fast. I don't even have time to edit my grammar. Do you peruse this forum 24-7!? lol

Yeah, alien hand syndrome. that was it. Forgive me I was reading into it 10 years ago.

Oh and the "God hates fags" woman is not a Christian. She's a lunatic.

 

[Myshkin]

The whole thing just reeks of a god created in man's image.

Yup. And with an inbuilt doctrine of 'sin' (inherited from Egypt) that actually precludes the free thought necessary to develop anything approaching genuine 'virtue'. Though that's just the way I see it, and I do agree that some representatives of Abrahamic faiths are genuinely bent on doing real 'good'.

Remember that there have been countless sects annihalated or persecuted in the name of Pauline hegemony (followed by Roman hegemony, followed in turn by Protestant hegemony, etc.) so the churches that exist today are pretty far removed from scripture, which any cursory study will tell you has seen considerable alteration through the centuries anyhow. Things like the original (mis)translation of the Septuagint through to the sabbath shifting to coincide with the holy day of Sol Invictus (Sunday).

It's fascinating business, mostly for non-Christians or the less-dogmatically-inclined believers, however. I'll say that much.

 

[Shambles]

^ Spot on, Sam. The Christianity (and no doubt other religions too) has little to do with that of times past. Hence it being impossible to be a "true Christian" imo. What's actually come down to us is just fragments of the story. Even when you add in the uberearly texts that've been found it's fairly certain that even then we don't know the half of what early believers actually believed.

Oh and the "God hates fags" woman is not a Christian. She's a lunatic.

I'd agree on the lunatic bit but they're also most definitely Christians. Not the same kinda Christian as folk like yourself and Jess, maybe, but Christian nonetheless. Suspect you'd find they wouldn't class you as a Christian either. It's a very common trair amongst religious folk - only religious folk who broadly agree with them count as "true" *insert relgion/denomination here*.

 

[parttime crackhead]

Oh and the "God hates fags" woman is not a Christian. She's a lunatic.

Yes they are. They read the bible, they obey their interpretations of it's teachings. I'm pretty sure they can quote plenty shit from the bible to back up what they do.

I will agree that they are fucking mental though.

Edit - Shambles explained it better.

 

[jancrow]

There was a Christian on here a while back whose favourite things were pride, wrath, greed and sloth.

 

[Myshkin]

Where's the 'trying hard to suppress uncontrollable fits of laughter' smiley when you need it?

 

[Raasyvibe]

^ It's : ! without the space

 

[Shambles]

There was a Christian on here a while back whose favourite things were pride, wrath, greed and sloth.

Ha! And all of those things can be justified Biblically with a lil digging and interpretation, Jan

The one that always amuses me is the one about passing a camel through the eye of a needle. Just watch those rich cunts squirm trying to make out it means anything other than it says

In related news, Jesus getting all badass...

"And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;" --John 2:15

Not only did he get pissed off about capitalism in the temple he actually goes off to make his own scourge to beat their arses. My kinda Jesus %)

 

[pinkpapaver]

what's your christian name? what's the name changing business. is there a name changing business. y'know, the way in school they would go on about your christian name. i can't believe how annoyed i have got about religion . i used to be quite into the old catholisism business. colt dan said it earlier : nature. mother nature. it seems as though there was a time when women had the power and then the jews came along and said you do, you have the power to give birth to a jew

 

[Shambles]

I'd have to more or less agree with that, Pink. Perhaps a tad iffy to place the blame solely at the feet of Jews... but they kinda did popularise the whole monotheism idea as it's come down to us. As mentioned earlier, the people that became Jews started off as polytheistic - Yahweh (or some version of him) had a female consort of equal importance (Asherah). I think the split from goddess worship to god worship predates that by a good millenia or two though so not really their fault as such. It's just that history happened to hand it down that way and the rest is mostly long-forgotten.

Not that I put any more faith in goddess worship than god worship - equally pointless imo. You do get the impression that the world would be a far nicer place if we'd stuck with female deities being at the top of the pile though.

 

[parttime crackhead]

Female deities who once a month flip the lid & start causing disasters? Sounds like a great plan Shambles.

 

[Shambles]

Ha! I wonder if goddesses have "monthlies"? They often tend to be portrayed as looking somewhat... well... fertile so presumably they must've had their off-(or indeed on-)months too...

I must admit that left (as you're looking at it) tit does look distinctly like a bellend though so perhaps they were kinda hermaphrodites gone wrong?

 

[pinkpapaver]

i remember trying to tell a priest that it shouldn't be the holy trinity it should be the holy square, god the father god the son god the mother and god the holy spirit.

i do feel annoyed about religion yet i am a spiritual person. i'll go with david icke wave theory. i have lots of prediction/ de ja vous experiences. albeit about what's going to be on telly or the radio but still. some people call them signs

 

[Shambles]

I'll politely ignore the David Icke comment, PinkP

He's quite hilarious but it's mainly just Theosophy with nobs on.

The Trinity is a whole other matter. Don't think you can find any Christian living or dead who has much of a clue what that's all about. Utter drivel as a concept. Genuinely incomprehensible. Is what happens when you try to turn a fundamentally polytheistic religion into a monotheistic one without tossing out the polytheism properly.

And as for Mary? Date rape deities ftl

 

[Vurtual]

Interesting thread.

It isn't too hard to find out what scholars (theologists or otherwise) think of the actual authorship of the bible - look up historiography of the bible. 'the bible: the unauthorised version' is a good round up. Karen Armstrong's books are also good - an ex catholic nun who lost her faith, but then researched her own and other religions - she's sympathetic to the faiths but pretty objective and a bloody good read. ('the great transformation' has fascinating stuff about early chinese religion (Confucius and Lao Tzu (sp) alongside other religions)

Some bits i (probably mis)remember - how it's pretty much accepted through textual analysis that genesis was compiled from at least two different sources - also as mentioned before pretty uncontroversial that parts of the OT were derived from babylonian myths (Enuma Elish=7 days of creation, Hammurabi's code=10 commandments, Gilgamesh=Noah etc). Unsurprising as most of it was written when the jews were exiled in babylon (~600BC?) - also fairly uncontroversial).

While i agree that if there is an ideology showing through the jumble of different books that make up the OT it's probably not very nice (an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind), like most real things it's probably a bit more nuanced - there are some bits of the nice hippy dippy stuff there too (maybe harder to spot). (some of jeremiah starts getting that way). And before thinking that the judaism jesus' time was a backward religion, look up the pharisee rabbi Hillel - He was spouting most of the good bits that were atrributed to jesus ~100 years before (love your enemy, do unto others etc) and probably came from the same tradition (take note NT pharisee haters) - not to mention that the 'golden rule' (do unto others) had been knocking around since at least 1000 bc in china (Confucius him say...).

i think in general (on not much data) that judaism tends to be more interpretive of its scripture and the rabbis have to relate it more to their own context - i think western 'barbarian' christianity specifically (influenced as it was by the visigothic converts that went on to rule lots of europe) was/is more prone to literal interpretation (and the eastern orthodox branch less so - dogma and kerygma or something)

If it was just those good one-liners that jesus says in the gospels (love your enemy, do unto others... etc) i could almost be a christian; but seeing as many other less 'primitive' (more flexible?) religions/worldviews also say it, added to the fact that it's basic common sense in untroubled humans, i don't think i need to (if i had to it'd be a quaker - they're pretty mellow - and bible not needed).

---

This subject often gets heated, as much from the atheist side's tendency towards communal self-satisfaction (preaching to the converted?), as from the religious side's voluntary lack of critical reasoning (or faith if you like) - referring to noone here obviously . I'd always put myself on the 'atheist' side of the debate, but with big reservations - not least the fact that i'm not sure i'm an atheist - firstly the word atheist seems a bit presumptuous - i much prefer agnostic; who are we to say that science won't discover something about the universe later that you may be able to describe as 'god' in some abstract way. i'm with knockando in thinking this could already the case; to me it's often a matter of choice whether to describe the infinite aspects of the universe with scientific/cosmological terms or to use religious terms (both are placeholders just the same) - hindu concepts for instance are pretty much there already (describing the cosmos as a balance between a creation force, a maintainer, and a destroyer - to me could be tendency for complex systems to form (eg stars and life), conservation of energy, and entropy (i'm sure there's better fits - dark energy?)). To be sure i'd usually stick with scientific terms as they've got more legs (though less poetic).

Another problem i have with some atheism is it can often start to seem fundamentalist and intolerant (see dawkins); but more generally it seems to go together with a materialist/reductionist outlook, which to me is part of the horrible worldview we're just starting to emerge from - plus i think it's just bad science these days (see quantum physics etc). The non-Aristotelian world of A AND not A is with us already, and in some ways i'd say parts of science are behind some religions/religious individuals in dealing with it.

sorry for the essay - i'm procrastinating from doing proper work

...tl/dr - god and all that shit (and having my cake and eating it)