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Christianity

71 by toomanyhelicopters_Archive
steve, aren't you afraid of all the record sales Shellac is gonna lose now that the Christian community-at-large knows that you're not down with them?

that was an attempt at comedy of the absurd. thank you, thank you very much.
LVP wrote:If, say, 10% of lions tried to kill gazelles, compared with 10% of savannah animals in general, I think that gazelle would be a lousy racist jerk.

Christianity

72 by ironyengine_Archive
toomanyhelicopters wrote:if you use google, you can find pretty much every translation of the bible, online, for free.


The translation is not the interesting part. The "study" was. But fuck it, nevermind. I'm re-unmotivated.

Intern_8033 wrote:Why is it that when Christians are talking about the Bible and shit they start using gay words like "bestowed?" Enroll yourself in the possibility of personalizing your dogma.


I was referring to my dead grandmother, and I guess I was trying to show some reverence or something. If you don't like it, fuck off.

Goodnight, thread.
Rick Reuben wrote:You are dumber than week-old donuts.

Christianity

73 by Andrew L_Archive
Have other faiths been brought up yet?

What do the Christians here believe regarding Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc?

Is there 'one god, but many paths'?

Or will these people burn in hell with Steve, LVP, and Intern_8033?


I think you're hooped on this one Christians .

If you allow that Buddhism is just as valid as Christianity, everything worked up from the Bible is reduced to relative rubble. If you don't, you submit that your faith is superior than that of millions of other people in civilizations (and with texts) which go back thousands of years before your own conquered the planet by violent force (colonialism, imperialism, white man's burden, etc) .

What say you?

Christianity

74 by chauncey_Archive
steve wrote:
chauncey wrote: I am not convinced that the archaeolgical evidence isn't just the bones of seperate species.

If what you mean is that extinct species are distinct from each other, then you're obviously right. If you mean that none of them share common ancestors with each other or us, then I think you are being willfully resistant to the obvious.

I am trying to set some things straight about Christ that I think are overshadowed by the church in alot of people's minds.


First, the Church is you. That group of people who claim Christianity -- that's the Church. Not any one denomination, because they all have their embarrasments, but the lot of you.

I think most of us "get" the ideas of Jesus. They represent a kind of ideal for behavior and responsibility. What I don't buy is the extra bit -- the divine bit -- that gives his followers license to try to screw-down the lid of society on anyone who doesn't acquiesce immediately to their divinely-guided notions, or bilk desperate people out of their last pennies in sideshow tent revivals.

Christians often complain that they are picked-on for their beliefs. Nonsense. Not only are Christian notions and themes the foundation for Western society, the Church (and the religious) are treated with great deference everywhere I go. To have been part of (or co-communal with) the ruling paradigm for better than a millenium makes such cries of subjugation seem silly. We (non-christians) reject the behavior, attitudes and influence the Church (those who proclaim christianity) has brought to bear on us, not its beliefs.

Believe what you like, but keep it out of my business.


Got to go - more work. I'll make this quick.

Church = followers of Christ. Okay, I'll go by your definition but I think you take issue with the politics involved, fine. I am not disagreeing on this. I take issue with the politics involved, myself. Jesus was upsetting the status quo, not creating it. Is he to blame for a status quo put into place under his name? He's not here to speak for it, but the Gospels speak plenty on it. It becomes easy to infer that he wouldn't like alot of what has gone on with the church. "Leave what is Caesar's to Caesar, and what is the Father's to the Father."

You laid down the gauntlet, I was here to respond. I am not worried about being "picked on", and that is not what I was pointing out with seperating the church from Christ.

best,
B

Christianity

75 by Linus Van Pelt_Archive
LAD wrote:I think you're hooped on this one Christians .

If you allow that Buddhism is just as valid as Christianity, everything worked up from the Bible is reduced to relative rubble. If you don't, you submit that your faith is superior than that of millions of other people in civilizations (and with texts) which go back thousands of years before your own conquered the planet by violent force (colonialism, imperialism, white man's burden, etc) .

What say you?


The honest Christian response is:

"I submit that my faith is superior to all other faiths because it is based on the truth, and all other faiths, to the extent that they differ from my own, are based on untruths. I believe that the only way to salvation is through Jesus Christ, and that all who do not accept him as their savior cannot be saved. I have no rational basis for these beliefs, but I hold them fervently."

People are reluctant to say things like this, because they are nice guys who don't want to sound like jerks. But I really can't see how someone can be an honest Christian and not believe something very close to this.
Why do you make it so scary to post here.

Christianity

76 by Andrew L_Archive
Linus Van Pelt wrote:
LAD wrote:I think you're hooped on this one Christians .

If you allow that Buddhism is just as valid as Christianity, everything worked up from the Bible is reduced to relative rubble. If you don't, you submit that your faith is superior than that of millions of other people in civilizations (and with texts) which go back thousands of years before your own conquered the planet by violent force (colonialism, imperialism, white man's burden, etc) .


Egads, the above should read "is superior to that of millions . . ."

Sorry.

Christianity

77 by Andrew L_Archive
I'm about to go for a run and then go to work, but here is Karl Marx on religion. Marx was very good at critique (religion, capitalism, political economy, colonialism). Perhaps, the best yet (and his prose, at times, is just as eloquent and beautiful as anything you'll find in a religious text). Not enough people read him.

Marx outlined his outlook in the Introduction to the Critique of the Hegelian philosophy of public law.


"Religion is the consciousness and awareness of man who has not yet acquired or who has again lost himself. But man is not an abstract being, isolated from the world. Man is the world of man, the State, society. This State and this society produce religion, an upside-down consciousness of the world, just because they are an upside-down world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic epitome, its logic in popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its fundamental reason of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of human essence, since human essence does not possess a true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world of which religion is the spiritual aroma.

"Religious misery", wrote Marx, "is at once the expression of real misery and a protest against it. Religion is the groan of the oppressed, the sentiment of a heartless world, and at the same time the spirit of a condition deprived of spirituality. It is the opium of the people. The suppression of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the premise of its real happiness. It is first and foremost the task of philosophy, operating in the service of history, to unmask self-alienation in its profane forms, after the sacred form of human self alienation has been discovered. Thus criticism of heaven is transformed into criticism of the earth, criticism of religion into criticism of law, criticism of theology into criticism of politics."

Marx's favorite maxim (given as a response in the Victorian parlour game 'Confessions', beloved by his 3 daughters):

Nihil humani a me alienum puto

[Nothing human is alien to me]

PS. If the mention of Marx raised your knee, go ahead and put it down again. I am not a Marxist. At least not anymore than Marx was when he said, "I am not a Marxist."

Now, I am to go have the run. Cheers.

Christianity

78 by toomanyhelicopters_Archive
Linus Van Pelt wrote:The honest Christian response is:

"I submit that my faith is superior to all other faiths because it is based on the truth, and all other faiths, to the extent that they differ from my own, are based on untruths. I believe that the only way to salvation is through Jesus Christ, and that all who do not accept him as their savior cannot be saved. I have no rational basis for these beliefs, but I hold them fervently."

People are reluctant to say things like this, because they are nice guys who don't want to sound like jerks. But I really can't see how someone can be an honest Christian and not believe something very close to this.


i say bullshit. how Christian is that?!?! but something you're doing here that i don't agree with is to require that any true Christian believes that they are privvy to objective rather than subjective opinions. while many Christians are guilty of this, not all are. i have made numerous statements on this forum, as i have made for years before, about how much i'm bothered by anyone believing they are privvy to objective truths. i believe objective truth is the property of God alone (or, if you're an atheist, to no being whatsoever) since humans are inescapably bound to our own perspectives.

so i submit that i am an honest Christian, and i don't hold my faith to be more valid than anyone else's faith or non-faith. to each his own. i am not positive of *anything*, and though sometimes i might require goading to remember this, it is always the case. what we choose to believe is our own choice. i also am not Christian because i'm the least bit concerned with salvation, as you insist i must be. i believe that whether i go to hell or heaven, if such realms even exist, is at the sole discretion of God, who i believe does exist. i do not concern myself with such matters.

so you're saying i'm not a real Christian, or that i'm not honest? which is it?
LVP wrote:If, say, 10% of lions tried to kill gazelles, compared with 10% of savannah animals in general, I think that gazelle would be a lousy racist jerk.

Christianity

79 by Linus Van Pelt_Archive
I guess, tmh, you're an extra-honest Christian... I personally believe all honest people are agnostics, and I might call you an agnostic Christian - I hope it doesn't offend. You're saying that you believe in all this stuff, but you really don't know for sure if you're right or not. When I posted that, I considered that "agnostic Christian" point of view, and I considered it to be different from a "real Christian" point of view. Now that I've slept on it, I'm not so sure. I guess I was hasty.

And to clarify: I didn't mean to claim that a Christian had to be a Christian because they were concerned with salvation. My claim was that a Christian had to believe that Jesus Christ was the only way to salvation. If this isn't your prime concern, you can still be a Christian. If you don't believe this at all, I think you may not be a Christian.
Why do you make it so scary to post here.

Christianity

80 by sparky_Archive
LAD quoting Marx wrote:Religion is the groan of the oppressed, the sentiment of a heartless world, and at the same time the spirit of a condition deprived of spirituality. It is the opium of the people. The suppression of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the premise of its real happiness. It is first and foremost the task of philosophy, operating in the service of history, to unmask self-alienation in its profane forms, after the sacred form of human self alienation has been discovered. Thus criticism of heaven is transformed into criticism of the earth, criticism of religion into criticism of law, criticism of theology into criticism of politics


Talk of the suppressing anything makes me nervous. Forcing people not to believe in something that they would otherwise hold true is cruel and dangerous (backlash is almost inevitable). I would guess with my limited knowledge this is one of the reasons why Marx's theories often led to oppression. Let people form their own opinions, right or wrong, which leads to the second highlighted point.

Criticism is a better route. Encourage people to think for themselves. You can't force a racist to not be a racist, but you can tell he's a fool, pull his ideas apart and eventually ostracise him should he not change.

It's a nicely put argument, but I'm not sure that it applies anymore outside genuine theocracies. You may of course argue that the Bush administration is heading towards theocracy. I don't think it's that extreme, but then I haven't been to the States for a while. Generally, I don't think most political systems can be said to run on precepts unique to religion.
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