And by the way, capn, have you ever been to central america? In the limited time i spent there, i saw no evidence of christianity being a source of "greif, torture, and war" and rather saw evidence of it having quite the opposite effect. unifying people, bringing them together in a positive way, and giving hope to some poor fucking people in some poor fucking countries. the fact that you say it "has brought ONLY greif, torture, and war" illustrates that you are not even attempting to check your statements for logic. ONLY greif, torture, and war? what about "hymns"? or "crosses"? or "happiness for many individuals and many churches"? it's brought all those things as well, i know from personal experience.

just out of curiosity, what religion do you practice? where have you done all your religious studying? and why do you REALLY get so offended by people trying to Jesus you up?

If you look at what wonderfull things Cortez, etc..... and the missionaries that followed him did to the indiginous people of the new world, then you will see exactly what I am talking about.

I beg to differ that Christ was throwing out the ideas and values of the old testament. A lot of what people apply to christs teachings are really what the appostles preached. You may say, like my father did, that the apostles had divine inspiration. But, thats assumong a lot. (also, quite trully, my father would say " you cant argue faith". ) Most of the new testament was written within 200 years after christs death, not written while he was alive. This is why I find the first 200 years of christianity so interesting. It went through a lot of different directions before it became homoginized into a few seperate ones (Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, etc...)

Also, there is a 20 something period of years in christs life that is not discussed in the new testament. There is a lot of speculation as to where he was and what he learned in those years. Many folks believed he went west towards india and china. The new testament values and ideas are far more eastern in perspective than Judaism.

Most born again christians i have met know little to nothing about the history of their belief system. Sad.

I hate folks that say that because someone does not share their "god" , that they are going to hell. That is blasphemy. Only God has that power to send any of us to hell. God is the jury, not some "saved" bible know it all.

Theres is your answer. "Paul" said it was ok. Christ did not. That is why there are "Christians", not "Paulians". Christ died on the cross a jew. He believed all the values and rituals of Jews. That is why understanding the first 200 years of christianity are so important. How, if and why were all the aspects of Christ as a Jew eliminated. Why do all "Christian" Bibles come with the Old Testament if this is not relevant?

Actually a common misconception is that Christians value what Christ said OVER the rest of the Bible. Actually (without delving into other conversations) the belief is that The Holy Spirit wrote the entire Bible, through people. Jesus Didn't write anything. He's only spoken of.
Christ died on the corss for both Jews and gentile. which is plainly evident if you even bother to read half of what Jesus spoke about.
The belief is that The original covenant (or old testament) came about when Adam and Eve sinned. They couldn't live under grace, so God made the Law. With Jesus' birth, he made a new covenant of grace.

So yes, my point is that actually both Paul and Peter said all food was pure. They both wrote most of the New testament.
Also, "Christians" means "Like Christ" or "Christ-like"which is what Christians are suppose to try to be like. He was technicly the only perfect person (save Enoch who is supposedly some early manifestation of God).

TooManyHelicopters - I tihnk he made his religion clear in his first post. God's inside him and so he can decide what is right and wrong for himself. And God's in Classical music.

Chris

I tend to draw a distinction between "religion" and "spirituality". So then I'm left to assume his religion is what, "Classical-Musicism"? Religion being an organized and indoctrinated system or group of people, Spirituality being the internal personal experience that has nothing to do with indoctrination. That's how I look at it anyways. I was just curious if capn considers himself an Atheist, or just has some spiritual belief that exists outside the realm of religion.

There is the First Church of John Coltrane. Some believe his music is a manifestation of the divine and that he is a modern day prophet who chose to speak through his music. This church is the result of a spiritual view that has found concensus with some, though I'm not sure how much 'doctrine' that invokes.

This way of thinking can be extended to others who created or composed music that posseses profound spiritual or trascendental qualities. Music of all types plays an important role in Unitarian gatherings, which is another spiritual organization that largely lacks 'doctrine' and is wholly American in its inception and inspiration.

To my way of thinking music is, at its best, a manifestation of human conciousness at a divine or spiritual level that transcends the material or cogniscient trappings of existence. I forget whom said this, but "music frees us from the tyranny of concious thought". That sums it up well enough for me.

Others, such as Frank Zappa and Frank Lloyd Wright condsidered music in similar terms. Zappa building a belief system that used musical terms to describe the physical universe as nothing but vibrations of energy (the electromagnetic spectrum) organized in ways that give rise to matter, radiant energy, and conciousness - in much the same way as notes giving rise to harmony, counterpoint, and polyphony.

When one says something such as "I found/experienced God listening to ____" , they are expressing an awakening or state of Santori as a result of experiencing such a profoundly spiritual work of art or expression. I'd say this occurs most often through classical music, since by its very nature, it employs nothing more than sounds without reference to concious thought or literal meaning.

This may seem 'gay' to some, but I feel nothing could be more 'gay' than limiting your experience and exposure based on arbitrary concepts of what is 'cool', 'fashionable', a contemporanious 'statement', or just 'not gay'. A relavent statement I remember seeing on a Residents record was: "Cultural ignorance is not considered cool".

Chris said,
"This is based on the assumption that God exist to fix everything. Or that God made everything perfect and good so since this isn't perfect and good, God must not exist." Both of which are wrong, at least according to the beliefs of Christianity."

I think that's pretty funny. Nice straw man. It could also be predicated on the idea that gawd could not allow such horrible e-vil to exist in the world without doing anything about it. If you've read the first half of your bible, it portrays the invisible man as quickly smiting people who do even small wrongs (;like uzzah trying to keep the ark from falling on the ground), but then gawd apparently was on vacation while the fucking holocaust was occurring. If people actually bvelieve the crap in the bible, it's not too far of a stretch to think that gawd would intervene to stop horrible e-vil and injustice. Also, your characterization of "the beliefs of Christianity," as if they were monolithic, is pretty amusing. In case you're not aware, there are hundreds of xian sects, all of which have slightly or radically different beliefs from whichever one you are talking about. This is of course due to the large amount of ambiguity and inconistency in the bible (the supposed word of a supposedly perfect being).

Then the hilarity continues: "Maybe before you lash out at something you should do some research. The Apostle Paul deemed all food pure and acceptable. Including pork. In fact it was the law of Moses in the old testament where it was law to at only select foods."

Excuse me, but maybe you should do a little researcyh. Paul was still persecuting xians by the time jeezhus died. He never even met jeezhus. As far as we know, jeezhus never said anything about not having to follow the laws. In fact, in the bible he is quoted as saying specifically that he would not overturn ONE of the mosaic laws. If you haven't read the bible, bet the Cliff's notes version before you go criticizing someone else. I think it's a bunch of bullshit for simpletons, but I at least know what it says.

Then you go to contradicting yourself:
"Your broad generalization that all christianity is as you describe is kind of surprising. Normally people don't get away with broad generalization as an excuse."

Hmmm.... weren't you just the one talking about "the beliefs of Christianity" a moment ago? Yep, just a few sentences before. Try to remain consistent at least from paragraph to paragraph and your arguments might be taken more seriously.

So much comedy for free. I feel like I should pay you or something. Then you go on: "Who determines good if there's no standard? I guess that might explain what the Nazis did to the jews. maybe their standard of good was to kill jewish people. In fact I'm sure the god inside hitler told him todo all of those things because hitler thought it was a good deed."

Well, let me give you a free education on this with a couple of quotes from your pal hitler:

(from "mein kampf) "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

(from a speech in 1922): "My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter."

Ouch. Looks like you have no idea what you are talking about again. Your comments on blasphemy are so dumb as to not even merit comment.

Mercilessly, you continue, "So sometimes jesus looked like Osama, and sometimes he looked like BIlly Corgan. Except i think Billy Corgan is a much more blasphemous insult than Osama."

You know, I think it's pretty fair to say that we don't know what he looked like. Even if the bible was accurate and inerrant, it never describes him once, and if you believe the fairy tale crap about him being the son of gawd, there's no telling what he looked like. Maybe he took after his daddy, and had three gorgon heads. Maybe he rode a fucking unicorn and had little fairies flitting about all over. Please.

"This was not an attempt to prove christianity, or to defend it."

Phew! That's good, because if it had been, I would really have to give you a rebuttal.,

"I simply saw far to many flaws to allow this argument to be considered legitimate."

Funny, that's how I felt when I read your ridiculous claims and uneducated assertions. Thanks for illuminating us with your brilliance.

Anyway, I am just sick and tired of all these religious people going around prostletyzing like their little mythology is "hip" or "edgy" or "rebellious." They have soaked the music scene in St. Louis, where I am from, and inevitably contaminate everything with their moronic blathering.

Thanks.

defenestrator wrote:gawd apparently was on vacation while the fucking holocaust was occurring.

one way to address the issue of the holocaust since it seems to be a hot topic, is through a response that i received when questioning why it is that God would make man inherently flawed and apparently inclined towards evil (take a look around etc).

The answer I got was that God didn't create man to be a robot. Man was not intended to be a creature that always does the Will Of God without fail. This, supposedly, is because God prefers the challenge of having people out there who can much more easily fall into their own shit, doing stuff like paying for porn instead of feeding the homeless, because that way, when people *choose* to do Good instead of Evil, it means a whole lot more. If we were all robots, we'd all do good and that'd be that. There'd be no holocaust, nor would their be war, nor would their be great angst-ridden rock music either.

Not saying anything about "God's motivation is this" or "God's motivation is that", but i will say that i don't believe anyone can EVER truly know God's motivation for *anything*, presuming the existence of God. Maybe the holocaust was allowed to happen because a million years from now, none of what's going on will really mean shit to anybody since *everybody* could be dead, and God's just interested in seeing how people react to such a strong negative stimulus... maybe the holocaust actually *was* sanctioned by God, and it was a necessary step in ensuring that the world would become so completely fucked as it is today, due to that whole "middle east" thing that's going on, and to which the Jewish receipt of Israel can be attributed? I don't know shit about any of this really.

maybe God does or doesn't even value human life at all. It's bizarre for me to think that God is all-powerful and all-knowing etc and he gives a shit about something like human lives, when there's nothing to stop an all-powerful being from creating as many of them as it would like.

But yeah, ultimately, anyone who says that they know the first thing about why God would do this or that, or what God *should* do or *should have done* is making a pretty big mistake in my opinion. And to me at least, having an opinion that God *should* or *should not* have allowed the holocaust is awfully absurd. It just illustrates how people are inclined to project their own beliefs onto God, which is just mind-blowing if i think about what that says.

Thought I’d add just one little quote to this rather tedious thread, and leave it at that

“In the Larry King debate between a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Southern Baptist, broadcast in March 2000, both the rabbi and the priest expressed their hope that the unification of religions is feasible since, irrespective of his or her official creed, a thoroughly good person can count on divine grace and redemption. Only the Baptist - a young, well-tanned, slightly overweight and repulsively slick Southern yuppie – insisted that, according to the letter of the Gospel, only those who “live in Christ” by explicitly recognizing themselves in his address will be redeemed, which is why, as he concluded with a barely discernable contemptuous smile, “a lot of good and honest people will burn in hell.” In short, goodness (applying common moral norms) which is not directly grounded in the Gospel is ultimately just a perfidious semblance of itself, its own travesty… (My) basic premise…is that, cruel as this position may sound, if one is to break the liberal-democratic hegemony and resuscitate an authentic radical position, one has to endorse (the Baptist’s) materialist version…”
Slavoj Zizek, taken from “On Belief”

Thanks for taking my quote out of context.

I said, that if you look at the bible and believe that it is true, and that gawd is consistent, then it's reasonable to conclude that.

This is what is called an If-then statement. It does not retain its meaning if you take out the if.

The other thing you ignore is that if gawd has perfect knowledge, then his giving us "free will" is still him creating X of us knowing ahead of time who will burn in hell for eternity, which makes us pawns in his little sicko game even if you allow the human construct of free will, which means nothing in comparison to gawd's omniscience.

But thanks for trying.