In our modern culture most Christians regret the Inquisitions which does not make sense to me. The Bible (Old and New Testaments) condones acts of violence as justifiable and necessary for the distribution the gospel. In other words the Inquisitions are a logical extension of Christianity.
Either the Bible is the literal word of God and must be adhered to as truth. Or the Bible is capable of being interpreted as an allegory or guidelines. Regardless of how one justifies interpreting the Bible it must be admited that the Bible has become subjective. If the Bible is capable of subjective interpretation then its value is nor more important then Thus Spoke Zarathustra or the Bhagavad Gita.
I doubt Christians are willing to submit themselves to that sort of thinking, but subjective interpretation of the Bible must lead to this conclusion. The only solution is to view the Bible literally. When the Bible is the literal word of God then Christianity makes sense. Of course one must be prepared to be a good neighbor and treat others as they would treat you and at the same time make sure to stone them to death for uttering blasphemies.
Did this make any sense? Does this get through to Christians? I’m sure a few of the athiest on this topic understand but I have yet to express this idea to any Christians. I’m very curious!
I find it rather difficult to believe in any religous organization. Where one person stands at a pulpit and translates the religous text for you. I just don’t have that much trust. I consider myself spiritual but, not religous.Lets not gorget that translating can lead to errors. Third party translations are bad about that.
Look at a lot of religous texts The bible for one, it started out in one language with different writers writing different ways. Then it gets translated into another language. Then revised for more modern understanding then someone has to tell you what it is actually saying.
And all this translating has not dropped anything or lost anything or changed. When the bible first started being printed in quantities it was priests or monks that did the books by hand. Lets say that most of the monks wrote exactly what they read. There was probably one monk that for some reason changed something in his section that he was transcribing. Who would know or catch it. The odds of that happening are pretty good. Its the human factor.
All of the religious stuff that we are familiar in the west came from mid-east culture, which is insane, thus the religions are insane. The seem to mirror all the weirdness and negatives of the thought processes that we all now see there.
I believe that is why Europeans, Americans, and Asians never quite got into the religion like its creators.
I can see your logic in asserting that the Old Testament “condones” violence. But please show me where you’ve found such motivation in the New Testament.
2 car lot owners, and a tech/service manager. One of the owners doesn’t want anything to do with the work involved and responsibilities in owning and running a business. The other does and uses it as way to steal money from his parter.
This guy wants to control the service manager, but has no knowledge of the workings of the shop. So he uses a tactic to get information and manipulate the tech. He becomes the good guy, and puts all the bad things HE wants from the tech as coming from “evil greedy John”. “Rick” is the “protecter” or advocate.
Rick wants John unapproachable to David, so he becomes their channel of communication. He is then free to twist away. Rick is now John’s word to David.
“Can you explain why the mid-east culture (and their religion) is insane?”
Sure, there’s a bunch of reasons.
1.Many countries base their governments on religious people or royal people. That’s insane because it’s believed that a cosmic superbeing wants those people to rule over the people. That’s very illogical, and has been cast off by the west.
2.In some countries you can be killed for having improper beard length.
3.Women are not acknowledged as being bright or worth much. In the west this has been disproven countless times.
4.You can be killed for being an sexual oddity.
5.People are encouraged to publically kill people with stones.
6.Zoroastrians and Jews will not intermarry with others, thus resulting in birth defects.
That was just a quick string of ideas off the top of my head. All have something to do with the religions there.
A long time ago people from the mid-east tried to get everyone in Europe to convert via the threat that they wouldn’t trade desired goods if they didn’t. So, the European kings forced the population to switch from their native religions to Christianity.
I contend that the religions never quite took, no western country follows any middle-east religion to the letter, and that’s because the people didn’t buy the insanity.
The faith in religion is no less blind and dangerous than the faith in progress, one-humanity and a better future as well as faith in Reason and science.
Have any kind of faith and your mind is close forever.
space and time are a side effect of matter. In all logic they should be constants, but are variables dirrectly caused by matter. If a cause demands an action, I believe that the action of creating the universe caused two equal and opposite side effects of space and time.
That would mean that God exsists outside of space and time. Thus allowing God to see us primarily by our soul,… our essance,… how we feel about life.
Evil people are caloused to certain aspects of the soul, thus allowing them to act in disregard to certain things we take for granted.
Rules of God are ment to keep us in a state of being that is close to the innocents and purity of a new soul. Isn’t it true that we have to become caloused to society or risk being used and abused. Who’s more wrong the people being abused or the abuser. Is it wrong that you didn’t read the fine print,… or the fact that they mislead you when summoning it up. This is the area that religion dominates. And psychology or laws will never fullfill.
The mere fact that religion works where science and laws fail shows that the sixth sence used to communicate with God is real.
How about this rule from God… No sex outside of marriage. I believe that sex as a expression of love limits sex to a less selfish act. While sex outside of love is only limited by what your willing to try. It just happens that sex outside of love happens alone allowing people to be more perverse. Pornography is the savior toward preventing pedophiles,… in that it brainwashes them to a predetermined sexual experience before they experiment on their own. Yet child pornography is ramped everywhere,… even in countries where sex is very open and none religious. The mere fact that the eighties and nineties was ramped with sexual adds and TV, shows how sexual promiscuity is ramped in children raised on TV and no input from religion or parents. Yet this very behavior is the core cause of relationships taking a dive. They feel they can just find a different person to fall in love with. All the while their definition of who they will love becomes more and more precise toward someone that is exactly like them, or will just except them for their faults. Then this love is less spiritual and more selfish. In fact I would even say that the extent that they feel love is less because they have less real reason to love a person. All the while people are becoming more self centered and vain.
All that really matters is spiritual feelings. Then physical aspects come in secondarily. It just happens that we live life in a first person point of view. Hence our dependence on God.
Well, people do need something to believe in it helps with day to day living, Church is a perfect outlet for the frustrations and feelings of failure or inaduaqacies we can feel, A preacher gives out hope love and acceptance while promising pain and fear if you don’t follow. Religion can be viewed as a liferaft or a resting area. I can respect that but, I cannot follow it. A shepard protects his flock? Noway, I get visions of being sheered or made into a roast.
Off the top of my head an example can be found in Luke 19:27 I believe the Parable of the Mines. Well you may not have a bible on hand so I’ll go get mine and quote it, one second please… hold music Okay, here it is:
I think that’s a pretty good indication that Jesus wasn’t all moon beam kisses and sunshine farts.
This was right before his triumphant entry into the Mount of Olives on a donkey holding a fig leaf. It seems he may have been worked up over the whole thing because he gets worse. A little bit later in Luke 19:40 a couple of Pharisees ask him to leave the Mount of Olives and he responds by threatening them with mob action:
The message is clear: [size=150]Don’t fuck with the Jesus![/size]
I agree that zealotry and other extreme forms of faith will impede critical thinking, but I don’t know if I can agree with you completely. Everyone one of us relies on faith daily. We use faith to impose order on our realities; most of us are not radical skeptics (even if I may or may not be). I doubt that any of us really believe we are what Hilary Putnam calls “Brains in a vat,” but there is no proof for this either way, so it requires a type of faith to discount it.
You bring up an excellent point. It is easy and perhaps justifiable to view those who are religious as being weaker and in need of extra help to get along in life. However this perception belies the danger the religious pose to modern society. Examples would be the over turning of abortion, preventing contraceptives in AIDS ridden Africa, or religious claims of dominion like in Jerusalem. No my dear Murdoc religion is a threat and must be treated as one. I don’t advocating being a monster, though compassion and understanding should be important to us all.
I’m sorry but I don’t understand how either of your two post related to the topic at hand. I suppose this quote could constitute as an answer but it’s vague at best. Let me see if I can un-new-age your first post– the second post is just so far off base I’ll just ignore it.
This is the kind of ridiculous thinking I was talking about. I already said it but I am going to say it again. Religious beliefs requiring mythic monsters in the ground (Satan) and heroes in the sky (Jesus/God) expose the stunning capacity for delusion and insanity inherent in the cultures of man. I believe psychology will not be anywhere near useful until it reevaluates religious beliefs as a type of insanity or dementia. If you are interested I have a very good example of what I mean by this.
I always make a distinction between faith and belief. Faith means an unconditional belief, such as that which some men have in god, determinism, class struggle, and so on. No discussion is possible. Belief is an assumption that some things are true, but not necessarily absolutely true, you agree that you can’t prove what you simply believe it is true, you won’t say it is an absolute truth, beause you won’t be able to prove that such a truth exists.
Of course we all have some kind of belief. We live because we believe.
I know that many people prefer not to make such a distinction.
I agree completely that Jesus was not moon beam and sunshine farts. His actions upon discovering the vendors in the temple proves that much. But I think you’ve taken this passage out of its immediate context.
If you read the entire parable, you’ll see that it is prefaced by a note that the disciples were thinking that the kingdom of God was going to come immediately. They were still stuck in the mindset that Jesus was only a messiah in the sense that he was going to take the throne of Jerusalem and reign as a human king. Jesus had other ideas.
The passage you quoted is more likely referring to Christ’s Second Coming, when the wicked and the righteous will be judged, rather than his “reign” on earth.
Perhaps another misinterpretation. Jesus was passing through or by the Mount of Olives on his way to Jerusalem, where his followers (still under the delusion mentioned earlier) thought that he would take the throne as an earthly king once he reached the city. The people are therefore shouting praises and proclaiming Jesus king:
The people don’t recognize the deeper truth in their words. Jesus comes not only in the name of the Lord, but as the Lord. Now the protest that you mentioned is not the Pharisees ordering Jesus to leave the Mount of Olives; they are telling him to get his disciples (the ones who are worshipping and singing, proclaiming Jesus king) to shut their mouths.
The Pharisees want the people silenced for two reasons.
They resent Jesus already, he’s been a thorn in their side since his first day of ministry, and they certainly do not accept him as Lord.
They are concerned about the Roman reaction to this procession. To call a man king and triumphantly parade him into a major city to set him on the throne would have been quite an issue with the Roman occupants and their lord Caesar.
And this is the main point that I thought you were mistaken about. Jesus says,
He’s not threatening mob action, rather, the opposite. Jesus is saying that if his disciples and followers shut up, then then rocks beneath their feet would start praising him. He’s telling the Pharisees that nothing can stop him from entering Jerusalem, the events that have been set in motion will be carried out and their is nothing anyone can do to stop them. Not threatening them, but disarming them.
Still, your observation rings true: “Don’t fuck with Jesus!,” but perhaps not with the same connotation you originally inferred.
satan is supposed to be an angel who became so full of himself he became arrogant enough to think he new better then God.
What does this represent to us psychologically? That God has a deeper understanding then us. So trusting in an all knowing being is our only hope to find happiness. Why is this so psychologically appealing toward people that have to fall so far before they will put their faith in God? When they finally crack from the pressure they become insane enough to believe in God? Let’s not start the theory that people that created God (ie Jesus and the gospels) did so to brainwash society into predictable habbits. Lets assume they used their sixth sence to see beyond our bodies.
Now what can you say about the spacific teachings of Christ,… besides the fact that stuborn people have to be delt with in violence (witch may be the only thing they understand). Couldn’t you say Jesus supported the violence that took down hitler?
Phil, Jesus could have CONVINCED Hitler to stop. I don’t think He needs to kill people or resort to violence to win a disagreement.
He is different things to different people right now. He is GWB’s, the pope’s, all human authorities replacement, or “vacation presenter”. If that is good in their eyes or not, is entirely up to them. To the people who have no authority or power or money, they have nothing to lose, and would probably consider him a “savior”.
Funny part is…All his enemies have been claiming to, and pretending to worship Him for the past 2,000 years. Think about that for a second. I think they may have just miscalculated a little bit.
I’m not a perfect person, so how can I offer you the truth. :D/