Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[catsmate]

Yes, it was. You asked if we're better off for moving beyond Bronze Age superstition and mythology, which, as we're all aware, treated slavery and misogynistic bondage as normal and just. You said it yourself, if a woman chose her own sex partner, she'd be killed, and she'd be considered to have deserved that. So stop trying to play coy and either accept the answer or dispute it.

A bit OT but.....
I like women. I prefer their company to men. I share my life with two of them, a menage that probably has more in common with biblical arrangements.
Both are strong, capable, intelligent people, quite capable of exerting their intellect and generally dismissive, even contemptuous, of stupidity, especially male idiocy of which they see much. The idea of them, or their sisters of earlier, or more stupid, societies being unable to exercise those abilities is repugnant to me on *so many* levels. Letting male prejudice and stupidity rob them of those opportunities is really stupid for everyone, including society as a whole.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I've never understood why a foetus should have more rights than the woman it's freeloading on.

Possibly because it might be male. (Presented as a possible reason, I am not advocating for this thinking and do not wish to bring the Wrath of Helen down on my head by suggesting in any way that I am)

 

[Foster Zygote]

This persists into modern day - for instance in Orthodox Judaism (in regard to the religious marriage) a wife can't divorce her husband, the husband has to divorce her, if he won't give her a divorce she can't remarry in her religious community.

And even now, women have to endure people saying "it can't be rape if it's your husband".

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Possibly because it might be male.

..and future cannon fodder.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's fun when you study it with a rabbi and a professor of ancient Hebrew. You learn all the euphemisms. Hint: when she talks about her lover's "countenance," she doesn't mean his face.

NOT that book.

 

[arthwollipot]

If so, who should decide what those beliefs should be?

You shouldn't believe anything unless you have good reason to do so. This comes back to how you know what's real and what's not. Anything that's real doesn't need belief - it just is.

Isn't that what the denominations are already doing?

Yes. Every single one. What are the chances that just one of them are heeding all of the right bits and ignoring all of the wrong bits? How can you tell?

If you have truth on your side, there's never any need to be "savage".

That's a typical, but unwarranted criticism.
Do you critisize a doctor for being a specialist instead of GP?

No but when I have a head cold and need a day or two off work I don't go to a specialist.

Who determines which Bible has "translational fidelity"?

There's a whole science around it. And it applies not just to the Bible, but to other ancient texts as well.

Slavery was a fact of life in early times.
I would say the law made it humane.
The alternative was genocide.
Would you preferred that?

The Old Testament advocated both.

 

[arthwollipot]

I'm not saying that. In the grand scheme of things, origins is a lesser issue.

Except when you're talking about evolution, apparently.

Charlie Kirk: the younger, louder, dumber Ben Shapiro.

Describing what Kirk did as "debate" is pathetic. He was a bully,

 

[arthwollipot]

Why would you limit sources?

Why would you? Christianity is pretty much founded on the idea of limiting sources - limiting them to just one, in fact.

To the orthodoxy of His day, Jesus was considered a heretic.

Who decides what the orthodoxy of the day is?

 

[Foster Zygote]

You can also throw in things like god making people eat their children. I know people who can't believe that god would do such a thing and it isn't something that comes up in happy-clappy Sunday sermons or in Sunday school lessons, but it is unambiguous in the bible:

Jeremiah 19:9: "I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them."​

​

That's the NIV version, and it is horrific but that is what the bible says god said. Oh and in this instance I think the King James version makes it seem even more horrific:

And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.​

​

And there is no way around this, god says it is his doing. It's not an "unfortunate" inevitable result of human behaviour, the bible in all translations and in the oldest texts tells us that god causes this to happen.

I take some measure of comfort from knowing that these events are mythological rather than historical - written by a people who'd been considered and occupied multiple times, inventing a mythology about when they had been the ultimate, merciless, bad-ass conquerers.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I take some measure of comfort from knowing that these events are mythological rather than historical - written by a people who'd been considered and occupied multiple times, inventing a mythology about when they had been the ultimate, merciless, bad-ass conquerers.

C'mon, how can you criticize a religion that tells you to murder all the males in a conquered city and all women who had "known" a man. Virgins were the bonus for destroying most of the population of a city. Keep 'em, rape 'em, use 'em up and throw 'em away.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

In defense of the KJV: It's been a major part of English literature from the beginning. English lit,
and no other.

Agree.
It was an absolute triumph in its time. (1611
All done by hand, of course. No computers or word processing.
For both the writing and printing.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Clearly not. But enthusiastically embracing heresy in order to seem reasonable undermines you when you suddenly want orthodoxy to have some kind of evidentiary value per se. It's special pleading. As you've now been told several times, your journey to reconcile your religion with the facts begins with you first reconciling your religion with your religion.

No worries.

 

[Helen]

Possibly because it might be male. (Presented as a possible reason, I am not advocating for this thinking and do not wish to bring the Wrath of Helen down on my head by suggesting in any way that I am)

You are growing wiser, grasshopper.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

I suppose that's a matter of opinion.
Is abortion murder? (subjective human morality?)

I just realized that I asked that question of someone with "zygote" in their username. - LOL

Why do you keep posting videos by the nazi liar? They're not relevant to any discussion topic you've createda thread for here.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Why not?
You seem to be in the business of discarding any child with a blemish.

Aah, J Piddly; the imbecile's idea of what a clever person looks like.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Exodus 20:13 ~ “You shall not murder."

You can't kill a baby without killing a baby.
Human DNA is determined at conception.


I don't know.

Slavery was a fact of life in early times.
I would say the law made it humane.
The alternative was genocide.
Would you preferred that?

Why would an all powerful god have to choose between two absolute evils?

If yhwh were real, it could simply change humanity so that even the idea of owning another person or killing another culture would cause a fatal stroke in the thinker of those thoughts. You don't get to cry free will, you defined a god which makes it impossible.

Oh and also, slavery is genocide.

 

[Darat]

Why would an all powerful god have to choose between two absolute evils?

If yhwh were real, it could simply change humanity so that even the idea of owning another person or killing another culture would cause a fatal stroke in the thinker of those thoughts. You don't get to cry free will, you defined a god which makes it impossible.

Oh and also, slavery is genocide.

The free will arguments fail because god is quite happen to directly interfere with some people's free will. For example in Exodus he ensures Pharaoh doesn't let the Hebrews go until god wants him to. (Always suprises me that Christians seem to skip over god killing all the first born, sure some first horns will be adults and could have sinned but what about the babes in arms? Plus of course it introduces a novel form of slavery...)

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Oh and also, slavery is genocide.

Tell that to your employer.

 

[Mojo]

Tell that to your employer.

Lurching towards FOTLery, are we?

 

[Darat]

Tell that to your employer.

What has that got to do with slavery?