If you mean that anything that is written in the Bible is literally true if read in an entirely mechanic fashion and with no taste for metaphors, and that likewise anything that the Bible tells to do should be done without question and without attempting to understand its context and relevance, then yeah, the Bible is not infallible.
But while there is considerable disagreement among Christianity about the exact significance of the Bible, I am pretty sure that no denomination holds to the interpretation that you are suggesting. Why, yesterday's lecture was about God putting his bow in the sky as a reminder not to flood the Earth again, and I am pretty sure that He is not that absentminded to forget about something like that...
edited 26th Feb '12 11:34:50 PM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.I think one of the best examples of Jesus' own opinion of those particular laws is actually from the Gospel of John.
An adulterous woman is brought before Jesus, and the Jewish people there point out that under the Mosaic Law, the woman should be stoned to death. Jesus, being the God of Loophole Abuse among other things, began writing something on the ground and said, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." Of course, no man is without sin, so everyone left without invoking the law and then Jesus told the woman to sin no more. (A summary of John 7:53-8:11
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According to one interpretation, Jesus wrote on the ground the names of the people in the crowd who sinned, but the point is that Jesus was pretty much famous for his treatment of the Mosaic Law, and he chooses one of the laws from Deuteronomy 22 to make an example of. While he does not deny that it is the Law, he does pretty much call everyone there out on their own sin, if you believe the Christian interpretation of the passage. As mentioned before, it was common for Jesus to bend the Mosaic Law if he had a point to make, and this passage from the Gospel of John is one such bending.
Wizard Needs Food Badly![]()
I'm sorry, but that just reminds me of the Lord High Executioner from The Mikado, except this time it's not on purpose. The laws aren't very effective if there's nobody to enforce them. (which God must know...)
edited 27th Feb '12 4:37:39 AM by Yej
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To me, it's more that this part of the Bible was written to compensate for the existing victim-blaming, not to encourage it.
That makes the passage Fair for Its Day.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."And because of that, what the Bible actually says is far less important than the memes, tropes and thought patterns that come out of religion to the society at large. It's not really that important...either positively or negatively...about the actual words. It's much more important how we today place importance and a sense of scale upon them.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserveLawyerdude, you've brought up one of the core questions in Christianity. Jesus himself knew that many would have the same exact question.
This is what I mean when I say "true" Christians, and go into a frothing rage over the hypocrites who use Scripture. The Bible actually does say that while no Christian is perfect (in fact many of the Bible's stalwarts pulled some seriously heinous shit; see: David, King) there are certain telltale signs.
Spending more time on condemnation and derision than on affirmation and peaceability is a dead giveaway that someone is faking the Christian funk, and faking it badly.
It was an honorCan I assume you're referring to something like this, from Matthew 7:
Sure, but look at the most prominent, important and influential Christians in this country. Remember, they don't exist in a vacuum. Without naming names, you can probably imagine the people that I'm thinking of. If they are what Christianity stands for, then my response is a resounding, "No thank you."
Somebody once asked me if I was a Christian. I responded that I believed how we treated people was more important. She responded, "Well that won't get you into heaven." Looking back, I think that was what deconverted me.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.Well, she was correct, and so are you, to varying degrees.
A person's good works without faith in God will not save them, just as neither faith without good works. Neither can exist without the other; you need both. There are various epistles and verses of scripture that explain that.
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.Of course, most Christians would be offended by being called Communists because, you know, the Communists murdered Christians.
If you're talking about Stalin, the Communists murdered Communists too.
Sometimes with icepicks.
edited 27th Feb '12 8:36:34 AM by Iaculus
What's precedent ever done for us?^^Separation from God and eternal bliss. Whether this bliss is an actual place or becoming one with God or both is up to debate. Also Hell. Which may or may not be fire and brimstone depending on the sect.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahOr as the great and wonderful Glenn Beck tells us, anybody who endorses the ideas of "social justice" and "empathy" is a Commie-Nazi. I would think that "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" are principles of social justice and empathy that Jesus is said to have espoused. Therefore, because Jesus supported social justice, Jesus was a Commie-Nazi.
Of course, since actual Marxist/Leninist Communism is avowedly atheist, I don't see how one could be both a Christian and a Communist, but such mysteries are not for us lesser mortals to ponder.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.It's worth pointing out (or perhaps overly pedantic, but whatever) that "Love thy neighbor" and "Do unto others" are not necessarily associated with social justice; a man who hates himself and takes a Randian, dog-eat-dog worldview would be entirely consistent in using those statements to apply the same rules to other people.
edited 27th Feb '12 8:53:03 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Maybe, but doubtful. Even if I were a masochist, I would recognize that I don't want people hurting me without warning every hour of every day. So I'd only want to be hurt if I were in the mood for it and I consented to it. Even the most hardcore masochist can apply that rule to everybody. "I don't want to be hurt unless I consent, so I shouldn't hurt him unless he consents."
edited 27th Feb '12 9:11:32 AM by Lawyerdude
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.I'm not speaking about masochism per se, but let's take libertarianism, or at least the "grouchy neighbor" variant. The idea is that you trust your neighbor exactly as far as you'd trust yourself in the same circumstances. He stays off your lawn and you stay off his. Either of you crosses that line without permission and you have full faith that whichever does it might get a bullet in the head.
That's consistent: you're applying the same rules to everybody that you are applying to yourself. Seems that those passages can be read as condemning hypocrisy more than prescribing a specific code of behavior.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Well, yes. But Jesus also says/admits that it's impossible to fully follow the Law. So if you have not been lenient in life, you will be judged to the full extent of the law after life, and you will be condemned.
Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 FanficJesus is recorded as railing against hypocrisy a great deal. Specifically it says that he targeted the religious and political authorities of his time, "Woe unto you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!" (Matthew 23)
And not being a hypocrite is part of a code of behavior. But it says that Jesus went on to call out the Pharisees and scribes for being caught up in legalism while neglecting what he said are more important, namely "justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23)
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.Just as some people don't recognize that the thing that they call "God" and have "faith" in has very little to do with the One True God, others, I think, don't recognize that what they have faith in is an image, however imperfect, of Him.
You know, what Lewis wrote about Aslan and Tash, basically.
edited 27th Feb '12 11:31:37 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Well, actually, a "communist" is, by the original definition, a commune-oriented socialist, as any good student of Proudhon would tell you. But the term, especially when capitalised, does carry the specific implication of adherence to the tenets set out in Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto—an aggressively secular tract indeed, albeit one more focused on cultural secularity than that of the individual. The problem is, most people assume that "communist" automatically means "Communist," which they in turn assume means "Leninist," which in and of itself is a different problem (most self-identified Communists are Trotskyists)...
So, yes, even if they shouldn't be offended, they might be. "Socialist" used to be safe, but now the kooks seem intent upon demonising that as well, so I have no idea what sounds least confrontational here.
I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.^^ While that is not the single most offensive sentiment I've heard religious people express towards atheists and agnostics, I believe it is the single most patronizing. If you must make the comparison, say that some people follow God as a way of knowingly searching for goodness, not that other people follow goodness as a way of unknowingly searching for God.
(Please don't respond to that by saying that God and goodness are one and the same. God may be perfectly good, according to some definition of good, but that means that he fits the definition, not that he is the definition. To draw an analogy, there exist weights by which other weights may be standardized, but that only means that those weights perfectly fit the definitions for their measurements.)
edited 27th Feb '12 11:38:30 AM by feotakahari
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

@Chimaera
I've checked both NIV and New American and I don't see "her choice" part.
Now using Trivialis handle.