Fox News Goes After Pope

[LimpyLoo]

God is just? Are you insane?

 

And you wanna talk about cherrypicking? Ignoring the Old Testament is as bad as cherrypicking gets.

 

 

the Christian God is a vain, histrionic monster who has no qualms about torturing people for eternity.

[chenGOD]

 

Where in reality

The person who follows it's teachings

The 'good Christian'

Is in reality a person that would quite frighten me

And not very 'good' in the usual sense

 

You should watch this.

[SR4]

Can any Christians here explain to me how Jesus and not needing to follow Old Testament law is consistent with God's supposed omnipotence? I still haven't heard a good explanation for that.

[luke viia]

Disclaimer: I'm not defending religion, just trying to answer SR4's question: AFAIK, Most Christians believe that (as Jesus himself claimed) Old Testament law is a set of national/tribal commands for the Jewish people of Israel, and Christians/gentiles had nothing to do with it. Jesus came to "fulfill" and "perfect" OT law, which may not mean exactly what it sounds like. Catholic.com has a pretty good article on it, lol:

 

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-we-are-not-bound-by-everything-in-the-old-law

 

Old Testament law, as such, is not binding on Christians. It never has been. In fact, it was only ever binding on those to whom it was delivered—the Jews (Israelites). That said, some of that law contains elements of a law that is binding on all people of every place and time. Jesus and Paul provide evidence of this in the New Testament.

Matthew’s Gospel enlightens us to Jesus’ teaching concerning Old Testament law:

[A Pharisee lawyer] asked him a question, to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." (Matt. 22:34-40)

In saying this, Jesus declared the breadth of the new law of his new covenant which brings to perfection the old law. He explained further to his disciples:

 

"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:17-19)

How could Jesus fulfill the Old Testament law without relaxing it? The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The Law has not been abolished, but rather man is invited to rediscover it in the person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment" (CCC 2053).

A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture explains,

The solemnity of our Lord’s opening pronouncements and his clear intention of inaugurating a new religious movement make it necessary for him to explain his position with regard to the [Old Testament law]. He has not come to abrogate but to bring it to perfection, i.e. to reveal the full intention of the divine legislator. The sense of this "fulfilling" . . . is the total expression of God’s will in the old order . . . Far from dying . . . the old moral order is to rise to a new life, infused with a new spirit. (861)

[MisterE]

God is just? Are you insane?

 

 

the Christian God is a vain, histrionic monster who has no qualms about torturing people for eternity.

i would kind of agree that torturing anyone for eternity is pretty sick. even someone like hitler. maybe roast him for like 1000 yrs, but hell (pun intended), even that seems a bit much. to me it seems like the ultimate punishment would be to just erase the most evil people from existence completely. no afterlife for them at all. or at least, it seems like you'd be going a good way out of your way to torture someone forever when you could just erase them, and at that point the torturing for eternity clearly has no uh, rehabilitation intentions or anything intended. it'd clearly just be revenge.

 

so yeah, that would be pretty sick.

 

only problem is, does the bible ever really come out, point blank, clear as day, and actually describe the concept of hell? that there is a place where people will be tortured forever and all eternity after they die? i've seen lots of arguments that it never really makes it super clear that there is a such thing as hell. i've seen it said that of all the instances of the word hell in most english translations, that the original greek in some of those cases used the word 'hades' which was a more general term for afterlife, which was where everyone went, not just the wicked. i've seen lots of similar cases made that lots of the other things that were interpreted as referring to a hell, were possibly bent a little more in that direction from the original greek, making those passages more likely to be interpreted as being about a hell. such as the 'gnashing of teeth' references.

 

this thing here talks about the gnashing of teeth thing and actually interprets it that jesus was saying that the more powerful religious people of his day who looked down on others for not following doctrine so closely, that THEY were the ones who would be cast out, but not necessarily to a fire and brimstoney hell, and that the gnashing of teeth referred to that, and it just meant that they would be angry over being cast out.

 

to me that's interesting because it's relevant to the idea of 'good christian' as a person closely following doctrine. this guy is interpreting these passages as saying that to jesus, it's not about doctrine, but being good to others. and i think that maybe most times someone ever says 'good christian', that's what they mean. but that interpretation also seems to be suggesting that the catholic church is going at it totally the opposite of what jesus was saying, which has always been my feeling just based on very little knowledge of the whole thing. all i know is that jesus supposedly wandered around, helping people, and not acquiring wealth. to me, that instantly puts the catholic church squarely at fundamental odds with the bible's characterization of jesus. i do know that he regularly preached against corrupt, powerful religious officials who had built a power structure around Judaism. which also sounds exactly like the catholic church. so for that reason i'm always going to see this or any pope as a joke, who's mere existence goes against the ideas that originated the whole thing he's based on. and that's besides it being an actual sexist power structure that won't let women into the highest ranking positions still to this day, and the whole kiddy diddling thing. catholics were the main or at least first ones who took the whole jesus thing and used it as a way to control masses.

[gmanyo]

Can any Christians here explain to me how Jesus and not needing to follow Old Testament law is consistent with God's supposed omnipotence? I still haven't heard a good explanation for that.

Take some of this with a grain of salt, because I need to do more research. Perhaps sheatheman can correct me. This is mostly what I've gathered, I am aware I should study this more.

 

For starters, the "law" can be several different things. A significant portion of the law is specifically just rules for Israel to keep them separate from other nations. Another meaning is just the word of God. Yet another can be moral laws in the OT, like the ten commandments.

 

To be perfect one would have to obey the moral laws perfectly. The law is God's perfect standard that nobody can reach. In the OT, Israel failed miserably all the time at following the law. Their best king, David, had a dude killed so he could fuck his wife.

 

The idea is that since Christ died for humanity, all people are freed from the binding nature of God's morals. The truth is, even people in the Old Testament who had faith were not bound by the law. It has not changed; rather, more has been revealed.

 

To try to obey the law as a way to reach God and be a "good" christian is actually not only impossible, but it's considered bad.

 

Romans 6:14

14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

 

Romans 8:1-3:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,

 

Obeying the law is and always has been ineffective at enacting change in people. It is there to show our wrong, not there to be followed so we can be good.

 

Note that the bible never says that people are saved by following the law. Not even in the Old Testament. It says they are saved by faith, a trust relationship with God (note: this is NOT believing with no evidence; that is blind faith).

[joshuatxuk]

Can any Christians here explain to me how Jesus and not needing to follow Old Testament law is consistent with God's supposed omnipotence? I still haven't heard a good explanation for that.

 

We still use Windows without MS-DOS...but that doesn't not make it a PC. Right? #theology

[LimpyLoo]

 

Can any Christians here explain to me how Jesus and not needing to follow Old Testament law is consistent with God's supposed omnipotence? I still haven't heard a good explanation for that.

 

We still use Windows without MS-DOS...but that doesn't not make it a PC. Right? #theology

 

 

One could apply that logic to discarding all aspects of the Bible one finds distateful.

 

God is just? Are you insane?

 

 

the Christian God is a vain, histrionic monster who has no qualms about torturing people for eternity.

i would kind of agree that torturing anyone for eternity is pretty sick. even someone like hitler. maybe roast him for like 1000 yrs, but hell (pun intended), even that seems a bit much. to me it seems like the ultimate punishment would be to just erase the most evil people from existence completely. no afterlife for them at all. or at least, it seems like you'd be going a good way out of your way to torture someone forever when you could just erase them, and at that point the torturing for eternity clearly has no uh, rehabilitation intentions or anything intended. it'd clearly just be revenge.

 

so yeah, that would be pretty sick.

 

only problem is, does the bible ever really come out, point blank, clear as day, and actually describe the concept of hell? that there is a place where people will be tortured forever and all eternity after they die? i've seen lots of arguments that it never really makes it super clear that there is a such thing as hell. i've seen it said that of all the instances of the word hell in most english translations, that the original greek in some of those cases used the word 'hades' which was a more general term for afterlife, which was where everyone went, not just the wicked. i've seen lots of similar cases made that lots of the other things that were interpreted as referring to a hell, were possibly bent a little more in that direction from the original greek, making those passages more likely to be interpreted as being about a hell. such as the 'gnashing of teeth' references.

 

this thing here talks about the gnashing of teeth thing and actually interprets it that jesus was saying that the more powerful religious people of his day who looked down on others for not following doctrine so closely, that THEY were the ones who would be cast out, but not necessarily to a fire and brimstoney hell, and that the gnashing of teeth referred to that, and it just meant that they would be angry over being cast out.

 

to me that's interesting because it's relevant to the idea of 'good christian' as a person closely following doctrine. this guy is interpreting these passages as saying that to jesus, it's not about doctrine, but being good to others. and i think that maybe most times someone ever says 'good christian', that's what they mean. but that interpretation also seems to be suggesting that the catholic church is going at it totally the opposite of what jesus was saying, which has always been my feeling just based on very little knowledge of the whole thing. all i know is that jesus supposedly wandered around, helping people, and not acquiring wealth. to me, that instantly puts the catholic church squarely at fundamental odds with the bible's characterization of jesus. i do know that he regularly preached against corrupt, powerful religious officials who had built a power structure around Judaism. which also sounds exactly like the catholic church. so for that reason i'm always going to see this or any pope as a joke, who's mere existence goes against the ideas that originated the whole thing he's based on. and that's besides it being an actual sexist power structure that won't let women into the highest ranking positions still to this day, and the whole kiddy diddling thing. catholics were the main or at least first ones who took the whole jesus thing and used it as a way to control masses.

 

 

I've heard that some Christians don't believe in Hell at all, and moreover think that everyone goes to Heaven.

[joshuatxuk]

This seems oddly relevant to the thread btw:

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/12/noam-chomsky-u-s-used-to-have-people-killed-for-practicing-what-pope-francis-preaches/

 

I don't have time to mess with this thread though. I will say this: all religions have so many strains of thought, ideology, and interpretation. The Sunni and Shite division is quite arbitrary to any outsider who looks into it. Hinduism and Buddhism are extremely diverse and interesting to compare to Abrahamic religions. Christianity, and Protestantism subdivisions in particular, are often full of very intricate exercises in logic reasoning by very intelligent people (I'm talking academic theologians not snake oil evangelicals)...but amazingly they always stay within the confines of religious belief. This is also very much the case with Judaism too: rabbinical traditions are extremely discussion oriented. Medieval Torahs would actually have commentaries and often responses to commentaries literally taking form like forum postings or internet comment boards...it's known as midrash. Fascinating stuff. That probably baffles most irreligious types.

 

Anyway, that's why I'm avoiding this. Too diverse a topic that I'm bound to get lost in. Happy discussing guys.

[MisterE]

@limpy -yeah it seems like its a rising fringe element, where some modern christians are starting to question the english translations more and more.

 

i guess that link (in my last post) is a blog for 'christadelphians' which is some other flavor of jesus love. obviously since most english translations put the word hell in the bible multiple times, and have slants where some passages seem to indicate a notion of hell, most big mainstream denominations believe in a hell concept. but my point is that there are some more modern interpretations that try to look a the original greek and consider those translations and if something was lost or added by them. i actually knew a guy, who maybe was one of these christadelphians. one time at work i heard him talking about one of the other christian people at work, and how that guy (who was a preacher at his church) actually had it wrong when he talked about hell. that really the bible never says that there is a such place, NOR does it say that there is a heaven where all decent people go. he said that it only ever says that decent people would inherit the earth, and only a VERY few select, super awesome people across all history would go to heaven. all evil people would just die and cease to exist. i never heard anything like that so it kind of interested my curiosity so i looked it up and saw that there were in fact lots of claims made that the translations to english kind of added the hell/devil/heaven stuff in. i never knew anyone was saying that.

 

personally i don't know or care or have a personal stance. i just find that kind of stuff interesting sometimes. at the very least it calls some ideas about what makes a 'good christian' into question. maybe the original texts really didn't intend to create this culture of preachers who scare the shit out of everyone with fire and brimstone sermons. if i had a million lives to live i'd maybe care enough to spend part of one of them, learning about histories of religions and stuff, because i think it's interesting stuff. i think you'd have to try to get as close to the original texts as possible though, and i think it'd be almost impossible to fully know what those things mean now, just because of how much time has passed, and figures of speech and stuff would just be lost to history. you could never know for sure what some passages meant, if they even had any meaning beyond a literal description of some mundane events, even if some sect that forms down the road interprets it as a metaphor for some grandiose thing.

 

i mean, i have a hard time understanding sherlock holmes stories (the originals), even though they are written in 'english', and i speak/read 'english'. but they were only written 100+yrs ago. lots of the things that are mentioned i just have no idea what they are (where annotated books come in handy). the greek bible was written however many hundreds of years ago, AND however many years after the events supposedly happened. imo it'd take a lifetime of studying mountains of texts to accumulate knowledge to maybe really understand a fraction of the bible, authoritatively. that opinion would obviously offend lots of christians so i'll repeat that it's just my opinion.

[joshuatxuk]

 

I've heard that some Christians don't believe in Hell at all, and moreover think that everyone goes to Heaven.

 

 

That is true broadly speaking. Hell has never been clearly defined in any Christian-Judaic text. And purgatory? I had never even heard of it (I was raised Methodist) until I randomly attended a Catholic school for a year in middle school. That experience was pretty eye-opening. I and the only other non-Catholic in my class scoffed at Transubstantiation too. We were all like:

 

 

Mainline protestant churches have far less extreme or detailed notions of the endtimes. That's always been a fire-and-brimstone tennant of various sects that has now firmly established itself in most evangelical and non-denominational churches. There are plenty of interpretations.

[SR4]

lol what bullshit copouts (no offense gman)...."its all part of the plan".

 

Well, I can safely say that his Old Testament condoning of slavery paints him badly in my mind. Upholding slavery first in order to reject it later with Jesus is part of the revelatory plan?

[SR4]

Also, Matthew, Chapter 5

 

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

[LimpyLoo]

 

Note that the bible never says that people are saved by following the law. Not even in the Old Testament. It says they are saved by faith, a trust relationship with God (note: this is NOT believing with no evidence; that is blind faith).

 

 

Then by that logic I am exempt and God will not fault me for seeing no evidence of his existence.

[LimpyLoo]

Also can you please define "faith" for me?

[luke viia]

Also, Matthew, Chapter 5

 

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

Jesus means "these commands" in the sense of the ones he reiterates and redefines before this quote IIRC. It's in the quoteblock I posted above.

 

Righteousness != piety. Based on my understanding, righteousness ("tzedek") literally means "integrity" or "justness" in Hebrew. Matthew 5:20 means (IMO) that the Pharisees and 'teachers of the [Hebrew] law' were not righteous or just, basically.

 

I always wonder in talks like this... are you (atheists) asking these questions to gain understanding, or to "disprove" religious belief? Not that it matters really, the answers are the same, but the motives are interesting.

 

still dunno why I'm defending Jesus lol, guess I like the guy. Still not Christian, but I would like to give out some side hugs at this point.

[luke viia]

This seems oddly relevant to the thread btw:

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/12/noam-chomsky-u-s-used-to-have-people-killed-for-practicing-what-pope-francis-preaches/

 

I don't have time to mess with this thread though. I will say this: all religions have so many strains of thought, ideology, and interpretation. The Sunni and Shite division is quite arbitrary to any outsider who looks into it. Hinduism and Buddhism are extremely diverse and interesting to compare to Abrahamic religions. Christianity, and Protestantism subdivisions in particular, are often full of very intricate exercises in logic reasoning by very intelligent people (I'm talking academic theologians not snake oil evangelicals)...but amazingly they always stay within the confines of religious belief. This is also very much the case with Judaism too: rabbinical traditions are extremely discussion oriented. Medieval Torahs would actually have commentaries and often responses to commentaries literally taking form like forum postings or internet comment boards...it's known as midrash. Fascinating stuff. That probably baffles most irreligious types.

 

Anyway, that's why I'm avoiding this. Too diverse a topic that I'm bound to get lost in. Happy discussing guys.

 

Cool post, I had no idea about midrash. Thanks dude.

 

Limpy - I think you should be exempt too, I dunno... what's stopping us from accepting that interpretation? I guess the reason I tend to enjoy religious thought is that I don't accept it on authority (heresy!) unless I hear truth in the words internally (same as any philosophy, really), but I can see why it would be a fucking nuisance to study if you had to take other people's interpretations of it as "facts." I went through a terrible reactionary anti-religion phase from about age 13-20 because of crap like that, and it was only by rethinking what a "myth" means (thanks Joseph Campbell, I owe you one) that I was able to find value in the belief systems again, in my own way.

[LimpyLoo]

My only issue is that if God expects me to believe that he exists without giving me sufficient evidence that he exists--the level of evidence that I would require to believe anything else--then he has set me up for failure.

 

And furthermore, he is rewarding bad science. It's kinda like if the way to gain entry into heaven was to believe that unicorns exist, despite the fact that there is no reason to believe that unicorns exist.

 

And the idea of faith: we don't see faith being treated as a virtue anywhere outside of religion. There is no place for faith in rational thought. Either we have good reason to believe something, or we don't. If I said that I have faith my skull is full of Twizzlers instead of a normal human brain, nobody would think I was wise or virtuous. Any reasonable, rational person would say "MRI or GTFO." And furthermore, nobody would--nor should--"respect" my belief (another nonsensical concept that you'll only really find in the context of religious belief).

[SR4]

 

Also, Matthew, Chapter 5

 

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

Jesus means "these commands" in the sense of the ones he reiterates and redefines before this quote IIRC. It's in the quoteblock I posted above.

 

Righteousness != piety. Based on my understanding, righteousness ("tzedek") literally means "integrity" or "justness" in Hebrew. Matthew 5:20 means (IMO) that the Pharisees and 'teachers of the [Hebrew] law' were not righteous or just, basically.

 

I always wonder in talks like this... are you (atheists) asking these questions to gain understanding, or to "disprove" religious belief? Not that it matters really, the answers are the same, but the motives are interesting.

 

still dunno why I'm defending Jesus lol, guess I like the guy. Still not Christian, but I would like to give out some side hugs at this point.

 

 

Sure, thats a decent question. I'm asking these questions because I see a system of thought in which people do mental backflips to justify one contradictory part of a book written by multiple people over thousands of years against another, in this case the Old and New Testaments. My whole point is that for a book that was given to man by an omnipotent creator who is perfect in all ways, its seriously bereft of any consistent narrative. For every quote you can bring up to support your points, another contradicts it. Then we get to the point of semantics where you read the same passage completely different from me (in this case Matthew 5). I can respect that you are intellectually honest enough to state that it is your opinion, and not fact. Which brings me to the original problem, that a book portraying the wishes of the divine which demands loyalty with threat of eternal punishment, is schizophrenic in a narrative sense.

 

The whole reason I jumped into this thing (and it was my mistake doing so) was the conundrum with defining a "good Christian", and that the Bible can be used to justify and/or condemn a variety of good/bad acts. If everyday Christians choose to pick what works for them, and its respectful of the law, I figure I can't argue with that, that's their right. But I can't in my right mind uphold a man who represents an institution guilty of horrible crimes, when the same institution preaches and is predicated upon universal love and the need for penance. I don't want to get into a whole atheist definition argument so Ill just stop here.

 

 

I think the Biblical God is absolutely horrible=Im not that much of a fan of Jesus=The institution claiming to represent God/Jesus harbored child abusers=Im not that much of a fan of their leader.

[luke viia]

My only issue is that if God expects me to believe that he exists without giving me sufficient evidence that he exists--the level of evidence that I would require to believe anything else--then he has set me up for failure.

 

And furthermore, he is rewarding bad science. It's kinda like if the way to gain entry into heaven was to believe that unicorns exist, despite the fact that there is no reason to believe that unicorns exist.

 

And the idea of faith: we don't see faith being treated as a virtue anywhere outside of religion. There is no place for faith in rational thought. Either we have good reason to believe something, or we don't. If I said that I have faith my skull is full of Twizzlers instead of a normal human brain, nobody would think I was wise or virtuous. Any reasonable, rational person would say "MRI or GTFO." And furthermore, nobody would--nor should--"respect" my belief (another nonsensical concept that you'll only really find in the context of religious belief).

 

lol @ god rewarding bad science. God has nothing to do with empirical evidence, and science has nothing to do with metaphysical belief systems. Let's not mix up the boundaries of our various schools of thought here. BTW industry, government, business and higher education all reward bad science frequently, though some of these institutions claim to be immune to it despite the evidence... just sayin'

 

There is, of course, place for the idea of faith in rational thought (which is itself not a dogma or system, but an act). I would argue you are being irrational in your claim otherwise, actually. How can it be rational to suggest that everything we know in a secular society is based on fact or evidence? That's the definition of rational thought, yeah? "Thought based in fact or evidence, which can be logically reasoned through." Well, what about your emotions? You feel them right now, I'm sure - frustration with my endless pestering and semantic arguments, maybe? :P You keep making comparisons of faith with things that are demonstrably untrue, but that is not what people tend to put "faith" into. Most Christians believe the world is round, that their brains have a fleshy neocortex, and that evolution is biologically happening. A large number of them don't believe this stuff, which is unfortunate, so I said 'most' for a reason here! (and fwiw, 25% of Americans - not religious Americans, just Americans - also believe in witches... 33% believe aliens are abducting humans from this planet. We are simply an ignorant culture IMO.)

 

 

 

[LimpyLoo]

If entry into heaven requires me to believe that God exists then we are officially in the realm of Science, and more specifically, the realm of Evidence.

[luke viia]

 

 

Also, Matthew, Chapter 5

 

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

Jesus means "these commands" in the sense of the ones he reiterates and redefines before this quote IIRC. It's in the quoteblock I posted above.

 

Righteousness != piety. Based on my understanding, righteousness ("tzedek") literally means "integrity" or "justness" in Hebrew. Matthew 5:20 means (IMO) that the Pharisees and 'teachers of the [Hebrew] law' were not righteous or just, basically.

 

I always wonder in talks like this... are you (atheists) asking these questions to gain understanding, or to "disprove" religious belief? Not that it matters really, the answers are the same, but the motives are interesting.

 

still dunno why I'm defending Jesus lol, guess I like the guy. Still not Christian, but I would like to give out some side hugs at this point.

 

 

Sure, thats a decent question. I'm asking these questions because I see a system of thought in which people do mental backflips to justify one contradictory part of a book written by multiple people over thousands of years against another, in this case the Old and New Testaments. My whole point is that for a book that was given to man by an omnipotent creator who is perfect in all ways, its seriously bereft of any consistent narrative. For every quote you can bring up to support your points, another contradicts it. Then we get to the point of semantics where you read the same passage completely different from me (in this case Matthew 5). I can respect that you are intellectually honest enough to state that it is your opinion, and not fact. Which brings me to the original problem, that a book portraying the wishes of the divine which demands loyalty with threat of eternal punishment, is schizophrenic in a narrative sense.

 

The whole reason I jumped into this thing (and it was my mistake doing so) was the conundrum with defining a "good Christian", and that the Bible can be used to justify and/or condemn a variety of good/bad acts. If everyday Christians choose to pick what works for them, and its respectful of the law, I figure I can't argue with that, that's their right. But I can't in my right mind uphold a man who represents an institution guilty of horrible crimes, when the same institution preaches and is predicated upon universal love and the need for penance. I don't want to get into a whole atheist definition argument so Ill just stop here.

 

 

I think the Biblical God is absolutely horrible=Im not that much of a fan of Jesus=The institution claiming to represent God/Jesus harbored child abusers=Im not that much of a fan of their leader.

 

 

Fair enough man, thanks for answering. =]

 

I completely agree that the text is schizophrenic in its narrative; that's why I'm not a literalist and rejected the historical truth of the Bible very early on as a kid, which got me into trouble with my parents, but they eventually understood, and continue to be respectful of my agnosticism to this day.

 

I think it's important that the book be left to interpretation though. Religion is dangerous, IMO because of its intrinsic power in answering metaphysical/spiritual concerns of human beings. Its untestable nature is what has caused it to last so long as a school of thought permeating many cultures (the dead can't say "that didn't happen!" essentially), and also what has caused it to be so dangerous to alternate forms of thought IMO, but I guess I don't expect humans to avoid coming up with answers to the questions religion attempts to tackle. I cannot sit here and honestly say 'humans should have waited until science arrived to make judgment calls about the nature of reality.' Seems really ... non-human to expect this species to avoid crafting meaningful stories out of thin air. That's what we've always done, I dunno. Not saying it's right.

If entry into heaven requires me to believe that God exists then we are officially in the realm of Science, and more specifically, the realm of Evidence.

 

If you believe heaven is a literal place, then yes, I agree. I do not believe that, nor do any other people who interpret religion metaphorically. Doing so does not cast us out of religion proper, btw, but merely out of literalist circles, a place I am quite glad to be banished from!

Limpy - additionally, if it cannot be tested with the scientific method, we are not in the realm of "Science" (apparently now a proper noun).

[LimpyLoo]

Limpy - additionally, if it cannot be tested with the scientific method, we are not in the realm of "Science" (apparently now a proper noun).

 

 

Luke, if we can't test something with the scientific method, then we also can't have evidence that it exists, and so we have no reason to believe it exists in the first place.

[luke viia]

Agreed, we have no empirical reason to believe it exists. Empirical evidence is clearly not the only reason people believe things though, and just a moment ago you claimed that God is in the realm of Science, which is all I argued against. God and science have nothing to say about each other, just as science and The -Verse Beyond The EM Radiation have nothing to say to each other, because the former cannot empirically test the latter, at least for now.

[LimpyLoo]

Agreed, we have no empirical reason to believe it exists. Empirical evidence is clearly not the only reason people believe things though, and just a moment ago you claimed that God is in the realm of Science, which is all I argued against. God and science have nothing to say about each other, just as science and The -Verse Beyond The EM Radiation have nothing to say to each other, because the former cannot empirically test the latter, at least for now.

 

I claimed that IF God requires us to believe that he exists in order for us to go to heaven, that is a scientific matter, yes.