Religion

[paulsimpson]

@Markir


You didn't read fully where the New Testament condemns slavery. Christ in His golden rule condemns slavery. That is what is sad that you can't take Christ as God who is the standard of morality. You overlook His sinless life and condemn Him as if you were above His standards.
It is sad you judge God and would appear to be for murder in the womb as you haven't condemned it. That is hypocrisy.
I have not excused slavery rather shown it was culturally specific and more regulated than any other culture in pre Christian times.
CHRIST is God who does not condone slavery as mentioned in 1 Timothy1:8-10 see below.
It is utterly abhorrent since Christ Jesus , Jeshua Ha Mashiach is the fulfilment of the Old Law and condemns it in His golden rule " do to others what you would have them do to you" which Ive stated in the last post that you couldn't bare to read because you'd possibly be confronted by Christ who as I say is God in the flesh who renews the Old Testament. But you overlook that seemingly in your own agenda.
He says so many times" you have heard it said ( meaning Old Testament Law ) but I say to you " ( meaning New Covenant law sealed with His own blood sacrifice ). Christ supersedes the Old Law , renews it, yet uses it to show how we all miss the mark. Today , specific aspects of moral law are not just for the Jews of the Old Testament . They are to be seen in the light of the perfect law of Christ which is to be put universally into our hearts.
As I've said, both the Old and New Testaments condemn the practice of “man-stealing,” which is what happened in Africa in the 16th to 19th centuries. Africans were rounded up by slave-hunters, who sold them to slave-traders, who brought them to the New World to work on plantations and farms. This practice is abhorrent to God. In fact, the penalty for such a crime in the Mosaic Law was death: “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death” (Exodus 21:16). But Christ has even renewed that law since we must not even use unrighteous anger against anyone.

Similarly, in the New Testament, slave-traders or ENSLAVERS are listed among those who are “ungodly and sinful” and are in the same category as those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, adulterers and perverts, and liars and perjurers (1 Timothy 1:8– 10). So the template is Jesus Himself. We must take what He says to heart and not recede back into some of the cultural specific aspects of Torah. Why? Because the letter of the law can kill , in legalism and some of those laws go against Christ. Divorce, according to Jesus, was allowed because of the hardness of heart of the people at the time but it wasn't like that in the beginning of time. He wants us to turn to Him to get the solution to life's issues. His yoke is easy and His BURDEN IS LIGHT .

Slavery, sadly, has been a fact of human existence for almost as long as the human race has been in existence. Physical punishment to enforce compliance has been part of slavery for just as long. Corporal punishment has also been used in situations other than slavery. For example, physical chastisements were commonly employed as punishment for crimes committed and for the enforcing of discipline in the army.We are not so far removed from the time when brutal physical punishment was administered and accepted by almost everyone as legitimate even in schools. In the British Navy, flogging for disobedience or insubordination was common until the mid-19th century, and caning was used until the mid-20th century. In some places, such as Singapore, caning is still an official form of punishment for certain crimes.

Clearly JESUS IS AGAINST any of these practices see Matthew chapters 5 -7 where we find His standard - " do to others what you would have them do to you ".. " turn the other cheek" in love for enemies. If you've been wronged let the judge enforce it, we are to forgive. So throughout the whole New Testament we see Him as the Perfect Standard , the fulfilment of the whole law. If you dare to read it you will see the newness of what Christ gives.
Have you broken any of the 10 commandments? You seem to be more worried about shellfish in a nit picking mentality. Have you ever looked at a woman or a man with lust in your heart ? Jesus says if you do that then you've committed adultery in your heart with her/him.
But more importantly , overall you don't look at Jesus' view of sin which infects all of us. You seem to think you're above it as if you never committed any wrong in your life while condemning God. Christ says even if you're angry with another person you are guilty of murder . Can you in your condemnation of slavery also see that you've broken God's law yourself?

 

[SWP's back]

Please speak to a doctor.

Only someone not in touch with reality would come out with something so sick.

This isn't Christian kindness or educated and informed theology only mental issues wrapped up as overbearing proselytising and judgement.

Abortions would happen anyway, only they would happen in backstreet clinics by unlicensed and unqualified staff and women (most often young women) would bleed to death or be permanently scarred.

why do you think someone should have no choice about bearing the child of rape and incest?

He’s a nasty piece of wrong un.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

On the other hand, maybe they were the kind folk that questioned what they had been taught and sought to explore the frontiers of understanding - and as they came to be free of the grip of egoic conditioning, then they came to discover ideas that were more in alignment with this.

One would imagine that with the rise of the New Atheism and the popularity of publications by the 'Four Horsemen' (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Dan Dennett), that rationality is displacing religion as the basis for modern life.

But this isn't what seems to happening. Secularization is occurring in pockets around the world but religion is still alive, well and flourishing.

Like Steve Bruce (a well known advocate of the secularization hypothesis), the American sociologist Peter Berger initially argued that the growing pluralism of modern societies – a result of urbanization and migration – undermines religious belief because it calls into question the monopoly over religious truth that religious institutions used to enjoy. The term ‘pluralism’ refers to the presence of many different faiths in a given society. For Berger, pluralism leads to competition between faiths which ultimately damages them all simply because they cannot all be true. As a consequence, religious belief itself is undermined.

However, he has since changed his mind about all this. In 1999 he wrote:

‘…the assumption that we live in a secularized world is false. The world today….is as furiously religious as ever … ‘secularization theory’ is essentially mistaken.’

The philosopher Jules Evans has since possibly tapped into one of the reasons for this. In his most recent book, he questions whether the brand of rationality supported by the New Atheists has become over-emphasised in Western culture in recent times, and fails to satisfy a basic human need for self-transcendence.

In support of his argument, Evans actually quotes Hitchens, who shortly before he died surprisingly admitted, ‘I’m a materialist…yet there is something beyond the material or not entirely consistent with it, what you would call the Numinous, the Transcendent, or at best the Ecstatic…It’s in certain music, landscape, certain creative work; without this we really would merely be primates.’

Hitchens' mention of music makes me think of Nick Cave. His last but one album received rapturous reviews from the music critics. And yet it is an overtly 'spiritual' record. The song 'Ghosteen Speaks' is pretty much riffing on mystical, pantheistic Johannine theology, while 'Hollywood' explicitly refers to the famous story of Kisa Gotami from the Buddhist Pali Canon.

Perhaps the persistence of religion and the popularity of musicians like Cave might therefore be explained by our desire for ego-loss, for experiences where people feel deeply connected to something greater than themselves: nature, humanity, the cosmos, humanity, God.

Having said this, perhaps those who embrace this kind of spirituality are doing so because they are unable to face up to the fact that we are products of blind evolution and that our lives are pretty insignificant in this respect. All we are is grist for the mill when it comes to this process.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

Just while we are on the subject of atheism and Dawkins, this is pretty good:

 

[urban genie]

@Markir


You didn't read fully where the New Testament condemns slavery. Christ in His golden rule condemns slavery. That is what is sad that you can't take Christ as God who is the standard of morality. You overlook His sinless life and condemn Him as if you were above His standards.
It is sad you judge God and would appear to be for murder in the womb as you haven't condemned it. That is hypocrisy.
I have not excused slavery rather shown it was culturally specific and more regulated than any other culture in pre Christian times.
CHRIST is God who does not condone slavery as mentioned in 1 Timothy1:8-10 see below.
It is utterly abhorrent since Christ Jesus , Jeshua Ha Mashiach is the fulfilment of the Old Law and condemns it in His golden rule " do to others what you would have them do to you" which Ive stated in the last post that you couldn't bare to read because you'd possibly be confronted by Christ who as I say is God in the flesh who renews the Old Testament. But you overlook that seemingly in your own agenda.
He says so many times" you have heard it said ( meaning Old Testament Law ) but I say to you " ( meaning New Covenant law sealed with His own blood sacrifice ). Christ supersedes the Old Law , renews it, yet uses it to show how we all miss the mark. Today , specific aspects of moral law are not just for the Jews of the Old Testament . They are to be seen in the light of the perfect law of Christ which is to be put universally into our hearts.
As I've said, both the Old and New Testaments condemn the practice of “man-stealing,” which is what happened in Africa in the 16th to 19th centuries. Africans were rounded up by slave-hunters, who sold them to slave-traders, who brought them to the New World to work on plantations and farms. This practice is abhorrent to God. In fact, the penalty for such a crime in the Mosaic Law was death: “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death” (Exodus 21:16). But Christ has even renewed that law since we must not even use unrighteous anger against anyone.

Similarly, in the New Testament, slave-traders or ENSLAVERS are listed among those who are “ungodly and sinful” and are in the same category as those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, adulterers and perverts, and liars and perjurers (1 Timothy 1:8– 10). So the template is Jesus Himself. We must take what He says to heart and not recede back into some of the cultural specific aspects of Torah. Why? Because the letter of the law can kill , in legalism and some of those laws go against Christ. Divorce, according to Jesus, was allowed because of the hardness of heart of the people at the time but it wasn't like that in the beginning of time. He wants us to turn to Him to get the solution to life's issues. His yoke is easy and His BURDEN IS LIGHT .

Slavery, sadly, has been a fact of human existence for almost as long as the human race has been in existence. Physical punishment to enforce compliance has been part of slavery for just as long. Corporal punishment has also been used in situations other than slavery. For example, physical chastisements were commonly employed as punishment for crimes committed and for the enforcing of discipline in the army.We are not so far removed from the time when brutal physical punishment was administered and accepted by almost everyone as legitimate even in schools. In the British Navy, flogging for disobedience or insubordination was common until the mid-19th century, and caning was used until the mid-20th century. In some places, such as Singapore, caning is still an official form of punishment for certain crimes.

Clearly JESUS IS AGAINST any of these practices see Matthew chapters 5 -7 where we find His standard - " do to others what you would have them do to you ".. " turn the other cheek" in love for enemies. If you've been wronged let the judge enforce it, we are to forgive. So throughout the whole New Testament we see Him as the Perfect Standard , the fulfilment of the whole law. If you dare to read it you will see the newness of what Christ gives.
Have you broken any of the 10 commandments? You seem to be more worried about shellfish in a nit picking mentality. Have you ever looked at a woman or a man with lust in your heart ? Jesus says if you do that then you've committed adultery in your heart with her/him.
But more importantly , overall you don't look at Jesus' view of sin which infects all of us. You seem to think you're above it as if you never committed any wrong in your life while condemning God. Christ says even if you're angry with another person you are guilty of murder . Can you in your condemnation of slavery also see that you've broken God's law yourself?

Erm but Jesus isn't god though, he is the christ which means the messiah sent from god to save, nowhere is he refered to as a god only a divine being from god much the same as archangels are. In matthew son of god is the hebrew term used for many people at the time including Adam.

Only later is the hebrew term 'son of god' used, which was also bestowed upon kings at the time.
Later it changed to gods son and altered to imply jesus was the actual son of Yahweh.

The creation of Trinitarianism by early catholics to promote jesus to the same status as God and valodate their religion as new and not just a seperatect sect of judaism.

To be honest they got lucky the romans joined their cult otherwise it wouldn't have spread/been forced upon European pagan/celtic states , North Africa and the Middle East.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

The creation of Trinitarianism by early catholics to promote jesus to the same status as God and valodate their religion as new and not just a seperatect sect of judaism.

In his book Misquoting Muhammad, the hadith scholar and academic Jonathan AC Brown writes as follows:

'The textual accuracy of the Bible knew no greater advocate in the sixteenth century than Desiderius Erasmus, forgery no greater foe. As he worked to produce an edition of the New Testament based not on the Church's derivative Latin translation but on the earliest available manuscripts of the book's original Greek, Erasmus made a stunning discovery. The only verse that explicitly references the doctrine of the Trinity (1 John 5:7) was not an authentic part of the biblical text.'

Just thought it was worth a mention.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Christ condemns all slavery in His golden rule. Christ is God. He is the standard. He is also against being angry with anyone as it is seen as murder , in the heart. Have you ever been angry with anyone?
No child in the womb deserves to die for sins of a rapist. He is the one who should be punished. Its a life for a life situation and to kill that life is murder which you support openly and give reason via the old backstreet lie. No child deserves to be pulled limb from limb in the womb. Yet you support that with your incest question. These are horrid situations but Christ has the answer to them all. "Do to others what you would have them do to you" Would you want to be torn apart by the steel instruments of the abortionist? Is that kind?
You quote Christian kindness . Are you a Christian? If you are then help to rid the world of this type of murder.
If you're not then see the true Physician who waits for you to come to Him and has already provided a loving way back for all , including those who have had the trauma and hurt of abortion.

I refer you back to my previous point.

You're can't be well to believe all this.

It’s okay that you may experience mental illness and want to kill yourself whilst carrying this child and resent raising them because they are a permanent reminder of your trauma but please think..... What Would Jesus Do?

 

[Stoned Rose]

Just had one of these “Sunday morning” type BBC things on in the background.

They had some woman priest on going on about what message “the angels” would give us after a rough 2021.

Apparently God is always with us. So everything will be sweet.

The mind really does boggle.

 

[arfurclue]

One would imagine that with the rise of the New Atheism and the popularity of publications by the 'Four Horsemen' (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Dan Dennett), that rationality is displacing religion as the basis for modern life.

But this isn't what seems to happening. Secularization is occurring in pockets around the world but religion is still alive, well and flourishing.

Like Steve Bruce (a well known advocate of the secularization hypothesis), the American sociologist Peter Berger initially argued that the growing pluralism of modern societies – a result of urbanization and migration – undermines religious belief because it calls into question the monopoly over religious truth that religious institutions used to enjoy. The term ‘pluralism’ refers to the presence of many different faiths in a given society. For Berger, pluralism leads to competition between faiths which ultimately damages them all simply because they cannot all be true. As a consequence, religious belief itself is undermined.

However, he has since changed his mind about all this. In 1999 he wrote:

‘…the assumption that we live in a secularized world is false. The world today….is as furiously religious as ever … ‘secularization theory’ is essentially mistaken.’

The philosopher Jules Evans has since possibly tapped into one of the reasons for this. In his most recent book, he questions whether the brand of rationality supported by the New Atheists has become over-emphasised in Western culture in recent times, and fails to satisfy a basic human need for self-transcendence.

In support of his argument, Evans actually quotes Hitchens, who shortly before he died surprisingly admitted, ‘I’m a materialist…yet there is something beyond the material or not entirely consistent with it, what you would call the Numinous, the Transcendent, or at best the Ecstatic…It’s in certain music, landscape, certain creative work; without this we really would merely be primates.’

Hitchens' mention of music makes me think of Nick Cave. His last but one album received rapturous reviews from the music critics. And yet it is an overtly 'spiritual' record. The song 'Ghosteen Speaks' is pretty much riffing on mystical, pantheistic Johannine theology, while 'Hollywood' explicitly refers to the famous story of Kisa Gotami from the Buddhist Pali Canon.

Perhaps the persistence of religion and the popularity of musicians like Cave might therefore be explained by our desire for ego-loss, for experiences where people feel deeply connected to something greater than themselves: nature, humanity, the cosmos, humanity, God.

Having said this, perhaps those who embrace this kind of spirituality are doing so because they are unable to face up to the fact that we are products of blind evolution and that our lives are pretty insignificant in this respect. All we are is grist for the mill when it comes to this process.

Interesting read, thanks.

This quote is pretty amazing :

“In support of his argument, Evans actually quotes Hitchens, who shortly before he died surprisingly admitted, ‘I’m a materialist…yet there is something beyond the material or not entirely consistent with it, what you would call the Numinous, the Transcendent, or at best the Ecstatic…It’s in certain music, landscape, certain creative work; without this we really would merely be primates.’”

What if what he was speaking of was an experience of the essence of the energy that makes up material forms, that is beyond words and mental conceptions about how life works? And so what he may have been arguing for, without realizing it, is a change from concepts being the most important thing, to experience being the most important. In which case I might agree. So then there is the idea that as there is an opening to the essence that unites all energy, then thought can become more rational (rather than just logical).
How to know this essence? Well some religions and spirituality speak of it and have practices in this way but then maybe the point is that anything can become a way of exploring the relationship of the essence of energy and its’ forms. Creativity. Through art, sport, music, cooking, an embrace with a lover, a walk in the park, reading a religious text, making a cup of tea, writing a poem, being present with the breath, listening to a chorus of bird song, dancing etc etc
Maybe then humanity will come to deeper know the beauty and magnificence of Life and the idea of arguing about whether religion, spirituality, agnosticism or atheism is ‘better’ will become of less relevance and importance.

 

[Blue Mist]

Erm but Jesus isn't god though, he is the christ which means the messiah sent from god to save, nowhere is he refered to as a god only a divine being from god much the same as archangels are. In matthew son of god is the hebrew term used for many people at the time including Adam.

Only later is the hebrew term 'son of god' used, which was also bestowed upon kings at the time.
Later it changed to gods son and altered to imply jesus was the actual son of Yahweh.

The creation of Trinitarianism by early catholics to promote jesus to the same status as God and valodate their religion as new and not just a seperatect sect of judaism.

To be honest they got lucky the romans joined their cult otherwise it wouldn't have spread/been forced upon European pagan/celtic states , North Africa and the Middle East.

Help me out here @urban genie.
Just over 2021 years ago everyone in Jerusalem was either Roman or Jewish. The Jews believed in God.
God decided, for what ever reason, to send his son down to earth. Mary gave birth to Jesus so we have to assume Mary and Joseph were Jews and therefore Jesus and his real dad were as well. Jesus started preaching to the Jews but they/most rejected him. Those that believed in him carried on preaching even after Easter 33ad. I assume they were preaching Judaism as Christianity had been invented. So when did it change to the Pope's mob ?