Can We Have a Bible Thread? (Catch-All?)

If people in the Church didn't disagree on interpretations, there would have been no Reformation. And the Reformation likewise did not end factionalism within the Church Universal.

Let's be honest, the breadth of Christianity's, or any religion's, or philosophy's, meaning extends no further than the head of the individual claiming to hold that belief.

NSMike wrote:

Let's be honest, the breadth of Christianity's, or any religion's, or philosophy's, meaning extends no further than the head of the individual claiming to hold that belief.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Nomad wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Let's be honest, the breadth of Christianity's, or any religion's, or philosophy's, meaning extends no further than the head of the individual claiming to hold that belief.

Whatever helps you sleep at night. :)

I knew a Christian man who could attend no church because no single church anywhere would follow his long, detailed list of requirements for being a "true Christian." The man was the physical manifestation of No True Scotsman. My own Catholic parents, who are pretty old-school Catholic, hold personal beliefs that don't jive with current church teachings. Or never did. Beliefs about their religion, that is.

Sure, there are some ideas simple enough to be universally understood. But to put a collection of beliefs, as many who call themselves Christian do, under a single banner, you're almost always going to find people who don't have the same beliefs about at least one topic that falls under that banner, even if they're walking into the same building every Sunday (or Saturday, if you happen to be a 7th day Adventist) where they supposedly get their validation.

edit: argh, I don't want to be in this thread. Sorry!

Ninja Angels.

NSMike wrote:

Let's be honest, the breadth of Christianity's, or any religion's, or philosophy's, meaning extends no further than the head of the individual claiming to hold that belief.

Not true. Of course with Christianity, the "head" you refer to is Jesus Christ. But Christianity in it's true form is not a religion at all. Instead, it is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Any other religion is mostly a list of do's and don'ts, but with Jesus it is all about having that relationship where He promises eternal life.

I know I just jumped in here and I usually purposefully stay away from P&C, but I was kinda bored so I thought I would just take a gander and see. Saw this thread and wanted to make a quick post. Apologies if this is part of a larger thought process and I missed it. Didn't want to read the past 6 trillion posts.

fangblackbone wrote:

Sorry Certis. Maybe the question should be:do the ten commandments sound like they come from an omnipotent being, relating to the eternal heavenly journey? Or do they seem too grounded in earthly do's and don'ts? Do they backhandedly legitimize the existence of other gods?

Or maybe I should just scrap this thread because it is already stillborn.

Went back to the beginning and saw this. This is really an excellent question and I'll again apologize if someone answered it better further down.

The beauty of the 10 Commandments is they really aren't meant to be "obeyed" at all. I'll try to make sense here. You see, Jesus came not to abolish the law like some tend to believe but to fulfill the law. You see, God's standards are so high, that He says if you have even looked at your neighbor's wife with lust, you are guilty of adultery. If you have even carelessly thought for just a second of taking something, you are guilty of stealing. If you try and get to Heaven without Jesus, the standard is perfection. You see, the 10 Commandments weren't meant to be obeyed so much as to show people how sinful they were. Jesus has lead the only sinless life. Without Jesus there is no hope. We are all guilty. But with Jesus, we have been declared innocent (righteous actually!).

God gave each of us a free will. We can choose to reject Him or accept Him.

If there are more questions, I'll do my best to answer or find the answer. If not, I won't post more as I certainly don't want to take the thread over.

Coolbeans wrote:

Not true. Of course with Christianity, the "head" you refer to is Jesus Christ.

Well, no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant the specific believer.

Coolbeans wrote:

But Christianity in its true form is not a religion at all.

Which form is the "true" form?

Coolbeans wrote:

Instead, it is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Any other religion is mostly a list of do's and don'ts, but with Jesus it is all about having that relationship where He promises eternal life.

You can take on Christianity in whatever form you please, but there are plenty of "do's and don'ts" that came straight from Jesus's preaching, and the majority of what can be commonly identified as Christian philosophy (barring the massive sectarian splits) comes from the Pauline Epistles, which are basically a collection of "do's and don'ts."

Coolbeans wrote:

God gave each of us a free will.

How much freedom does a "free will" that was forced upon us truly give us?

NSMike wrote:
Coolbeans wrote:

Not true. Of course with Christianity, the "head" you refer to is Jesus Christ.

Well, no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant the specific believer.

Coolbeans wrote:

But Christianity in its true form is not a religion at all.

Which form is the "true" form?

Coolbeans wrote:

Instead, it is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Any other religion is mostly a list of do's and don'ts, but with Jesus it is all about having that relationship where He promises eternal life.

You can take on Christianity in whatever form you please, but there are plenty of "do's and don'ts" that game straight from Jesus's preaching, and the majority of what can be commonly identified as Christian philosophy (barring the massive sectarian splits) comes from the Pauline Epistles, which are basically a collection of "do's and don'ts."

I'll take them one at a time. I guess the closest we would have to a "specific believer" would be the Pope, but not being Catholic I would have a hard time with that. Jesus is the head of the Church. In fact, the Bible calls the church "the body of Christ." So really there isn't a "head Christian" in the sense I think you mean.

Christianity's true form is having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. You see there is a gulf separating us from God and that gulf is sin. We can't cross that gulf on our own or even collectively. But religion is just that, man trying to bridge the gap between us and God. The problem is we always fall short because perfection is the standard. Instead, Jesus bridged the gap for us. With His death, he forever paid the price for our sin and we are declared innocent.

Certainly there are "do's and don'ts" listed in the Bible. But the difference is unlike every other religion (for lack of a better word), those do's and don'ts are for our edification, not to earn our place in Heaven. They are there like any parent would have a list for their children to obey. If your child disobeys, it has nothing to do with your love, but instead the list is there because you know what is best and see the dangers that children cannot see. It's the same with us. Even as adults, our knowledge and experience is limited to our own life. But God sees life from the end forward. As the author of life, He knows what is best more than we do.

I know I may be doing a poor job of explaining this, but I'm trying to be clear.

Coolbeans wrote:

God gave each of us a free will.

How much freedom does a "free will" that was forced upon us truly give us?[/quote]

I'm kinda hoping your kidding here. Freedom is the ability to choose whatever course of action you want. I don't think you can "force" free will on someone. You are more than welcome to view it that way of course, but I think it is in error.

There are two real ways God could have made us in this regard. Without free will which would have made us nothing short of robots, or with free will so we would have the freedom to choose. Nothing is "forced" on you. You simply have the freedom to choose to accept or reject Him. There are eternal consequences to both.

I'm actually off to bed, so I don't have time at the moment for a detailed response, but you're getting the whole "head" thing wrong at the most basic level. I mean the "head" of the believer. As in, your head. On your neck. The thing that contains your teeth, brains, skull, tongue, eyes, etc.

NSMike wrote:

I'm actually off to bed, so I don't have time at the moment for a detailed response, but you're getting the whole "head" thing wrong at the most basic level. I mean the "head" of the believer. As in, your head. On your neck. The thing that contains your teeth, brains, skull, tongue, eyes, etc.

LOL, okay I get it. I'll look at it tomorrow with that in mind.

Coolbeans wrote:

Not true. Of course with Christianity, the "head" you refer to is Jesus Christ. But Christianity in it's true form is not a religion at all. Instead, it is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Any other religion is mostly a list of do's and don'ts, but with Jesus it is all about having that relationship where He promises eternal life.

Of course Christianity is a religion even in its truest form. One of the main definitions of religion is the worship and service of a god or the supernatural. I understand the desire to sequester Christianity, but suggesting that it isn't a religion is a distortion at best.

But even if it wasn't a religion, Christianity hasn't been in its "truest form" in over 1700 years. The only people I know who practice Christianity in its "truest form" were/are the Mystics and perhaps some of the monastic communities of the Coptic Church.

Coolbeans wrote:

The beauty of the 10 Commandments is they really aren't meant to be "obeyed" at all. I'll try to make sense here. You see, Jesus came not to abolish the law like some tend to believe but to fulfill the law. You see, God's standards are so high, that He says if you have even looked at your neighbor's wife with lust, you are guilty of adultery. If you have even carelessly thought for just a second of taking something, you are guilty of stealing. If you try and get to Heaven without Jesus, the standard is perfection. You see, the 10 Commandments weren't meant to be obeyed so much as to show people how sinful they were. Jesus has lead the only sinless life. Without Jesus there is no hope. We are all guilty. But with Jesus, we have been declared innocent (righteous actually!).

This is a wonderful testament, but it doesn't address the reality of Christendom for most of its existence. The Church in all of its strips has worked to provide a litmus test of do's and don'ts since well before Arius was expelled from the Church for daring to challenge Trinitarianism (a major don't).

Suggesting otherwise, even in the context of Christian theology, is somewhat myopic.

Coolbeans wrote:

The beauty of the 10 Commandments is they really aren't meant to be "obeyed" at all. I'll try to make sense here. You see, Jesus came not to abolish the law like some tend to believe but to fulfill the law. You see, God's standards are so high, that He says if you have even looked at your neighbor's wife with lust, you are guilty of adultery. If you have even carelessly thought for just a second of taking something, you are guilty of stealing. If you try and get to Heaven without Jesus, the standard is perfection. You see, the 10 Commandments weren't meant to be obeyed so much as to show people how sinful they were. Jesus has lead the only sinless life. Without Jesus there is no hope. We are all guilty. But with Jesus, we have been declared innocent (righteous actually!).

God gave each of us a free will. We can choose to reject Him or accept Him.

If there are more questions, I'll do my best to answer or find the answer. If not, I won't post more as I certainly don't want to take the thread over.

Have you ever read the Bible? Just curious.

Anyway, let's start with your ten commandments bit. That interpretation makes no sense, and has absolutely zero biblical support. The point of the ten commandments (both sets) was to codify a set of rules for the Hebrews to follow (and not even very good rules, at that).

So let me get this straight: Yahweh, the end-all, be-all, king sh*t of everything forever creates the vastness of the universe. In a small corner of a nowhere galaxy he creates a planet to be home to humans - a race he created for the sole purpose of worshiping him. He then puts the progenitors of said race in Eden, an awesome garden paradise, to commence with the worshiping. In his infinite wisdom and forward-thinking, he plunks the forbidden tree of knowledge like right smack in the middle of it. He then tells Adam and Eve to not touch it, knowing full well (because he's god) that they will do so anyway (because they aren't god). To no one's surprise, the inevitable happens, and Yahweh gets pissed. He then punishes them both for setting them up to commit the "crime" he already knew they would commit, and furthermore sets about punishing EVERY OTHER HUMAN EVER by declaring them tainted with sin - the "sin" of another's mistake. And the only way to appease old Yahweh's anger? He impregnates a young woman against her will with himself, in order to have said "son" brutally tortured and murdered at the hands of the people he condemned in the first place.

Yahweh is the mafia: he creates a threat or problem where there wasn't one before, then demands tribute to protect you from said threat. If you decline, you are punished eternally in ways that defy human understanding. That's not free will, and it sure as HELL is not justice or morality of any kind. That is, as the late great Hithchens like to call it, a celestial dictatorship. You want to believe this nonsense? That's your prerogative. You want to defend this as just and right? You're a moral monster.

If christianity isn't a religion than every single church and religious organization in the US owes 236 years of back taxes.

He's actually right about the 10 commandments purpose to show the sin on mankind. It's why Jesus said He came to fulfill the law and not destroy it.

The "God as moral monster" bit is always a little confusing to me as an absolute moral standard needs to be established in order to logically hold this view. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral, but if that morality is relative then how can they condemn anyone else? Is the protection of the happiness and perceived well being of the humans populating the little speck that we call earth the center of this mortality? Why? What if the happiness and well being of two parties conflict?

Well nomad, for me it is the genocide, the child murder, and the crippling of people that kind of got to me of god as a monster. And that is all before he blows up the earth. If god really is the ultimate morality, then Dr. No should be the hero, not James Bond (Or Lex Luthor, not Superman).

Or people have another moral compass, that can differentiate between right and wrong.

Nomad wrote:

The "God as moral monster" bit is always a little confusing to me as an absolute moral standard needs to be established in order to logically hold this view. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral, but if that morality is relative then how can they condemn anyone else?

When atheists cite the "god as moral monster" argument, the standard of morality being used is typically the standard being presented by the bible itself. The point of the argument is to point out that god won't/can't/refuses to follow his own rules, and is therefore a pretty sh*tty authority figure.

EDIT: also, what KG said.

Nomad wrote:

He's actually right about the 10 commandments purpose to show the sin on mankind. It's why Jesus said He came to fulfill the law and not destroy it.

The "God as moral monster" bit is always a little confusing to me as an absolute moral standard needs to be established in order to logically hold this view. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral, but if that morality is relative then how can they condemn anyone else? Is the protection of the happiness and perceived well being of the humans populating the little speck that we call earth the center of this mortality? Why? What if the happiness and well being of two parties conflict?

If you're referring to Matthew 5:17, Jesus does indeed seem to be indicating that the old testament laws are binding and valid. The laws of the OT are among the most barbaric and cruel in all of ancient mythology, and the monstrous acts undertaken by Yahweh are almost always to inflict punishment on mankind for not following said rules. The idea that they're in place to "show us our sin" is gerrymandering the literature. This is what happens when you inappropriately and without cause presuppose a divine authorship of ancient mythology: you accept (and declare others to accept) without cause a set of parameters for interpreting the text so that the outcome can only be in your favor. Such is the entirety of apologetics, for example.

As for the moral issue, I'm not sold either way on whether or not objective morality is a thing. And I don't have to be. As a human being with a general concern for the well-being of others, I can evaluate the actions of the god of the Hebrew bible and declare them immoral. The egregiously disproportionate punishments for mankind's perceived slights against Yahweh are absolutely, wholly atrocious. For example, we as a society can widely agree that killing babies is never, ever, ever a potential solution to any problem or conflict. Ever. (Evidently, Yahweh has yet to figure this out.) We can come together as a society, talk about this, and agree that this is not in anyone's best interest and solves nothing. We don't need a One True Objective Morality to decide this: we can agree and on this and declare it so. There are some societies who commit such atrocities, yet we do not have to call it a wash simply because neither of us has an objective moral system. If we define morality as the pursuit of human well-being and flourishing (as I would argue we must), then we can clearly see how murdering babies, raping, killing, stealing, and other acts of destruction undermine that goal - and society at large. In contrast, Yahweh routinely and deliberately commits these acts. He is a moral monster. Period.

Nicholaas wrote:
Nomad wrote:

The "God as moral monster" bit is always a little confusing to me as an absolute moral standard needs to be established in order to logically hold this view. I'm not saying that atheists can't be moral, but if that morality is relative then how can they condemn anyone else? Is the protection of the happiness and perceived well being of the humans populating the little speck that we call earth the center of this mortality? Why? What if the happiness and well being of two parties conflict?

As for the moral issue, I'm not sold either way on whether or not objective morality is a thing. And I don't have to be. As a human being with a general concern for the well-being of others, I can evaluate the actions of the god of the Hebrew bible and declare them immoral. The egregiously disproportionate punishments for mankind's perceived slights against Yahweh are absolutely, wholly atrocious. For example, we as a society can widely agree that killing babies is never, ever, ever a potential solution to any problem or conflict. Ever. (Evidently, Yahweh has yet to figure this out.) We can come together as a society, talk about this, and agree that this is not in anyone's best interest and solves nothing. We don't need a One True Objective Morality to decide this: we can agree and on this and declare it so. There are some societies who commit such atrocities, yet we do not have to call it a wash simply because neither of us has an objective moral system. If we define morality as the pursuit of human well-being and flourishing (as I would argue we must), then we can clearly see how murdering babies, raping, killing, stealing, and other acts of destruction undermine that goal - and society at large. In contrast, Yahweh routinely and deliberately commits these acts. He is a moral monster. Period.

This comes up a lot, and it occurs to me that maybe a better way to think about objectivity vs. subjectivity here is to forget about morality being objective or subjective. Instead, let's ask if people believe there is One True Objective Good. It seems to me that someone who believes in a morality derived from God's commandments believes that whatever God's goal is with those Commandments, that goal is the One True Objective Good. Someone who believe in a morality derived from a general concern for the well-being of others believes that the goal of human well-being and flourishing is the One True Objective Good.

tl;dr edit: Instead of asking if the morality is objective, just consider morality the means to the end, and ask if belief in that end is objective.

I think South Park, as always has a good summation.

Coolbeans wrote:
NSMike wrote:
Coolbeans wrote:

Not true. Of course with Christianity, the "head" you refer to is Jesus Christ.

Well, no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant the specific believer.

Coolbeans wrote:

But Christianity in its true form is not a religion at all.

Which form is the "true" form?

Coolbeans wrote:

Instead, it is a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Any other religion is mostly a list of do's and don'ts, but with Jesus it is all about having that relationship where He promises eternal life.

You can take on Christianity in whatever form you please, but there are plenty of "do's and don'ts" that game straight from Jesus's preaching, and the majority of what can be commonly identified as Christian philosophy (barring the massive sectarian splits) comes from the Pauline Epistles, which are basically a collection of "do's and don'ts."

I'll take them one at a time. I guess the closest we would have to a "specific believer" would be the Pope, but not being Catholic I would have a hard time with that. Jesus is the head of the Church. In fact, the Bible calls the church "the body of Christ." So really there isn't a "head Christian" in the sense I think you mean.

Christianity's true form is having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. You see there is a gulf separating us from God and that gulf is sin. We can't cross that gulf on our own or even collectively. But religion is just that, man trying to bridge the gap between us and God. The problem is we always fall short because perfection is the standard. Instead, Jesus bridged the gap for us. With His death, he forever paid the price for our sin and we are declared innocent.

Certainly there are "do's and don'ts" listed in the Bible. But the difference is unlike every other religion (for lack of a better word), those do's and don'ts are for our edification, not to earn our place in Heaven. They are there like any parent would have a list for their children to obey. If your child disobeys, it has nothing to do with your love, but instead the list is there because you know what is best and see the dangers that children cannot see. It's the same with us. Even as adults, our knowledge and experience is limited to our own life. But God sees life from the end forward. As the author of life, He knows what is best more than we do.

I know I may be doing a poor job of explaining this, but I'm trying to be clear.

Alright, let's pass up what is essentially tract regurgitation here, I'm well familiar with the cross=bridge analogy.

Let's move on to the free will stuff, because that actually has more foundational impact on all of this anyway. Here's the important quote:

Coolbeans wrote:
NSMike wrote:
Coolbeans wrote:

God gave each of us a free will.

How much freedom does a "free will" that was forced upon us truly give us?

I'm kinda hoping your kidding here. Freedom is the ability to choose whatever course of action you want. I don't think you can "force" free will on someone. You are more than welcome to view it that way of course, but I think it is in error.

There are two real ways God could have made us in this regard. Without free will which would have made us nothing short of robots, or with free will so we would have the freedom to choose. Nothing is "forced" on you. You simply have the freedom to choose to accept or reject Him. There are eternal consequences to both.

Let's suspend the idea that I'm an atheist here, for a moment, so that we can more closely examine this in the context of a believer, so I don't have to constantly forgo the terminology a believer would use in favor of a more atheistic vernacular, and thus explain it every time.

Ok, by your own definition, the Christian god created humans with free will. He could have created us without it, but he didn't. So, built into our being is this idea of "free will." More than being forced on us, we were designed this way. Instead of it being an Oprah, "You get free will! And you get free will! And you get free will! And you get free will!" kind of thing, it's more like, "Free will comes standard on the base model." Alright. EXTREMELY fine point of distinction.

Romans 3:23 says, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and that is a commonly used verse by Christians to basically say that there's a biblical basis for "nobody's perfect."

So, where it says "all" there, we can assume that the author's divinely-inspired understanding was that everyone who came before him, and all of his contemporaries, at the very least, were sinners who didn't measure up to perfection. Presumably, since this is so widely quoted amongst Christians today, especially the bible-believing, evangelical variety, people still use it as justification for a need for salvation.

Problem is, this is basically a scriptural presupposition that everyone is going to sin. A scriptural admission that god built humans to fail. If free will is a base-model feature in humans, it should not only be entirely possible, but should have already happened, that there was a human who did not fall short. Who did not sin. Whose free will choices led to the exact, perfect path to precisely not sin or fall short of the glory of god. Excluding Christ, mind you, because, well, unless you’re of a particular Christian sect that doesn’t believe in the divinity of Christ, he’s still god. And let’s just ignore Mr. Rogers for the moment.

So if we all are doomed to fail, to the point that god needs to create some complicated scenario to redeem his creation of their built-in flaw, where’s the free will?

So, to review:

God made us with “free will.”

That causes us to choose poorly.

That leads us to death.

That necessitates a savior.

Had he not created us with “free will,” none of this would’ve been necessary. Oh, except he didn’t create us with free will, and worse yet, he apparently created us with a non-free-will that forces us into a choice that, unless we say, “You are awesome, I suck, and I need your help,” he’ll send us to that special place that he created for us to suffer forever.

This guy doesn’t sound very nice.

Free will on the part of humans also requires that God not be all-knowing...

I ran across an interesting seasonally appropriate article on a possible way to reconcile some issues with the various accounts of the Last Supper. Thought the Bible fans out there might find it to be interesting. The points he makes about Jews not being likely to go out in the middle of the Seder to arrest someone on religious charges, and not being likely to execute people on the Passover Sabbath, are also the sort of forehead smackers that make this field so interesting.

Robear wrote:

Free will on the part of humans also requires that God not be all-knowing...

Yes. Essentially, we're hashing out Calvinism, here.

Feels like we've had this conversation before...

What did you think of the article?

I really like that article, Robear. The church I attend has been going through Mark for a couple of months now, doing not only an examination of the red letters but also the surrounding context both culturally and linguistically. They keep referring back to the Jewish tradition of looking at scripture as one would a precious gem with many facets. Turn it even the least amount and you will see something different both in and through it. That article presents other facets to consider.

Robear wrote:

Free will on the part of humans also requires that God not be all-knowing...

Well, or god is a mall cop. That was what we got in The Matrix.

I think that article gives a bit too much credit to Mark. I would bet that most people think the Last Supper is a Seder for the same reason people still think Jewish Slaves not only built the pyramids, but that it is part of Exodus-they saw it in a movie.

Robear wrote:

Feels like we've had this conversation before...

What did you think of the article?

I always like close analysis of texts, it was part and partial to my college degree. I'm no biblical scholar, but I am familiar enough with the various means often used to analyze biblical texts to expose their apparent human origins. One of my favorite listens in the podcast circuit lately is The Human Bible. I see no reason to find fault with his analysis.

I don't know enough of the "standard" answers around the questions to really judge it, but it seemed pretty plausible to me. I figured some of you guys would enjoy it. And it's definitely in the spirit of the thread title.