Open religious (or not) discussion thread

Rezzy wrote:
LouZiffer wrote:

I call myself a follower of Christ, but that's about living life and communing with the universe. It's not centered around believing history. Similarly, I disagree with those Christians who think belief is the point of Christianity. However, that disagreement is irrelevant as well. Our differences are unimportant for the most part except for those times when understanding and learning come from them.

The difference is that you're more atheist than Christian and you're getting annoyed with atheists for calling out the bits of the faith that make you not a Christian. It's not our fault you're doing it wrong. Don't misunderstand me. I'm FREAKING ECSTATIC that you exist and that there are more like you, but you're stepping up to fight for the people that believe you will burn in hell right next to me for your heresy. If that's what you feel you have to do to preserve your illusion of 'belonging' then more power to you, but we aren't enemies.

We aren't enemies, and I have no problem with calling out beliefs which seem to make no sense. There's this, which I think is cool and can spark discussion:

Lostlobster wrote:

Quote:
Psalm 14:1-3
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,[a]
who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
I'm primarily a lurker in threads like these, but I'm having a hard time letting this go by without further comment.

This quote is hate speech. Written by someone to allow followers of this faith to look at non-believers as an Other that is worthless and evil. It's propaganda, meant to give permission to a people to treat those others as less than them, and to tell the believers they are special — because they "understand."

Finding "love" and "mercy" in this message requires some serious mental gymnastics, and comes across as wishful thinking or blindness.

And then there's bashing all Christians in general, which I don't think is cool. There's a difference, and it's certainly a way to make things seem unfriendly. Things started to lean toward what I consider general bashing and I squeaked. That led to all kinds of personal discussion, but I probably should've done a better job of squeaking in the first place.

By the way, I'd say the same for any other major religion.

EDIT: Atheism and agnosticism as well, though those aren't religions.

FSeven wrote:
Nomad wrote:

It seems much more logical to think that most of Israel did not understand the full scope of the Messianic promise in Jesus day. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus says.

Totes logical, the whole supernatural thing.

Not hard to draw up a story to fulfill a pre-existing prophecy.

Very true.

Much harder to write the prophecy ~750 years before the events:

Isaiah 53:7-9 (ESV)
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Especially when we have manuscripts that predate those events.

Nomad wrote:

It seems much more logical to think that most of Israel did not understand the full scope of the Messianic promise in Jesus day. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus says.

Your argument then is a combination of the ideas that Judaism was misunderstood for centuries by the Jews - something God does not seem to tell them in the OT - and that Jesus was *not* a devout, practicing Jew.

All you have to do to validate the opposite of plain statements is to assume that an entire religion is wrong... While still using it's holy texts as part of your own.

I mean... You understand my reluctance here, outside looking in?

It took thousands of years of darkness for a 'Jesus' to emerge.

A guy who told the world that we should live in peace with each other and be generally good to each other? Do... do you think Jesus was the first person ever to do that?

Buddha did it 400 years earlier and that's only going for another religious figure. I'd be willing to bet there were plenty of people prior who believed in the idea of being kind to each other and treating everyone as they themselves would like to be treated.

Robear wrote:
Nomad wrote:

It seems much more logical to think that most of Israel did not understand the full scope of the Messianic promise in Jesus day. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus says.

Your argument then is a combination of the ideas that Judaism was misunderstood for centuries by the Jews - something God does not seem to tell them in the OT - and that Jesus was *not* a devout, practicing Jew.

All you have to do to validate the opposite of plain statements is to assume that an entire religion is wrong... While still using it's holy texts as part of your own.

C'mon man, we can dialog without twisting the other persons post into an easily defeat-able sham. Do you honestly think that all of Israel understood the full ramifications of all the prophecies in the OT? Doesn't Jesus talk over and over about Israel not fully understanding who He was and why He was there? Even His own disciples were totally surprised by His death and resurrection when He had told them over and over they were going to happen.

Could it be the case that you are doing the very thing you accuse me of?

"validate the opposite of plain statements is to assume that an entire religion is wrong... While still using it's holy texts as part of your own."

Nomad, if I may, I suggest you start listening to The Human Bible podcast, hosted by biblical scholar Robert M. Price, and pay special attention to the Prophetic Scorecard segment.

Nomad wrote:

Much harder to write the prophecy ~750 years before the events:

That's part of an allegory addressed to the nation of Israel. Just like in the next chapter, the woman referred to is the city of Jerusalem.

Let's continue Isaiah 53 with verses 10 to 12:

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

So, the lord will try to crush him, but he will "see his offspring" and live a long life, and his life will benefit the lord. His suffering will end, and he will be satisified with his role afterwards. He will be a judge ("justify many") and will bear their iniquities (ie, in the sense of Numbers 18:1, "You and your sons shall bear the iniquities of the sanctuary"). He will be accounted for his righteousness and sacrifice as one of the Patriarchs, and he will be given an inheritance because of this. As a judge, he bore the sins of many, and as a judge, he interceded for them, and thus he did good.

Obviously, this can be read as a redemptive story about Israel, which goes from being a meek sheep unwilling to speak up to God's judge among the nations. But even if you read it as being about an individual, it does not track with your interpretation. This is a Jewish prophet speaking allegorically and being interpreted centuries later by people with an entirely different understanding of his writings, who were actually of a different religion. You might as well find evidence for Jesus' divinity through prophecy in Islam or the Mithraitic mysteries.

NSMike wrote:

Nomad, if I may, I suggest you start listening to The Human Bible podcast, hosted by biblical scholar Robert M. Price, and pay special attention to the Prophetic Scorecard segment.

I'm quite familiar with Price. He is a very intelligent former Baptist preacher, but most if not all of his major points are nothing but speculation as can be seen here if you have the patience to sit through a 3 hour debate:

Garden Ninja wrote:

Pardon me if I'm putting words in your mouth, or misunderstanding you, but I see this come up a lot. Why do you get to decide what it means to "do it wrong"? Why does a non-member (of anything really) get to decide the criteria for membership?

I'm not deciding anything. We have access to the guidebook and the checklist of criteria required by the dominant factions for this "Christianity" fad.
If you don't insist on the divinity of Jesus, or agree that his death paid the price for our sins, but you feel that the Bible has lots of interesting parts and is a decent guide for living a 'good' life, then welcome to the way most atheists feel.
The Bible is a book. Nothing more. The problem is that many Christians feel that the Bible is the ONLY way to have a guide for living a 'good' life.

I can be a computer technician, but if I insist that electronics operate on magic and that warranty-seals are insurmountable and that binary is the only way to interact with anything related to circuitry... then I'm probably going to hold back the people depending on me in some pretty key ways.

Modern Christianity is slowly moving towards the way atheists are thinking already. Magic is unnecessary for computers to work. Warranty seals are in place to make sure you're prepared for the consequences of cracking the shell, and binary was a way for a select few to feel elite and maintain control over their users.

Robear wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Much harder to write the prophecy ~750 years before the events:

That's part of an allegory addressed to the nation of Israel. Just like in the next chapter, the woman referred to is the city of Jerusalem.

Let's continue Isaiah 53 with verses 10 to 12:

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

So, the lord will try to crush him, but he will "see his offspring" and live a long life, and his life will benefit the lord. His suffering will end, and he will be satisified with his role afterwards. He will be a judge ("justify many") and will bear their iniquities (ie, in the sense of Numbers 18:1, "You and your sons shall bear the iniquities of the sanctuary"). He will be accounted for his righteousness and sacrifice as one of the Patriarchs, and he will be given an inheritance because of this. As a judge, he bore the sins of many, and as a judge, he interceded for them, and thus he did good.

Obviously, this can be read as a redemptive story about Israel, which goes from being a meek sheep unwilling to speak up to God's judge among the nations. But even if you read it as being about an individual, it does not track with your interpretation. This is a Jewish prophet speaking allegorically and being interpreted centuries later by people with an entirely different understanding of his writings, who were actually of a different religion. You might as well find evidence for Jesus' divinity through prophecy in Islam or the Mithraitic mysteries.

You could read it as a redemptive story about John F Kennedy if you want but it still makes infinitely more sense to be a prophecy of Christ.

Israel "will bear their iniquities"?
Israel "will justify many"?
Israel has "done no violence"?
Israel was buried in the grave of a "rich man"?

I just don't see how I could ever fit, but Christ on the other hand...

Nomad wrote:

C'mon man, we can dialog without twisting the other persons post into an easily defeat-able sham. Do you honestly think that all of Israel understood the full ramifications of all the prophecies in the OT? Doesn't Jesus talk over and over about Israel not fully understanding who He was and why He was there? Even His own disciples were totally surprised by His death and resurrection when He had told them over and over they were going to happen.

Thought we were beyond that kind of thing, but that's not what I intended. I'll turn it around a bit. What I'm getting at is that if we look at the early Church from a Jewish perspective, as Jesus and the early disciples certainly did even after his death, then the type of exegetics you propose simply don't work. And I believe I make a reasonable case that Jesus' message was changed after his death (and I'm by no means the first person to do so). What you don't do above is tell me why looking at Jesus as a Jew does not work, beyond the key argument that "Jesus can't be wrong", which you cited above. What if he was? Would that change in any way the reality of Christianity today? I frankly can't see how.

Jesus could be entirely fictional, and we'd still be exactly where we are today. I don't think it's terribly likely, but the fact remains, we can't be sure either way. But assuming that a Jewish religious teacher was a Jew is by every measure the simplest way to look at what he said and did.

I may hit up that debate later (mp3 format would be nice) but I'll bet $50 that everything White calls him out on as speculation is simply because the scholarly approach is to not assume that the Bible is true. The rest is, literally, history, or lack thereof, as the historical evidence is pretty weak, which is why a lot of the scholarly approach to the Bible is construed as speculative.

Because the Bible is the holy book of a major world religion, the speculation that biblical accounts are somehow accurate tends to be given a free pass. Especially by apologists.

Demosthenes wrote:

Do... do you think Jesus was the first person ever to do that?

In the context of Christianity? Apparently.

Robear wrote:
Nomad wrote:

It seems much more logical to think that most of Israel did not understand the full scope of the Messianic promise in Jesus day. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus says.

Your argument then is a combination of the ideas that Judaism was misunderstood for centuries by the Jews - something God does not seem to tell them in the OT - and that Jesus was *not* a devout, practicing Jew.

All you have to do to validate the opposite of plain statements is to assume that an entire religion is wrong... While still using it's holy texts as part of your own.

I mean... You understand my reluctance here, outside looking in? :-)

From my reading, that is the only way to get to Christianity through Judaism. Christianity is so wildly divergent in so many ways that it starting as a Jewish sect is sort of academic. However, that's how religions tend to get started anyway: take a story people are familiar with and tweak it to say "Here's what really happened", or "here's what that really meant". The bible itself does that.

For example, the Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story in it, and the reason the gods flooded the planet in that one is essentially because humans were being loud and keeping them up at night. In the Tanakh, G-d floods the earth because of humanities wickedness. Now, you can certainly argue that it was cruel, but that difference is very important: in one story, humanity are pests to be exterminated when they get out of hand, which is pretty standard for the time frame in question. In the other, humanity is "wicked" and G-d cares about the morality of human behavior.

On that specific passage in Isaiah, from what I've read, Jews read it as referring to the People Israel, not a specific person. I had a rabbi once talk about this concept, how a lot of Christianity involves taking Jewish concepts that refer to all Jews and applying it only Jesus. Jews are all Children of G-d vs Jesus is the (presumably only, or special) Son of G-d. Jews will be resurrected in the World to Come vs Jesus was resurrected, etc. This seems like another example.

Nomad wrote:

-but most if not all of his major points are nothing but speculation-

Welcome to theology!

Rashi is a famed commentator on the Tanakh. You can find his interpretation here. Should we not consider the result of 1500 years or so of Jewish scholarship by the time this was written? If Jews believe their prophet to be speaking allegorically, referring to the land of Israel as a person, why would we be qualified to gainsay them? Especially since it's done elsewhere in the Tanakh.

If you decide that Jesus was actually interpreting it differently, how is that different from my claim that he was a radical Jewish teacher? It would be pretty radical, to reinterpret prophecy to fit the current times, but that's also what many of the Jewish religious rebels of the period did, and Jesus suffered the same fate they did.

To whom did Jesus offer his grave? When did he see his offspring? How did he get a long life? How was he not desirable as a child, given that wise men gave him presents and celebrated his birth? Was he held in low esteem and despised by all mankind? Who considered him "punished by god"?

If you take this stuff literally, to refer to one man, it falls apart quickly. It's only those 3 verses that make even a kind of sense in your argument; the others around it change things around significantly.

Garden Ninja wrote:

Christianity is so wildly divergent in so many ways that it starting as a Jewish sect is sort of academic.

This is my take on it. What's fascinating to me is that there is this insistence (and Nomad is by no means alone in this) that we not read Jesus's words and actions as if he were a Jew, but rather as if he were a post-fourth century Christian, with all the attached dogma that entails. To me, that modifies many of the things he says and does into something that doesn't fit the times. It also frees the commentator to simply pick and choose anything at all from the Old Testament to follow or reject, even though Jesus was pretty specific about the fact that he was not there to change the Law. (Because if he had said that, he'd have lost his audience entirely - they and he *lived* by the Law).

As I noted earlier, the Church goes from being majority Jewish to being anti-Semitic at warp speed. If that's not making it clear that Jesus' message was seriously changed, I don't know what will.

Nomad wrote:
FSeven wrote:
Nomad wrote:

It seems much more logical to think that most of Israel did not understand the full scope of the Messianic promise in Jesus day. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus says.

Totes logical, the whole supernatural thing.

Not hard to draw up a story to fulfill a pre-existing prophecy.

Very true.

Much harder to write the prophecy ~750 years before the events:

Isaiah 53:7-9 (ESV)
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Especially when we have manuscripts that predate those events.

You're still missing the point. The NT was written much later than the OT. The passage you cited is so rife with vagueness that it's not hard to write a book hundreds of years after the fact and concoct a story that seems to fulfill the vague prophecies from the earlier book. As James Carroll said, it's not "history prophesized" but rather "prophesy historicized." The authors of the NT simply took the vague OT prophesy and applied it to Jesus over 50 years after his death, imbuing him with messiah status, and then passed it off as historical fact. Not a very hard thing to do in a world the vast majority of which was illiterate and dumb and thought evil spirits could traverse up your nostrils when you sneezed and thunder was the gods expressing their anger! Writing the NT and "fulfilling" the prophecies of the OT was a great way to pass the OT off as divinely inspired and prophetic; a fantastic selling point if you want to recruit Jews to your cult (which Christ worship was originally - an exclusively Jewish cult).

Frankly, as a prophetic source, the bible has a rather lousy track record.

Isaiah 17:1 - An oracle concerning Damascus: See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.

Last I checked, Damascus is considered the oldest continually inhabited city in the world and has a population of over 2 million.

Isaiah 19:4-5 - I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry.

The Nile has never dried up, neither in oral records from the time nor in recorded history.

Isaiah 52:1 - Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again.

Care to place a bet on whether or not any uncircumcised men have entered and left Jerusalem in the past 2,000 years?

Ezekiel 29:10-11 - therefore I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years.

Egypt has never been uninhabited in it's history, let alone for 40 years.

Matthew 16:28, Matthew 23:36, Matthew 24:34

16:28 - "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

23:36 - "I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation."

24:34 - "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."

Jesus says that the end of the world signs would be fulfilled before that era's current generation passed away and they would happen before the people that were standing in front of him "tasted death". That was 2000 years ago. But hey...maybe it will happen tomorrow.

Isaiah 7:14 - Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold,a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

I don't recall Jesus ever being referred to as Immanuel. I think we can chalk this one up to a skipped page by the editors.

Did you read beyond Isaiah 7:14?

10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”

12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.”

13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17 The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”

18 In that day the Lord will whistle for flies from the Nile delta in Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. 19 They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thornbushes and at all the water holes. 20 In that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates River—the king of Assyria—to shave your head and private parts, and to cut off your beard also. 21 In that day, a person will keep alive a young cow and two goats. 22 And because of the abundance of the milk they give, there will be curds to eat. All who remain in the land will eat curds and honey. 23 In that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, there will be only briers and thorns. 24 Hunters will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns. 25 As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe, you will no longer go there for fear of the briers and thorns; they will become places where cattle are turned loose and where sheep run.

FSeven wrote:

You're still missing the point. The NT was written much later than the OT. The passage you cited is so rife with vagueness that it's not hard to write a book hundreds of years after the fact and concoct a story that seems to fulfill the vague prophecies from the earlier book. As James Carroll said, it's not "history prophesized" but rather "prophesy historicized." The authors of the NT simply took the vague OT prophesy and applied it to Jesus over 50 years after his death, imbuing him with messiah status, and then passed it off as historical fact.

I'll tell more actually: the other day I watched the new Appleseed: Alpha movie, the prequel to the original Appleseed released all the way back in 2004. And these movies reference each other back and forth!!!! How cool is that?!?! Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby present you the incontrovertible proof of these movies prophetic, divine origin, as well as the existence of the almighty God that logically follows.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I'll tell more actually: the other day I watched the new Appleseed: Alpha movie, the prequel to the original Appleseed released all the way back in 2004.

I'll see your dystopian future and raise you midichlorians.

Rezzy wrote:
Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I'll tell more actually: the other day I watched the new Appleseed: Alpha movie, the prequel to the original Appleseed released all the way back in 2004.

I'll see your dystopian future and raise you [redacted].

I thought we were trying to keep this discussion civilized.

So, apparently Scalia thinks that the constitution allows the favoring of religion over non-religion. I think we're all in deep trouble.

Rallick wrote:

So, apparently Scalia thinks that the constitution allows the favoring of religion over non-religion. I think we're all in deep trouble.

That's an interesting thought given how unreligious the writers were.

Whoa, this thread isn't locked? I forgot about it.

Rallick wrote:

So, apparently Scalia thinks that the constitution allows the favoring of religion over non-religion. I think we're all in deep trouble.

Right, I'm sure the Founders had no qualms with letting the state define what was and wasn't a religion. That sort of power surely was incapable of abuse.

So, as far as Scalia is concerned, the government can punish you for not believing in the supernatural.

Good thing the composition of SCOTUS reflects the religious composition of the USA on this matter...

I thought this was for the discussion *of* religion, not issues *around* religion...

Tanglebones wrote:

Here's an open thread for discussing issues pertaining to religion, atheism, etc - that's open to everyone. Please try to obey the golden rule, Wheaton's law, etc..