To a certain extent, you’re right. Mainstream (and even liberal) Christians can certainly do a better job getting their message to the media. The problem is, they’re not organized to do so. I can’t speak for other denominations, but I know a bit of the history of the Southern Baptist experience. The Southern Baptists, for literally decades, had been fairly evenly split among the liberal, moderate, and conservative factions. In the late 60s/early 70s, the conservative faction mobilized itself in an effort to gain control of the Southern Baptist Convention and halt what they perceived as a “dangerous” slide in the religion’s core beliefs.
Put it down to naivete, but nobody had ever tried to do this before, and no one was prepared to stop it or block the effort. The conservative faction gained control fairly quickly, and has dominated the religion ever since. Initially this wasn’t seen as a major point – at that time, the SBC wasn’t a particularly political organization. The conservative faction made it so, though, and they’ve attempted to strengthen their hold ever since.
I believe (as do many others) that they have finally overstepped their bounds, and they’re about to lose control. It will likely be gradual, because neither the liberal nor the moderate factions are numerous enough to overcome the entrenched conservative appointments quickly. (It’s something like the Perot effect on Republicans during the early 90s.) In addition, I think the liberal and moderate factions tend to adhere more strictly to the pacifist side of the teachings of Jesus, and aren’t as concerned with power. This is strictly my interpretation and opinion, though, so I could be off-base on that.
Regarding information given you, though … that cuts both ways. There were several threads on this board during the Roy Moore/Ten Commandments fiasco. Many, many comments were made denigrating the intelligence of Alabamians because of the situation. However, the monument was removed, Moore was stripped of his office, and the vast majority of Alabamians agreed with those decisions. That information was made available, too, but sometimes people want to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Remember how many people “knew” Gary Condit killed Chandra Levy?
I can know what the extremists think because they are out there, trumpeting it.
I can’t know what the non-extremists think because I’m forced to guess, much of the time, based on what I think I know of the various Christian denominations.
To go back to the very extreme example: If there’s a soft, gentle, loving side to the KKK, I don’t know about it. Say that there is, though. Would you say it’s my fault that I don’t know? How am I even to suspect? If every public statement is one of intolerance and hatred, am I supposed to assume that’s not the real story?
You know that there are a panolpy of different types of Christianity.
You know that they vary greatly in their beleifs.
You know that, for instance, a Southern Baptist does not speak on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, or that the Church of England does not speak on behalf of the Mormon Church.
When you hear someone speaking on religious principles, you can ask yourself, “Who is this person? Is this person an official spokesperson for a religious denomination? What denomination is it? Or is this person just speaking from his own religious convictions?”
If you want to know if a particular religious denomination shares a particular belief, you can look in that denomination’s official publications, or its official website. Or you can talk to a clergy person from that denomination.
Until you find confirmation that a particular religious denomination shares this belief, do not assume it does.
I couldn’t care less what your religion thinks or does until the ones that you claim *don’t * represent the masses, but who have the power, start messing around with the rest of us. They are your spokespeople whether you like it or not, because christians have failed to adequately define or enforce the rules.
No way, Jose. *****, I keep on saying this, and have not seen a decent argument against it. Most of the different types find support for their position from within the text they all draw from, the bible. For example, if I see a group claiming Jesus was the Buddha, I can go back to the bible and find no support for that. Case closed. However, I might see a rally of people against/for women’s rights. I might not see a counter-demonstration anywhere around, but I can read the bible and find that either group has support from the bible. Thus, I can assume, (not safely assume, just assume) that all christians believe in (insert ridiculous belief here, with support from a verse or two) since it is derived from the bible
*****, this is not making fun of his user name, this is a common phrase.
Given that doctrinal differences, and the ensuing multiplicity of Christian denominations, arose from widely differing interpretations of the same biblical scripture, no you cannot assume all Christians believe in a particular thing based on your reading of the Bible.
I’m not talking denominations; I’m talking people within those denominations. I can tell you that the RCC is anti-gay. I can’t tell you if an individual Catholic is anti-gay. But my question is: Does it even matter? The individual Catholic is lending support, even if just in numbers, to the RCC’s anti-gay message.
Scott_plaid, I can also cite chapters and verses from the Gospels that support women’s rights. That’s one reason I remained a Christian. I’ll be the first to admit that as Christianity changed from a small cult to a decent-sized religion, human beings fouled up the message and Christianity as it was practiced became sexist; I’ll even say a few things against St. Paul and St. Augustine. When I look at the teachings of Christ, however, I see a man who supported women’s equality. I’ll give you cites this evening.
On Friday, my personal priest was in the newspapers saying the government had no business getting involved in the Terry Schiavo mess. She (note the pronoun) is a priest in an Episcopal church in Pennsylvania. While she does have a certain amount of influence over me and I might, in turn, have some over us, it would be almost impossible to have any influence over the actions of a Souther Baptist minister in Florida unless some external connection existed. I could, theoretically, become a Southern Baptist for the express purpose of trying to influence them; I might even have some grounds for doing so, since my grandmother was a Baptist in Northern England. On the other hand, that’s the only reason I have to do so and I have a great many reasons not to do so. Do we have an agnostic or a Christian who doesn’t belong to a denomination who’d be willing to take on the challenge? It’s sort of like asking me to be responsible for the actions of Tom DeLay or Alabama’s Congress. While I may be an American like Mr. Delay or Alabama’s Congressmen, I’ve no connection to them, thus it’s almost impossible for me to influence them.
Well, yes it does matter. The only way an organization is going to change is because its people work at the grassroots to change it. If all those who disagreed with any doctrine left, there would be less and less pressure to discard that doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t care what that much about what a non-Catholic has to say about its doctrine. It does listen up, though, when for instance the U.S. Conference of Bishops takes a stand against a doctrine. And the bishops, in turn, do listen to what the people in their diocese are saying.
Hey…christians cherry-pick. So can the rest of us. If I determine the effects of christianity to be predominantly damaging to society as a whole, that it because that is the christianity that is shown to me in everyday life. Now, your church may behave in a completely different manner than the christians who have the power to harm people, but I can only go by what I see happening to this country because of christian doctrine. That is not to say that christians don’t do good things. I just rarely see it on a large scale. And I would tend to attribute those good deeds to people rather than religion.
Which, if true, is a point in favor of my argument. If the bishops are listening to the average Catholic and the doctrines are still anti-gay, that means it’s what the “masses” want.
If the bishops aren’t listening, the masses could at least claim they don’t have any power. But I’d still want to know why they aren’t leaving.
If millions abandoned the RCC for its positions, they might not change the church, but they might kill it. If an organization is in opposition to your beliefs, what do you care if it changes or dies?
Wrong. The tide of opinion among the bishops does not change all at once; some bishops will not ever change their opinion — but their successors will. For all we know, 40% of the bishops may hold a position contrary to current doctrine, and in another ten years it may be 50%.
Because you may still agree with 90% of that orgnaization’s beliefs. And not just lightly, but literally down to your very soul. And you may believe that, in the balance, your church is a force for great good in the world and among its believers.
Prezactly. And I contend that when talking group associations, you can’t associate with only the good parts of that group. You must also realize that your association with that group includes the bad as well. You may not like it, but that’s the way it is. I keep hearing people say that they don’t believe the anti-gay biblical passages, but the passages are there. They may be contradicted elsewhere in the bible, or open to obscure interpretation, but the passages are still there. And the word coming out of most christian denominations is that being gay ain’t a good thing. You can pretend otherwise, but that doesn’t make it so. Choosing to associate with a group that relies on this book to guide its flock is going to color you with an anti-gay brush. Of course, a one-on-one relationship with some of you will prove that you actually think otherwise, but knowing that about you also makes you look like less of a christian.
My reading of the bible, nothing. A clear unbiased reading of the bible will show certain stances. Either I am missing your point, or your point is more wishful thinking than arguement.
It is quite easy to state that a reading of a certain vese is misinterpreted, but not all.
For just one example, see The Virgin Mary and Jesus’ siblings. All the catholic doctrine in the world will not stop a reasonable person from saying, Joseph and Mary must have had other children besides jesus, in the way that normal people have children, thus invalidating the title, “The Virgin Mary.”
Ignoring the fact that King James the first didn’t like witches, so he told his scribes to translate chasaph as witch, it clearly shows that those who are against the death penalty can find no support in the bible, and yet you see groups of people who claim to be christian and yet are anti-death penalty. The bible can only be twisted so far before people stop finding support for their claims.
Re: Siege: You have a connection, it’s called being a christian. If someone believe that all Americans are murders, and post pictures of some politicans on posters, I might not be a politican, but I can find some way to counter that immage, or get that politican to act diffrently. One way would be to write an open letter, that is to say, send the same letter to a person and to a newspaper, stating that as a human being, that perosn is making all human beings look bad, and it is advisable for said politican to changer their ways. That might not affect change, or it might after all but it is possible to do.
I am glad you are getting some laughts, but do you care to state if there is anyway to argue that a person who read the following will not come to the conclusion that you are ordered to execute people who use poison?:
For that matter, all of the vegans are actually devil spawn. :rolleyes:
Granted, it casts the writter of the bible in a bad light, but I don’t see how those verses could be otherwise interpreted by someone who has never read the bible before.
Maybe every time you hear about an airplane landing in the news, it’s because that airplane crashed. Does that mean most airplane landings result in crashes? No. But the 99.99% of airplane landings that arrive safely don’t get into the news.
Before you make statements about the safety of airplane landings, you could rely only on your impressions from the news, and say that they must be very dangerous, “If every news story I hear about an airplane landing says that it crashed, am I supposed to assume that’s not the real story?”
Or you could check to see if your impressions are wrong.
Beacuse you can read that particular verse as instructions God gave to a particular set of people in a particular time and place and circumstances, and not assume that it was meant for all people and all time. A lot of Biblical interpretation is sifting and winnowing to determine what commands are ad hoc, and which are universal.
Heh, heh, I can easily see Walloons statement being applied here, as you seem to be saying, jsgoddess .