Where the heck’s a language cop when you need her? 
That’s all. A question from Pepperlandgirl about Christianity and Love. Whether Christianity frowned on love, or some forms of love, or some expressions of love.
I thought I made a case, over on the first thread (page 3), that it did not. Though many judgmental legalist who call themselves Christian do. For the most part, that got totally dropped.
God does not demand of anyone that they remain celibate, and he does not frown on any love. My own feeling is that He probably has some problems with what some more misguided people use as expressions of love, but I have no evidence one way or another.
And while He set forth the Law as a code for moral living back when, He does not demand adherence to it. One does so, as does CMKeller, out of love and awe for Him. Or one takes the even tougher road of keeping two provisions out of that set to the letter, again out of love and awe for Him. Specifically the two Jesus selected as summarizing all the rest. Whaddaya do with the others? Follow them to the extent that they support the two, break them without guilt when they impede the two (as in healing on the Sabbath), and ignore those that were specific to another time and place.
Hey, everybody!? You’ve been using the wrong paradigm, buying into FriendofGod’s misprision of the sin/atonement theory. Jewish law makes no distinction between civil and criminal law. We’ve been arguing this whole thing with a criminal-law viewpoint. Remember the parable of the importunate widow and the unjust judge, who finally gets fed up with her and renders judgment to shut her up. (One of the funniest stories Jesus ever told, by the way.) She wasn’t trying to get to be the accused criminal in the dock – she was the plaintiff looking for divine justice.
Look at it from a civil law context. You and I and everybody else have fallen short (literal translation of the Hebrew term for “sin”) of the terms of the contract, the covenant between God and, originally, our ancestors (of whom we are heirs and assigns). But thanks to the intervention of Jesus functioning as mediator, our adherence to Him – who fulfilled the terms of the contract in full – brings us in as satisfying the intent of the contract – which was, at bottom, to bring God and man together. We subordinate the contracts on which we are in default to His fulfilled one, making him general contractor and us subcontractors, and God views it as one completely fulfilled contract. Thus justice and mercy can go hand in hand. :j
Hey, I jumped on it as quick as I could!
LOL
Gaudere wrote in part one:
No, no. Mercy means God can forgive.
Yeah, but FoG also believes God is a time traveler too. Jesus’s suffering came from Man, not God. God does not cause the innocent to suffer.
Working backwards. Original Sin is not God’s fault. Well, maybe a little. OK, so he sort of screwed up, I guess. You want to make an omelet… But look, the holy spirit always has existed, and it always calls all humans back to the fold. J.C. does try to give things a push in the right direction as anyone afflicted with the spirit would do. The Spirit is absolute – you don’t need some 2000 year old book. If you can unite your soul to God’s, you will have eternal life because god/spirit/j.c. is eternal. If you don’t, and your soul dies separated from god (as even J.C.'s did, some think), well, what is God supposed to do about it? I don’t think Hitler purified his soul in the last few seconds of his existance and went to heaven. You can’t just mutter a few magic spells. Gandi – well, what did he ever do? He went on a hunger strike and wore a sheet. He was a politician, oxford trained, and he did this for his own motives. Doesn’t get him into “heaven” last I checked.
(note I don’t believe any of this, but this I thought this discussion could use an impartial xtian viewpoint. maybe I can get one of those hats)
**
With all due respect, Mr. Polycarp, I believe that most people here have been pointing out to FoG exactly what he is saying, not to buy into it, but to show him exactly what he is spewing.
We have all long ago established, kind sir, that not all Christians think like this, and that you are as far away from that ideal as CMKeller is from eating a BLT or David is from buying ANYTHING of this nature.
Nutshell: Dude is selling, we ain’t buying, and we’re all doing our part to show him that what he is selling NOBODY with a free brain cell in their head would want to buy.
Now, for question time: You then go and use Jewish Law to support you own ideas of justice tempered with mercy and forgiveness and fairness.
Well, is Jesus did away with all of that jive (which is why you are likely to enjoy a BLT, among other things), how is that relevant?
What I am pretty much saying here, Poly, is that even amongst the more compassionate and intelectual of Christians I have run into, ultimately, their ideas on this subject are closer to FoG’s than yours.
Between that and you being an overall wonderful human being, I wonder if you really are a Christian at this point, or are a follower of Christ with your own ideas as to what that entails?
There’s a difference, IMHO.
And I still want to be like you when I grow up…
Yer putz,
Satan :wally
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Two months, two weeks, four days, 16 hours, 49 minutes and 59 seconds.
3188 cigarettes not smoked, saving $398.50.
Life saved: 1 week, 4 days, 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Gaudere wrote:
[QUOTE]
Nevertheless, most Christians believe in a place called Hell…
[quote]
Sure, OK. But this isn’t a democracy.
I should have said, merely about being a good person. But I didn’t think you’d like that either. Because you’d say – well, what else then, and that wasn’t my point. How do you define “better”? Certaintly few thought Jesus was a very good person while he was alive. I think becoming one with god makes you a more jesusian person.
I just think it confuses the issue. If I got 300 million of my close friends to wear party hats on their heads all day, and had them tell people they wore the hats because they were followers of Mohammed, and had them proselytize to the point where they drowned out any “real” Muslims, and there were shows on TV with Peter Jennings interviewing members of my group as if they were Muslims, and you were a real Muslim or at least knew what a real Muslims was, wouldn’t you just like the people with the funny hats to take a hike after a while?
Well, I guess I could give you the Taoist answer – “he who knows does not teach and he who teaches does not know.” But I’d never live that down. I will look into a good answer. Perhaps reading the gospels again, more slowly and without the typical preconceptions, would help you figure that out. You are right about the golden rule, but I don’t see many people loving God with all their heart. If you don’t know what love is, how can anyone really explain it?
Satan
Wow. Maybe that’s what I am.
LOL! No, and I think FriendofGod is showing just a hint of blindness here. “Whatever you believe to be true is true only if it is what I believe to be true. Luckily, what I believe to be true actually is true. I know this because the Bible tells me so.”
Hmmm. I woulda called that “genitive” a dative. How many cases are you using here?..
[Oh no, hijack police! Hide me!]
Kimstu
Thanks, Satan, for the insight. Two comments:
First, if I had to make the choice between “being a Christian” and “being a follower of Christ” in the terms you’ve suggested, no question I’d choose the latter. He is my Lord and Savior, and I chose sixteen years ago to follow Him. The organized category with its own issues is, in the last analysis, simply a banding together, per His instructions, of those who have made that choice. Fortunately, I have a church home that fits the belief structure I adhere to, so the issue is moot.
Second point is that I was criticizing FriendofGod’s “comforters,” not for buying his legalistic doctrine, but for buying his paradigm of condemnation and judgment – a criminal law metaphor. To draw a parallel, if we spent three pages debating whether it is just for God to condemn people of category X to Hell, and David B. comes along and observes, “First you have to decide whether there is such a thing as a God doing that condemning. If there isn’t, whether an imaginary God doing that stuff would be acting justly is pretty much a moot point” – David has worked a paradigm shift. My point was simply that the Jewish concept of justice was more akin to our civil law than to our criminal law. Miserable sinners condemned to Hell for their evil deeds is a Greco-Romano-Germanic image pasted over the top of the Jewish concept of people who are unable to honor the terms of the covenant offered them by God, who is merciful in adapting the terms to their capabilities, out of love for them.
I want to stress once again that any intelligent reading of Jesus’ recorded teachings stresses over and over again that the acting out of agape, loving compassion for one’s fellow man and devout love for God, is the crux of right behavior. He says this outright in the anecdotes about his being questioned which is the greatest commandment, he illustrates it with parable after parable, and he insists that judgmentalism and legalism are not the way to God. If I make a nuisance of myself repeating it, it’s because I am a follower of Christ. 
And as I challenged FriendofGod, it is his job to make this Good News known, not to analyze what a homosexual ought to do to “make himself right with God,” unless he himself happens to be gay and is telling us what he feels called to do.
And personally, I think that a sort of Pascal’s Wager is appropriate here: even if there is no God, no afterlife, no system of rewards and punishments, none of the above, IMHO a life lived to the terms of the Two Great Commandments is more rewarding and fulfilling than one founded on any other system, whether it be running in fear of a vengeful Divine Weasel, amassing the most toys before you die, unalloyed hedonistic self-indulgence, building up whatever it is you need most for your own sense of (in)security…
Right, but if he does forgive–does not punish justly–then he is no longer perfectly just.
He requires the innocent to suffer if the guilty wish to avoid punishment. God also wants the guilty to avoid punishment. Therefore, when the guilty sin, He will punish the innocent instead (Jesus).
Mebbe not (debateable) but punishing us for the sins of someone who died 6,000 years ago is hardly “just” by most definitions. If your ancestors killed one of mine 6,000 years ago, I doubt any judge would rule that you should be punished for this.
Never said it was. However, you claimed that Christians did not believe in Hell, and I disputed this. Therefore the fact that most Christians do indeed believe in Hell is relevant.
::coughing gently:: You know, one of the reasons people have been jumping all over FoG is because he kept saying group X was not a Christian. Yet you look at people who aver to love and follow Jesus Christ, then, by your perspective as an atheist, tell them they are not Christians? You may certainly do so; however, I think you need a little more solid reasoning to back this up. What makes a Christian, to you? What will enable us to tell the difference between true Christians and those who appear to love God and their fellow man, but aren’t really Christian?
Well, I must admit that I don’t like seeing something claimed as being better because it is more transcendental and then being unable to say how it is transcendental. If you wish to simply state that this is something you have faith in, fine.
Polycarp says:
Poly, I don’t think you have to worry that people think FoG’s ways of thinking about the substutionary sacrifice is the only way it could be done, although I appreciate you pointing out an alternate.
What? I am being held to a contact that I never aquiesced to? Why, that’s as bad as making me obey the laws of a government I never consented to be ruled by! And I can’t even vote to change the definition of sin, or move to another universe! Where are the libertarians when you need them?
I suppose the libertarian response is that I am God’s property, so He has an absolute right to do whatever he wants with me. I don’t like being property. 
On the other hand, if God gave me rights, does he then have the right to hold me to a contract I did not consent to?
What of the people who lived and died before God contracted with the Jews? Did they negotiate their own contracts? What sort of bargaining power does one have with the Supreme Creator? “Hmm, so you’re offering eternal life in exchange for never eating cheeseburgers. Weeeeelll, I don’t know…” ::looks exaggeratedly disinterested:: “You know, the IPU has made a very tempting offer of Eternal Joshing of Other Religions. And Zeus has those lovely Fields. What else can you do for me?” ROFL! 
So if I understand you correctly, Poly, it’s like God made a contract with us to build a website together. We do a kind of shoddy job, but Jesus does His bit perfectly. Therefore, God pays us the full amount He promised, even though it was really only Him that did a proper job. But He does this since His end goal was everyone working together. Those people who don’t work with Jesus aren’t considered to have fulfilled the terms of the contract. Hm, makes it hard for non-believers to get paid, I guess, if the only way to fufill the contract is to let Jesus do the work. Or, since Jesus already did a perfect job, does everyone get paid? Kind of makes you wonder why He bothered with a contract that said anyone who wasn’t perfect didn’t get paid at all, since He knew no one would do it perfect and He’d have to do it Himself anyway, and He wanted people to get paid even if they didn’t do a perfect job. Why not have a contract that just expected a pretty good job, instead on one so stringent that He’d have to do it Himself just to fulfill the terms He set?
Wow! Gaudere said:
Lib! (vocative case) This one’s clearly your baby! Small detail, Gaudere: a covenant is a type of contract in which one party holds all the cards…more of a RFP than a true negotiated contract: I want a structure built to these specifications; if you’re interested, play by my terms. As for all the miscellaneous other people not covered by the OT Law, traditional Christianity (backed for once by Judaism) would see a sequence of covenants: First the one with Adam, then the one with Noah, then the one (specifically directed at him and descendents) with Abraham, then the one with Moses (to cover the Jews only), to which Christians would add the new one in Christ. I’d like Chaim or another “solid” Orthodox Jew to address the implications of the pre-Mosaic covenants, since what I have is so overlain by Christian interpretation as to be useless in explaining the original thinking behind it.
The website metaphor is far closer than you’d think to something Jesus actually came up with: the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard – which was originally intended to speak against the idea of “earning your salvation.” But yes, God rewards according to Jesus’ good work, since he pulled together all the errors we sinners left in the HTML coding and made it into a Perfect Website. If Jesus is willing that credit for His work be shared with us, the Father is satisfied with the results Jesus produced, and will reward us all according to what Jesus is entitled to.
Now, do we want to get into torts and nonfeasance?
Um… OK, if that is how you want to define perfectly just. Not the kind of Judge I’d want to get in the docket. “It’s you first offense, you’ve got no criminal background, you seem genuinely sorry. ::gavel bang:: Twenty Years! Sorry, I gave that last guy 20 years, I gotta be just.”
I have no idea what you are talking about. Isn’t Jesus in heaven? I mean I know he was cruxified, and suffered for a few hours, um… when was that… o yeah, 2000 years ago. Or so people tell me.
Look, it is sort of out of god’s control because man has free will. Xtianity teaches you don’t have to suffer Original Sin (working for unfair rewards until you perish into the dust whence you came) if you follow Jesus. (Personally, I blame global warming for “original sin”, but that is another story…)
I specifically excluded two groups. But if you want to say some believe in heck and some don’t, I’ll agree.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
I haven’t come across another religion which solves the problems of original sin. How’s that? You couldn’t have read all that so quickly. Work with me here – I can’t type the whole gospels in here either!
jmullaney, I could be wrong, but I believe that you are in no way an atheist. 'Fact, I don’t even think you’re agnostic.
By way of evidence I submit that there is no “problem” with “original sin.” Therefore the fact that Christianity “solves” it is irrelevant.
Hmm… reminds me of the Far Side cartoon of the guy whistling along happily as he toils away in hell and the devil says: “we’re just not getting through to that guy.” I kind of agree with you. I don’t care much about the wars, the famines, the abject poverty, the weapons of mass destruction, the suffering of the poor and the weak, etc. Screw 'em all. I’m an atheist. None of this stuff bothers me. However, I’m trying to argue that some people find all the resultant evils (it is sort of a domino effect) from original sin kind of bad. You are free to draw your own conclusions.
That’s much more understandable, thanks. (Brevity may be the soul of wit, but a bit of exposition certainly aids clarity!) My initial interpretation was quite different from your intent.
If you’re arguing that God taking all the circumstances into account is all that you would consider “mercy”, then yes, I agree that God can be both merciful and just (I agreed to exactly this way back in the first thread). I’m arguing by FoG’s tenets, which are: we all justly deserve to suffer horribly. Some of us will get off scot-free. Therefore, I argue that if we justly deserve to be punished (taking all circumstances into account) and we are not, God may be merciful, but not just. (By FoG’s defintion of mercy) FoG is not arguing that we get a smaller sentance for a first offense or 'cause we’re really sorry, he is saying that we are sentenced fairly and justly to be punished, but then not punished.
Jesus also suffered for everybody’s sins (just the crucifixion wasn’t enough, as I understand it). At least, according to FoG.
[No, I don’t know how, if every human deserves eternal suffering, Jesus managed to pack it all that eternal suffering into three days. I guess he’s good at multi-tasking. ]
What fruits? You don’t have to answer if you don’t have a ready one, but I’d like something a wee bit more specific.
Who says that these evils came from Original Sin? Christianity and Judaism (? I think) and Islam. I don’t think all other religions have a “one guy fell from grace along time ago and death, disease and wars are all the result of that” belief. Pandora, I suppose, for the Greeks. Does Buddhism teach this? Paganism? Hinduism?
Polycarp says
Heh heh… I never liked that one. I mean, “everyone gets paid!” is good, but I can understand those who worked 8 hours being a bit peeved. So one perfect fufillment of the covenant and God’s OK with it, even if He has to do it Himself. Hmm…what about those who made previous covenants, did they have to do them perfectly? It doesn’t seem like they did. So Jesus made a new covenant with people, but why did he have to first fufill the old one perfectly (and the whole crucifixion thing, too)? God never required that before, I believe. What do you think happens to those who do evil? What about those who do only some evil, but more evil than good?
Yeah, what she said.
I would submit that humans have been on this earth for 100,000 years. People generally put the time of “original sin” about 10,000 years ago. The areas I have mentioned, overall, have gotten much worse over the last 10,000 years that anything anyone living between 100,000 and 90,000 years ago could have imagined. I mean, gee, examine the archeological record or whatever. I think the Abrahamic religions and, to a certain extent Taoism, teach that the evils of the modern world are due to man’s separation from the One. Several other religions teach a complete withdrawal from the world as a personal solution, I am led to believe. Confusianism gives a set of laws of how to get along in the corrupted world ok, much like ancient Judaism. Hinduism is a complete mystery to me.
::ponder::
Um… you do know that Genesis one is a parable right? I don’t think some dude named Adam (which literally translated means “Man”) fouled up and got us where we are today. You know it has to do with overpopulation and the resulting strain on earth’s resources, what with the great drought and all (been to the jungles of the Sahara lately?), which got the ball rolling. I thought you were a fellow atheist, not one of these creationist nuts