Jerome’s translation means ‘kill’, same as Luther’s German translation and the KJV English translation.
We know that early Christianity discouraged war, suicide and the death penalty, without necessarily forbidding them in absolutely every case, so it seems to me that tradition indicates that the early church interpreted the a Commandment in a rather broader sense than just forbidding ‘murder’.
I guess it depends on what dialect of Latin one uses and the time in which it was spoken. Without even encountering any references to Jerome, I had always seen occīdō, occīdere translated as “murder,” (or, sometimes, “slaughter”).
I have no objections to the idea that the church expanded the meaning in certain contexts.
People back then weren’t as dependent on written things as we are. I’m sure parts of the story were circulating before being written down, and also many things were written down which did not come to us, or which got rejected.
But faith, powerful as it is, doesn’t answer the question. I think that faith precedes scriptures even today, since faith seems to tell people which parts of scriptures to accept, or even which holy books to accept and which to reject. When I still had faith it did not encompass the NT, not in the slightest. Was my faith as valid as yours?
The faith of whoever wrote Matthew involved making up a Nativity story to match his misunderstanding of Isaiah. I’ve never seen a poll, but I suspect the majority of Christians believe in this story.
Faith moves mountains, causes people to do good deeds, and also causes people to do horrific deeds. But the fact of faith does not determine any particular outcome, and so doesn’t answer the question - except in the “it feels right” sense.
Debunking the story that Washington threw a dollar over the Potomac is not really pointless. Debunking the myth that the Founding Fathers were giants without fault is important in helping us to reinterpret the Constitution to support rights we accept today that were beyond them. Sure faith has its benefits - the Wizard of Oz certainly thought so. But peering behind the curtain has its benefits also.
You are confusing stories with no implications and stories which have implications. Someone says that they don’t believe the patriarchs lived as long as the Bible says. Good reason to doubt that, and it has no impact on anyone’s faith.
In Judaism the Adam and Eve story being about the evolution of a moral sense is reasonable. But we don’t think we are damned because of their action.
If one doesn’t accept that the importance of Christ was in salvation, then Adam and Eve isn’t an issue - but they can explain why all those passages which say otherwise should be ignored. If you do accept this, then why did God-inspired evolution lead to a situation where we needed to be saved?
Did every person on earth at one point sin against god by choice? God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit directly. Did God tell every person on Earth something similar at the same time?
If you’d stop using “you’re accusing us of being literalists” as the answer to every argument you’d see that this leads to either a contradiction or an absurdiity.
To lay it out, the contradiction is of God requiring a savior to save us from the impulse to sin that he built into us, the absurdity being the choice of all people on earth to sin all at one time.
Yeah, we have a sense of right and wrong, but it is imperfect at best and non-existent in some. Why is that? Easy to explain with purely naturalistic evolution, a bit harder for deity driven evolution or creation. It is just as hard to explain for theistic evolution. If God was steering our evolution, why didn’t he make our moral sense a bit better. And don’t answer free will unless you think those with strong built in moral senses don’t have free will.
Personally, I think it’s most amusing that the Big Bang theory in physics was actually proposed by a Catholic priest who was also a physicist- Monsignor Georges Lemaitre. That has to be telling in some way, I have to think.
If you actually believe this crap and believe in Jesus, then I would imagine there’s a lot to love. Belief in an eternal reward, belief in your own superiority about non-believers, …
But you keep presenting examples of belief that IMO are not relevant to those I would call “moderates.” You seem to insist that moderates believe crazy A & B, but not crazy C & D. That’s not necessarily true.
Have you heard of the concept of God as a “retired engineer?” This version has God as someone who set the works in motion, sat back to watch, and has no further role in our universe.
This and other similar ideas are what I would call moderate. Imagine a warm fuzzy teddy bear god out there who loves and and gives us hugs and pie after we die. I don’t believe in this either, but I don’t really have problem with those folks, even if they are irrational.
Personally, I think Charlize Theron might fuck me one day, which is almost as unlikely as a teddy bear god, but I feel good about believing it or at least pretending I do.
And you have deism and nothing resembling Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or other religions. Certainly the entire Bible is hooey under this model, and so this God is irrelevant to the question the OP asked.
So what? People believe what they are comfortable believing, and set aside the stuff they aren’t. My sister claims to be a Catholic, yet believes that birth control and abortion are acceptable, and doesn’t seem to care about the contradiction. It doesn’t matter to her that some of her beliefs are in direct opposition to church teachings – to me claiming name ‘Catholic’ under these conditions is as irrational as if she believed what hey wanted her to, but I don’t find it particularly disturbing.
What I find far more disturbing is that the last 20 years or so has provide lots of evidence the the Catholic Church has been perhaps the largest perpetrator and facilitator of child abuse the world has ever seen, and yet they still have millions of members. And it has fuck all to do with their crazy dogma.
(Bolding mine)
I don’t challenge the sentiment, but could you elaborate? Telling in that he was a man of the cloth as well as a man of science? Or pertinent to the theory itself, and revelatory that a priest proposed it?
Both, really. I mean, the scientific theory that describes the creation of our universe was actually proposed by a priest, who happened to also be a hardcore theoretical physicist. How wild is that?
I haven’t put a lot of serious thought into why that mayor may not be significant, but it just seems like maybe it’s an excellent example of how serious science and serious religion don’t have to be at odds with each other.
Thank you for elaborating, and I readily concur. 
Great post. Thanks
What is it you think the “feels right” sense of religious faith indicates? Doesn’t every human being have their sense of morality, and their search for morality and meaning informed by their own sense of feels right? That doesn’t make religious faith any better or worse than any other. It doesn’t make God belief inferior. it’s just one of the paths humans choose.
I’ve only just joined TSD, and this discussion.
My initial comment is this:
Any Christian, whether mildly, moderately or highly religious, whether they believe Jesus could walk on water, exorcise demons, stimulate regrowth of appendages, or whatever, they still all have one thing in common: They all believe in the hokiest part of the Bible - that there’s an invisible entity somewhere beyond our ken who, a) made us, and b) has an eternal place for us after our bodies die.
This aplies to most religions. The reason is simple: Most humans can’t accept the idea that they will die one day, and will stop existing on that day, totally and permanently. I can’t stand that idea, but I’ve always been an atheist.
Regardless of your personal opinion we actually don’t know if something exists after our physical body dies. It’s fine to not believe as your personnel stance but IMO believing is an equally valid path.
As is believing in Wonderland, Neverland, Candyland and Oz.
It’s gratifying to know we agree.
Those who fully live by the “feels right” are fine - but they need to admit that their moral code is not superior to others. It is the "Step 1: I accept this part because it feels right and Step 2: God inspired it so my feelings are superior that is a problem.
If religiously derived ethics are given the same weight as secular ethics I’d have no problem. But what does it mean to be religiously derived? Somewhere there is a claimed connection to God. And that makes at least some who claim their ethics are religiously derived feel they are superior to others.
It is the ultimate argument from authority. That someone agreeing that the 90% of a religious book they aren’t using is not inspired is no justification for claiming authority for the part that they are using.
God belief is no more inferior than the belief that the Cubs will win the pennant next year. It is the building of a moral building upon a foundation of sand that is the problem.
That didn’t work for me, and I don’t trust the judgment of those who say “this works” when it apparently only works for at most 25% of the people on the planet. Only a very sloppy God would promulgate the One True Religion the way that any major religion does or has. And only a very evil or else mathematically challenged God would punish anyone in eternity for any finite wrong.
In what way? The BBT is preferred by the vast majority of Christian apologists, over the previously prevailing theory of a more or less steady-state universe that always was pretty much the same as it is now. It allows the question “What caused the Big Bang?” to be answered, “God!” Cf J.P. Moreland.
I have a hard time not viewing that opinion as dogmatic bigotry. Withholding your respect for religion is completely understandable, but withholding your respect of a person just because they hold different beliefs than you is pretty single-minded. There are so many more dynamics to a person than that. It’s not anyone’s fault they were given these assumptions as a child. Some people’s personalities or intelligence are better suited to other roles than in critically challenging ideas (especially ones rooted in with strong emotions).
This militant atheism has become garbage. I’ll admit there is merit in ridicule as a rhetorical device, but that should only apply to the beliefs themselves and outspoken aggressive extremists. Member’s of this new wave of atheism don’t sound like they’re trying to change anyone’s mind, but just assert how much more intelligent they are. It’s probably not in short due to the narcissistic culture of social media giving rise to it.