No it isn’t - it’s an example of where there is a tension between a scripture’s tenets and modern life, and you’ve just demonstrated perfectly the hand waving that is made by believers of that particular faith why it doesn’t apply to them. I’m quite familiar with the concept of the New Covenant, however it would appear that most Christians aren’t because the religious establishment that Christ was so keen to sweep away as it was a barrier between God and man was replaced by one that was even worse less than 500 years later - an institution that you could go as far as to say was worse as it did in fact ultimately try to prevent people even being able to read their own scripture. All of this was done without any substantial scriptural basis, just interpretation of what Christ would have wanted in his absence (which Peter and his successors took upon themselves to decide on behalf of everyone).
Bolding mine. In other words, they’ve applied different interpretations to the same thing and come up with different conclusions, and I’m quite sure that part of the interpretation is choosing which bits are more important than others.
That’s not quite true. In the New Testament, for example, the proscriptions against eating certain types of food is rescinded and you don’t have to be living under Mosaic law (circumcision was part of this) to become a Christian.
My older sister, who does consider herself a biblical literalist and proudly says that she does not cherry-pick her Bible, would say that the food prohibitions are an example of ritual requirements, which are not binding on Xtians, while many others are.
This came up when I was horrified to hear her preparing to teach a Sunday School class about I Samuel 15; the substance of her (assigned) topic was that it was perfectly okay that God had ordered the Israelites to massacre the Amalekites down to the baby born yesterday for something their ancestors did.
The idea that the scripture is inerrant and supreme in the religion is a belief held only by some Protestants and some Muslims, and is totally alien to the rest of Protestants, the rest of Christianity, and the rest of Islam. It’s debatable whether Orthodox Jews believe it (the non-Orthodox certainly don’t) and it’s certain that Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Shintos, etc do not center their religion around a particular text.
The idea that one must follow a given holy book to be a member of a religion (even before you get into the difficulties of interpreting that book) is something that’s just totally alien to most people on the planet, and is something that first came into religious awareness well into post-common-era recorded history, so the answer to your question is obvious.
Thing is, who says that “Christians” are people who believe the Bible to be literally true?
I’m an atheist. To me, a Christian is someone who professes to be a follower of Christ. And who says that the only way to be a follower of Christ is to believe that every word of the Bible is literally true? According to the Bible, Jesus himself told stories that weren’t literally true to illustrate some moral point or another.
The Bible isn’t one book. It is a collection of books written in different languages at different times and different places by different people for different purposes. Even if I believed that all these people were inspired by God that wouldn’t mean I’d have to believe that every word in the Bible was dictated by God. I could be a Christian even if I believed that the Gospels were written by guys who never met Jesus personally. Similar to how I could imagine calling myself a follower of Socrates, even though we have no surviving texts written by Socrates himself, just things that were written about Socrates by various people who had various axes to grind. And knowing we’re missing the Gospel according to Alcibiades. Now THAT would have been interesting to read.
You can’t truthfully be X faith without believing in it. Some people say they are the faith they were born into. Some were bapized some are not. The ones that are not baptized are not of my faith even if they believe they are. Yes, it is a sham but some people want to identify with a group without fufilling the requirements or sacraments. It’s kind of like shacking up before marriage when shacking up is a mortal sin. The way around it is to go to confession right before the marriage ceremony.
I believe in my holy faith but I am a mere human. I am not perfect but trying to achieve spiritual perfection in my life. Why, because I get grace from it. Is it difficult to not commit a mortal sin on a daily basis? Yes it is! Try dating without sex, forgiving an enemy, loving your neighbor, attending mass every Sunday, etc. The saints became saints by their extreme holiness throughout their lives. To me I use them as a yard stick and I am always falling short. Still it does not deter me.
I do it out of love for Jesus Christ. When I mess up I confess and then try again. I try and read some scripture every day but some books are very hard to understand. Revelation is like a bad acid trip for me. Still everything I need to know is in the bible.
I agree with the tenents of my faith and I do my best to constantly improve on my weak areas. I will never be a Mother Teresa but I aspire to be like her. We all can’t be chiefs, some of us have to be Indians too!
I find it funny that atheists chime in on a topic they have not a clue about. To have a bible and a faith to follow and how to achieve it. That would be like me trying to reply on atheism which I don’t understand. I don’t have a problem with atheists but atheists sure have a problem with me. They remind me of the Grinch That Stole Christmas minus the spiritual awakening. They never espouse to writing about how wonderful atheism is or the benefits from it. The pure love of atheism and how it makes them a better person. There is no book of atheism that they follow. They have nothing to celebrate or rejoice about except in putting down/ challenging Christians. It isn’t just the atheists that put me down but other christians do to. Now how Christian is that? So much of the bible is dedicated to loving your enemies and how to forgive others.
But the Constitution was not written or inspired by the all knowing all seeing creator of the universe. It was written by humans for humans. The Bible is supposed to have either been written or inspired by a perfect entity. I would think he/she/it would be at the very least be able to inspire the Bible to be written so it was fairly understandable and rational to people across the ages.
Also, the Constitution was created so it could be ammended and changed. The Bible shouldn’t need to be changed or corrected, even though much of it is now irrelevant to modern life.
While this is true, there are some liberal Christians who reject more fundamental aspects of the belief. Shelby Spong seems to be one of the more prominent. He rejects the virgin birth and resurrection, yet he calls himself a Christian. These are not insignificant parts of the faith, but IMO the building blocks. If these basic beliefs are not held, how can they be Christians?
I agree. If Jesus was just some regular guy then he was a crazy guy. Forgiving people for sins they committed against others? A regular person doing that is just plain nuts.
I cannot defend Bible worship, theological legalisms, or sectarianism. Faith and religion are, from my point of view only vaguely related.
I believe that there is truth in the bible. I don’t pay much attention when arguments about differences of perception, or historic divisions are put forth to prove or disprove some aspect of doctrine. Doctrine is just authority given to men over the matter of faith. Men have no authority over faith. The bible tells a story of people seeking to know God. Knowing God is never a completed task.
Whether, in the opinion of the OP that means I should discard the bible is just one more man’s opinion. I find it unconvincing.
In the minds of some Christians, the Bible was written by a perfect entity. Not all.
Probably all Christians (except for the somewhat rare Christian agnostic) would say that the Bible was inspired by God, but even then they would disagree on what the word inspired means in that context. My father would say that it means “dictated.” Many others would say that the authors of the Bible were moved, by their experience of God, to write books on how said experiences had changed them, but, being human and thus limited, got a lot wrong.
No, it’s not. It’s a set of rules for a specific people at a specific time. You may wish to see it the way you describe, but the only way that’s possible is to ignore the specific teaching in the New Testament that these rules are no longer binding.
Whether or not the church was worse 500 years later is not relevant. People are sinful and infallible, and anything we do will be, at best, imperfect. Sure, the church, any church, has gone wrong over the centuries. As to Peter taking it upon himself to decide what form the church should take, well, according to the Gospels, he was sort of appointed to that position by Jesus. And in any case, Paul was probably more influential than Peter.
And you’ve done the same thing, apparently. Yes, of course people have put a good deal of time and effort and scholarship, in good faith, into understanding Scripture and coming up with what is, we hope, the correct interpretation.
It seems to me that a person could hold all orthodox Christian beliefs about what Jesus said and did and was, and could have faith in Jesus and attempt to live by his teachings, without believing that the writings about him in the Bible were any more “divinely inspired” than any other historical documents.
In any case, Christianity itself predates the Christian Bible, which suggests to me that it’s perfectly possible to be fully Christian without holding any particular belief about the Bible.
Strawman. You’ve crafted the argument and are now attacking it. Who cares what you would think? What does the actual other side actually think?
I posted above, for example, that Roman Catholics are taught that the Bible is NOT intended to serve as the “fairly understandable, rational to people across the ages” guide to what God wants – that it can only be properly understood in the context of tradition, of the magisterium, the Church’s teaching authority.
You haven’t addressed that actual argument at all. Instead, you have addrssed the argument you made yourself, and – shockingly – managed to do well against them. which is not surprising, since you’re attacking a strawman, not a real fighter.