Diogenes…
About the context of scriptures used as proofs for Jesus. What do you have to say about the ones in Isiah 53?
vecause love is an example of trustowrthy reasoning by faith. Nor do I think love and religious faith are mutually exclusive. Some would argue they were the same. Your generalization that you do not trust those who reason with faith (wich contradicts logic and sense) just ruled out all those who have faith in those they love as anyone you would trust.
The traditional Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 53 is that it refers to the nation of Israel. It’s an allegory about the suffering of Israel at the hands of gentiles. It’s not a messianic prophesy.
Spite:
Yes, I am a very fortunate person. I have had people in my life who have loved me without condition. That doesn’t mean that they don’t get angry with me. It just means that they always return to a place of love and acceptance. I have also had people in my life who have been very mean to me but that meanness was not based in love. If you have had the experience of someone being mean and cold to you, have you ever considered that what they are feeling is not love? It might be possessiveness or control or jealousy masquerading as love.
I believe this description of love to be true:
If you disagree with this description of love, then what is your understanding?
Reactor:
Shodan:
Speaking only for myself – Criticize? Yes. Challenge? Yes. Condemn? No.
You’re putting the cart before the horse. It seems to be the norm that people come to love someone they already trust.
If someone I loved betrayed my trust, I would trust them less. Betray my trust enough times, and I’ll trust someone not at all. I don’t trust all those who I love, nor do I love all those whom I trust.
I VERY specifically worded it so that that WASN’T what I said. You don’t think I have no religious friends, do you? What I said was “I don’t trust the reasoning of people who take faith . . . over reasoning.”
Spite:
Do you think that faith always contradicts logic and sense?
In my own opinion, ultimately they will lead to the same place. We’re just no there yet.
On judgements. IIRC, Jesus never condemned/judged any individual. He ate bread with the person one who was about to betray him. He did judge the hypocrytical saducees, pharisees and temple money changers, but do we know any of them by name?
But to read Paul’s letters, one can come away with a clear picture of human frailty in the criticism of individuals who have opposed him and challenged his divine authority. He can sound downright dysfunctional. In fact Paul reverts to old testament edicts on judging others, demonstrating how powerful this drag on the human condition is.
So if I had to choose between Jesus and Paul, I choose Jesus hands down. But I still say that Paul was given divine insights. No human being is perfect.
I just went and read it again. Um… I wouldn’t agree with that. Even if you take every “he” and replace it with “Israel”, and try to make it fit, it still doesn’t make any sense with that interpretation. <- personal opinion, obviously.
Joe Random, your posts are refreshingly lucid.
I agree.
Tomndebb:
*No. What you do is pretend to attack “liberal” hypocrisy and then change the discussion to what “fundies” do if your attack is shown to be factually in error. Your persistent dishonesty is what stands out. (“Liberal” and “fundy” being your terms.)
It does not bother me that anyone challenges any Christian belief. There are a number of people of integrity on this MB who have no use for Christianity or religion or any belief in a god. I simply find your dishonest method of argumentation (equivocation of terms, assigning arguments to people who have not made them, etc,) to be tiresome:*
Alright, I really don’t think your argument elicits any differences of merit but evidently you do and as such I’ll respond in greater depth
*quote:
Lev.19:15
“In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”
OF course, when one is not carefully culling (mis)quotes to make a point, one notices that the actual command is
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.
or, rendered in the NIV
'Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
In other words, when one is called to judge in a case of law, refrain from allowing the wealth of one party to compromise your decision.*
Great Tom. This verse is giving instructions on how to judge others. Don’t let wealth effect fair judgment. Still it says to judge just as I quoted. I really don’t see what the argument is.
*quote:
Jn.7:24
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
The “judgement” in this passage is not the judging of a person, but the application of good judgement to situations. (I realize that among those who wish to impose arbitrary literalism on everything, such complex distinctions are difficult.)*
Again, instructions on how to judge. In this case Jesus was saying to the Jews that they were judging him unfairly for healing on the Sabbath day and should should rather make a righteous judgment, not no judgment.
*quote:
1 Cor.2:15
“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.”
Again, the passage clearly establishes that the judgement is applied to situations or actions, not to people. Only in the second clause is a judgement of a person, indicated, and there it says “he will not be judged.”*
I disagree. It says the spiritual man can judge all things, it does not say all things except people. It does not say that people can not be judged but rather that “spiritual” people can not be judged. I don’t think it unreasonable to conclude that spiritual people are allowed to judge non-spiritual people based on this account. Sure this conflicts a little with Jesus asking to be judged righteously above, but it’s the bible, what do you expect.
*quote:
1 Cor.5:12-13
“For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”
At last! We actually have an instance in which a person may be judged! And what is Paul’s actual command? If someone among the community of Corinth is publicly engaging in immorality, or engaging in greedy or swindling business practices, or committing idolatry, they are to be excluded from the community to avoid giving scandal, (i.e., excommunicated.) There is no command to judge the person, only to judge the actions, and if they give scandal, to put the person outside the community. And what does he say of those outside the community? God will judge them.*
This judge the person vs. judge the deed is a false dichotomy if you ask me, and as I stated earlier, ask anyone doing the judging (be them fundy or whatever) and they will tell you that they don’t hate the sinner only the so called sin. Polycarp thinks he should not be getting judged as such he started this thread but if you ask most of the people doing said judgements, they would say it’s nothing personal they just don’t agree with his behavior. For some reason it seems to inflame you that I don’t make the same distinction you make and you think this is some copout but I don’t see any objective way to distinguish between judging a behavior and the person. Perhaps this point is debatable in itself but I don’t think I am being even remotely hypocritical on my stance here. With regards to the above verse, it is again a how-to on judgment not an admonishment.
*quote:
1 Cor.6:2-3
“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?.”
Paul is addressing the issue of members of the Corinthian community filing tort actions against each other over petty complaints. He notes that at the end, the saints will be qualified to judge the world, but that at this time, the community should be able to find some wise member to act as a judge or mediator for small disputes so that they are not giving scandal outside the community.
Again, no one is given permission (much less a commmand) to judge the quality of a person–only to referee private disputes between individuals.*
Same as I said above. As such I think it a little strong to say that my “attack is shown to be factually in error” and all that about “persistent dishonesty”, etc. etc.
Polycarp:
But, my friend, Scripture repeatedly characterizes God as predominantly loving;
How much scripture do you have to ignore (or define as non-scripture) to come up with such a statement?
badchad:
Have you ever loved a person and hated some of the things that person did?
I hate it when a teenage friend of mine smokes, drinks and drives too fast. But I absolutely adore her.
Because I love her unconditionally, being objective about the difference in her behavior and her comes natural to me.
Well, the persistent dishonesty is the way in which you change your arguments to make each post an attack. You have already done it in this thread: first claiming that “liberals” could not deal with certain passages, then, when your errors were pointed out, pointing top the fact that “fundies” might not agree. You also did it in your first response to me, when you claimed that you needed to take positions with which you did not agree in order to make your point. However, I had not accused you of error in that debating tactic (which can be done legitimately), I was noting the point that I have just made–that you change your argument in mid-stream. You judge “fundies” by one standard and “liberals” by a different standard, but you are willing to inconsistently judge “fundies” by your purported “liberal” standard and “liberals” by your purported “fundy” standard, as long as you think you are scoring points.
As to your attempts to respond to my points: they are simply word games. Claiming that the “judgement” of a court case is forbidden because Christians are called upon to not pass judgement on a person’s soul is equivocation. The “judgment” is not the same or equal in both cases. By the standard you set, I would presume that if you come upon a car parked along the road after passing a “Do Not Pass” sign, you always come to a stop and wait for the car to be moved, since you cannot “pass” it. After all, the same words are being used for the command and the action. Given that you are attempting to impose one-meaning-for-all-occasions on the word judgement (and that no rational or honest person would do so) I am forced to conclude that your efforts, here, are either irrational or dishonest. My conclusion has been based on observing your posts in other threads.
Deciding with whom I will consort, and to whom I am willing to give my trust are judgments. And it is inevitable, given human nature, that those will become judgments of people, not just judgments of acts. I get used to the way people act, and I expect them to act that way in the future. Making such decisions according to my beliefs is making judgments of people based on my religion. It’s kind of inevitable.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. If others do think it wrong, that is their judgment, and they will live with it. But the matter behind this unavoidable set of choices is not whether I should, or can make such judgments, for I certainly will, and therefore can. And so will everyone else of near normal intelligence. And aside from personal friction, it won’t much matter to anyone.
What gets folks ire up is when such judgments are presented as having an authority greater than just being my decisions, and my opinions. No one really cares how I feel about faggots, or Republicans, if all I am doing is deciding whom I am willing to spend time with. But if I am claiming that my reasons are a matter of religion, I am claiming, by extension that God feels just like I do about faggots and Republicans.
If I pray to the Lord, and assure Him that I am never going to be a Republican, or a faggot, that is a matter between the Lord and I. But if I try to talk the Republicans and faggots into changing who they are, or what they do because of God, that is me, pretending I am God. I really hate that.
Be who you think the Lord wants you to be. Don’t be tentative about it, be it. But you are not God, and you don’t get to save any souls, and you don’t get to live any life but your own. If you want to fight crime, that is a legal matter, and you have to get the office of doing so from the government that defines what crime is, or you are a criminal yourself. If you want to fight sin, you stop sinning. Stopping other people from sinning is not your office. Loving them is, but that is an entirely different matter.
Of course I am mostly a man of faith, so everyone who wishes can consider my opinions illogical, and unreasonable. I certainly don’t mind. I only use logic as a tool, and reason is just one way to think about things, as far as I can tell. The world seems a bit larger than either of them.
Tris
“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” ~ John Locke ~
tomndebb…
Well said 
Tomndebb:
Well, the persistent dishonesty is the way in which you change your arguments to make each post an attack. You have already done it in this thread: first claiming that “liberals” could not deal with certain passages, then, when your errors were pointed out, pointing top the fact that “fundies” might not agree.
A) You didn’t point out errors you only think you did.
B) You brought up the point that there were judgments of action and judgments of the person. I disagreed with you that people who were said to be judging Poly (me and some fundies) were judging anything other than his actions or in this case statements. If any of the accused judgers in this case, who would make your above mentioned distinction want to chime in and say they were judging Poly’s alleged immortal soul rather than his behavior they can chime in right now and set me straight.
You judge “fundies” by one standard and “liberals” by a different standard, but you are willing to inconsistently judge “fundies” by your purported “liberal” standard and “liberals” by your purported “fundy” standard, as long as you think you are scoring points.
You lost me, example?
As to your attempts to respond to my points: they are simply word games.
Really? That’s what I would say your points are.
Claiming that the “judgement” of a court case is forbidden because Christians are called upon to not pass judgement on a person’s soul is equivocation. The “judgment” is not the same or equal in both cases.
Unless your using a different definition of judgment than I am the differences are of degree at best and not kind. I would hope that in the final judgment god would try to be fair and impartial, but considering his record, probably not.;). However from my perspective there is no soul, so any judgment that I made, which got me the “judge not” quotes were certainly not of anything other than on statements and reported behavior. From the Christian perspective (guilty parties can chime in to tell me I’m wrong), I would bet it’s the same.
Given that you are attempting to impose one-meaning-for-all-occasions on the word judgement (and that no rational or honest person would do so) I am forced to conclude that your efforts, here, are either irrational or dishonest. My conclusion has been based on observing your posts in other threads.
You’re too judgmental. BTW, only one e in judgment.
This discussion. You made two claims that the “liberals” would have to dodge the question, and when your claims were noted as erroneous, you switched the point to say that the fundies would disagree–avoiding the issue that you have mischaracterized the “liberal” position. I pointed this out back on this thread on 06-16-2003 02:48 AM.
You continue playing the game in this post, claiming that because you don’t believe in a soul, the actions described by Christian writers have to be the same for all the uses of the verb “to judge” as you would characterize them. They are not–and you know it, but acknowledging that would not provide you as much amusement.
ISTM that badchad’s point here is both valid and straightforward - you guys may be talking past each other here. The premise of Polycarp’s position is that others (presumably “fundies”) are judging others, in violation of Christian principles. The counterpoint to this is that some judgment is inevitable if one is to maintain any set of principles (this point was also made by Shodan and possibly others). The counter-counterpoint is that these types of judging are different, because they involve judging actions, not people. To which badchad is responding that the subjects of Polycarp’s initial criticism (i.e. the “fundies”) are also criticizing the actions and not the people, so that if one if one allows for this type of judgment, the entire criticism falls apart.
(OTOH, I do agree with you about the distinction between a court rendering judgment and a person rendering judgment)