Ah, so no cite and just a bunch of random shit that you want to blame on all Christians. You barely see any positive, you don’t see that there are Christians on both sides of every one of these issues, you fail to see that it is not just Christians that act this way as well. This website alone shows that you don’t have to be a Christian to be a judgmental asshole.
Christians have a lot of influence because we are a majority Christian nation. However, if your dire control numbers were to be believed then abortion would be illegal, birth control would be illegal, etc. They are not because plenty of Christians vote the other way.
And I do not minister to the poor as a recruiting drive. That is offensive enough to take this thread to the pit.
So what does this have to do with a literal vs non-literal reading of the Bible? If you want to start a different thread about how hard Christians suck, feel free.
Unless you are the officially designated representative of Christianity, I’m not sure you personally have anything to Pit him for, since you personally weren’t accused of anything.
In the story, because she’s been told. Little kids are told “stop bouncing on the couch, you’ll fall down and hurt yourself”. Five bounces later, BAM! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
The smart kids eventually figure out that when Mom says “stop that, you’ll hurt yourself,” it’s best to stop that, in their own self-interests. The dumb ones keep hitting their heads against the coffee table. There are problems when someone abuses potestas to get their subordinates to do things which are, in fact, not in the subordinates’ best interests - but that’s why we call it ABuse, and those someones are… breaking the “think of the long-term consequences” rule themselves.
The “she’s been told” is one of the parts that’s shorthand for something a lot longer. How long do you want the gloss?
ETA: Oh, and if you give me that crap about “I only believe what I have tested myself”, I’ll give you my standard answer: “would you like to check whether solutions of KCN are poisonous to humans? No? Oh well gee, guess there are times when you don’t need to pee on the electrified fence yourself then.”
Where’s your evidence that the MAJORITY of Christians are doing any of that? This looks to me as “I’ve seen some do this, therefore they all do this, therefore they are all evil”. Logic fail, dude.
Don’t bother arguing with Lobohan, he’s made up his mind that Christians are teh evil despite the fact it’s like saying all left-handed people are bad, or all redheads, or all people who like rock music. Whatever scale of human behavior you want to come up with Christians are spread across the spectrum because they’re just normal, non-monolithic people.
Which had a very short run and was never completely implemented because it was rejected by the majority Christian population
Which has not resulted in any actual changes to laws because it is opposed by the majority Christian population
Which remains legal because it is supported by the majority Christian population
Which is a major cultural change with a mixed set of results, (typical of any social upheaval), with some actions supporting it and some actions favoring it in our majority Christian population
with very little support acrosss the broader spectrum of the majority Christian population
again with very little support acrosss the broader spectrum of the majority Christian population.
So of the actual actions in society to which you can point, a majority of Christians are not doing those things of which you accuse them.
The rest of your little list is a mixture of more stuff in which some Christians engage and many Christians do not, followed up with a flourish of your own prejudices.
You are simply trying to claim that “Christians” are doing bad things, even though a majority of them are either not engaged or actively opposed to the stuff over which your are upset.
You are not persuasive.
In the fifth century, a bishop was much more likely to be publicly punished for unorthodox statements than anyone else. More to the point, by becoming the person who actually set down the theology in a set form, Augustine’s words–including the way in which he contradicted the literal meaning of Genesis while providing a figurative alternative interpretation was establishing the figurative and not the literal meaning as the “official” position.
Actually, Galileo was never imprisoned and the challenges to his works were not in any way based on references to the clearly poetic parts of the bible.
Actually, we do know this because the Inquisition kept fastidious notes on their hearings and trials and those documents have been pored over with great scrutiny, (often by people who have set out to find bad things the church has done). If there were hundreds, or even dozens, of people who had been silenced for challenging the literal nature of the bible, they would not only be known, they would be lionized by every person or group who had an axe to grind against the church. We even have clear examples of that process. Giordano Bruno is often held up as a martyr for science. Now, he did, indeed, engage in a number of pre-scientific studies and he was, indeed, burned at the stake. However, the crime for which he was executed was to deny that Jesus was God. I do not grant the church the right to execute people for heresy, but the claims that the church was suppressing science, in this case, are simply false.
Your grasp of history, whether it is in regard to the operation of the church in the fifth century or the sixteenth century is woefully tenuous.
You need to look at each of those issues above, the reason there is any push on them at all is Christianity. That many Christians are sane, reasonable people is undeniable, but that’s because they ignore Christianity as it suits them.
For example, a lady I know is a Catholic. She stays in a loveless marriage because as a Catholic she doesn’t want to get a divorce. However, she’s had an abortion and uses birth control… well maybe not now, I don’t know how much of the humina-huminia they’re getting nowadays.
She ignores her religion when the practical necessities of her life abut against them. I contend most Christians are like this. They are shallow Christians because they want joy and happiness in their life. So they balance the delusions of Christianity with the pragmatic necessities of reality.
But, the shitty part, is those people still see Christianity as a sign of morality and decency. So what we get is low-information Christians more likely to vote for anyone who’s clutching a bible.
All Christianity is irrational, but a fair amount are batshit-insane. The tepid believers empower the wingnuts like Bachmann or Perry and elect loons into positions of power. Without Christianity as a movement the issues you causally dismissed above would be mousefarts in a storm, the amount of support they have in this country would evaporate.
No, they ignore your straw-man characature of Christianity. A Catholic who uses birth control may disagree with a specific teaching of the leadership of their chosen flavor of the church, but they are not “ignoring Christianity” out of personal convenience.
All of the issues you’ve named have become associated with Christianity in our present culture, but none of them actually essential elements of Christianity. You’ve also apparently chosen to overlook Christian influence and leadership in issues like abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights.
Yes they are. The Catholic church gets to decide what a good Catholic is. Deviation from that to suit the pressures of reality is divergence from the Church’s positions.
If your brand of Christianity has a rule, and you disregard it, you’re ignoring the rule.
Abolition, suffrage and civil rights were divergences from Christian tradition. For almost two thousand years Christianity wasn’t overly concerned with slavery or women’s rights. It took society growing up to make those changes.
As for those issues I mentioned, they are totally related to Christianity. It has a long history of demonizing sexuality, hating homosexuals and supporting the fantasy notion of a soul. The idea of a soul is certainly the main reason for people disliking abortion and some forms of birth control.
As I say, I assume a lot of Christians are reasonable, but that’s because they can edit out the chunks of their church’s teachings until it’s a bland pap of, “Love everyone, man” and “Everything happens for a reason.”
I think this is a tough question. While I don’t know about the specific ones you cited, I thought something else and didn’t see it in the discussion here.
I thought the idea of religion was a holder of human’s knowledge during the bronze age? The idea being that certain foods were not allowed because “unclean” meant disease more times than not due to not being able to take care of food, or prepare it in a way that would make it safe.
For example, maybe people see animals eat something and assume it’s not poisonous and then they eat it. But, the people can’t digest it the same way as the animals, and so while it might have some benefit, it might be worse overall. And religion, and the restrictions on diet in the bible, seem to be about what they knew how to prepare.
Then, going by this report Who wrote the Bible? (Part 1) - The Straight Dope, we also have the other reasons the bible was written. One of those was to codify and have laws, which make a civilization possible. or at least humans collaborating because they agree on how to act and interact with others.
I’m not saying it’s a perfect instruction book for humans. But I’m wondering if that’s what got it started. Then, after millenia of living under the OT, people had learned how to prepare things and how to get along with others. (The argument is whether or not they did it and they probably didn’t.) So, part of the reason of the NT, I think and it’s purely my opinion, is that people wanted more and were looking for more. Or they understood these basics, and you have Aristotle and others asking for more. More meaning of life and what it’s all about and what they should do. Again, not everyone does that, but some do. They needed more and the NT came along and gave them more.
I think what surprises me is that I learn more about the bible every time this comes up. It was a fluid document, to some extent, for a long time. People added to it as they wanted to explain more, as detailed in the straight dope article in that the P(riest) writer wanted to do different things than the D(eutoronomist) writer and so they changed/added to the books. And this leads to the surprise of people stopping that practice of updating it when they got more understanding of a topic. Think about what the bible would be like if the great thinkers of the enlightenment were allowed to explain how god had done things in scientific terms?
Sorry Lobohan, this shows a total ignorance of Christianity. Christianity and “the Church” are not synonomous. The Church has frequently been on the wrong side of history, depending on who you ask.
That’s not what you said above. I’ll grant that your friend is choosing to ignore (or, more accurately, reject) certain parts of Catholic teaching. Maybe that makes her a bad Catholic; not being Catholic myself I’m not inclined to judge her on that point. But it doesn’t mean she’s not a Christian or that she is a bad Christian, or even less that she’s “ignoring Christianity.” You seem to think that Christianity is some kind of rulebook or political platform or something, and that actions or opinions about cultural issues are somehow either Christian or not. That’s not the case.
Wrong on the first two counts. Slave’s rights and women’s rights in the Bible are radically progressive compared to the culture of the time.
There have always been some Christians who demonize sex in general and homosexuality in particular, but neither of those are essential components of Christianity. The concept of a soul predates Christianity by millenia and is hardly unique to it. Also your argument that the doctrine of the human soul is the the main reason for anti-abortion and birth control movements makes no sense, do you have a cite for that? It’s like saying people wouldn’t have a problem with murder except for the belief in a soul.
Snarkiness aside, it really makes me sad that you think this; I feel bad for you – not because you’ve rejected real Christianity (which I have no problem with) but becuase you’ve constructed this weird, misshapen monster you think is Christianity and rejected THAT.
If you ask a modern 21st century person from a first world democracy, I’d think they’d agree with that.
You seem to think Christianity can’t be held to any standards. Saying that some branch of Christianity somewhere doesn’t think X, doesn’t mean that the mass of Christians are moving the country in a desirable direction.
Even stipulating that that is true (which I don’t, I’d need to see some info on first century Christianity vs Roman mores to be convinced on that point) the fact is that it was way behind modern standards. A supernatural Jesus presumably would realize that slavery and suffrage were important issues, yet he left them on the sidelines for millennia?
As I say, the further into the future we go, the more people realize that historical Christianity was wretched. So modern churches throw off the particularly evil bits. But it’s a slow progress and right now, Christianity in general is still plenty vile.
None of this even mentions that the supernatural elements of Christianity is a bald assertion without a single bit of evidence to support it.
All religions are stupid and counterproductive, but Christianity is the thrust of this thread.
Nonsense. Not having a soul makes murder worse.
Why does, “life begin at conception”? The reason we punish murder is that a conscious human being is ended. A fetus isn’t conscious until far into the pregnancy. A fetus is essentially brain-dead for the first chunk of its existence. Aside from sentimentality, what is the argument for ending an early-stage fetus?
If you think this isn’t an issue, do a search for, “Do aborted babies go to heaven.”
Nonsense. Christianity is foremost an irrational delusion that makes people feel good. But they trade that personal sense of happiness for societal pressures that make the country as a whole shittier.
Just because some super-liberal branch of Christianity is great and loves gays and is pro-abortion and birth control, and is all about love and happiness, doesn’t mean that the overall mass of Christians in this society are doing good things for it.
And even if at some future date, all Christians are of the happy, super-liberal variety, they’ll still be promulgating a delusional view of reality that has no evidence supporting it. Which in my opinion, would still make it of little value.
God stays faithful to whom? Himself? I haven’t the foggiest as to what this means.
Many of the bad things that happen in the Bible are caused by God. The Flood is prime example of this. Even if man’s corruption and not God is the ultimate blame for this massively tragic do-over, it puts into question of any notion that God is or has ever been faithful. Whatever faithful is supposed to mean.
There already was a civilization when the Bible was written, and cultures of people interacting existed before literacy and before Bibles. Many ancient civilizations which did quite well did not have Bibles, in fact.
Any dietary or cultural restrictions in the Bible might have come from some early good reasons, or they might be accidental. Certainly almost all of them were regularly violated by other cultures with no ill-effects. The Bible is a snapshot of legend at a given time, and a snapshot of the origin legends of a particular culture.The concept of scientific truth hadn’t been invented yet.