Religious self-consistency

Great Debates
1

One of the major turn-offs of the few religions I have been exposed to is the lack of internal consistency. Try as I might, I can not take seriously the tortured and often unintentionally comical explanations that are offered up on a particular church’s doctrines. Since I am trying to educate myself and not insult anyone, I refrain from examples here.

Also, to keep it manageable I would like to assume the Old Testament is the true, divine word of God. I don’t actually believe that, but am willing to accept it for purposes of religious debate. It doesn’t have to follow that every word in the OT must to be taken literally. My apologies in advance to those whom base their beliefs on other religious works, they are just outside the scope of this particular discussion. When I say religion here, I mean Bible-based religions – again, for no other reason but to keep a tighter focus.

What I’m looking for here:
What religion is most consistent with the Bible?
Which takes the fewest cuts with Occam’s razor?
Which has the less tortured interpretations of the Bible?
What religion has the most historical support for it’s teachings outside the Bible?
Extra-Biblical records of events and personalities?
Continuous histories to present day?
What religion has the fewest additions/subtractions from the Bible?
What religion has the fewest contradictions between its doctrine and the Bible?
What religion has the fewest changes from inception to modern day?
Etc.

Basically, what religion makes the most sense if the religious work on which it is based is accepted as a given? If you wanted to be a bit more provocative, which religion is the hardest for a non-believer to dismiss out of hand (again, assuming one accepts the OT as “true”)?

I’m no scholar, just wanting input from people more educated than I on this matter. I’m not interested in the IPU, personal “revelations”, contradictions with known science, or prayers for my soul, just internal consistency as seen from an outside non-believer.

2

What do you consider a “religion”? Seems to me “read the Bible and do everything it says” would best fit the Bible. If you’re looking for what set of beliefs fits the best with the Bible, isn’t the Bible itself the automatic winner?

3

The more I look at your question, the more impossible to answere it becomes.

I suppose the fundumentalist are the most consistant with the Bible- they certainly try to be. But they are the easiest for non-believers to dispute, for the very reason that they try to make the Bible literal, modern, truth. I suggest Karen Armstrong (History of God, Battle for God) for an explaination of logos vs. mythos, and an idea of the ancient cultures’ conception of truth.

Why do you want to start with the Bible as divine word anyway? That’s a pretty big assumption. And really the bible doesn’t fit into any religion. It’s a very weird book.

4

If you want to start with the OT, I suppose one of the branches of Judiaism would be your best choice. I would guess Conservative, but I’ll let our “rebs” debate THAT. Christianity does not follow the OT Laws much at all. Nor does the Muslim Religion, altho they are somewhat closer. No other religion follows the Bible, unless you consider Mormonism, or some of the Christian Sects to not be “Christian”, but in any case, the OT Laws are not adhered to.

5

It would be the “Orthodox.” Conservative Judaism holds, as a tenet, the belief that God did not author the Torah.

6

As sdimbert says, “Orthodox” is the one most consistent with the “Old Testament” (or, as we call it, the Torah).

Just figured that as one of the “Rebs” danielinthewolvesden was referring to, I’d check in with that.

Although I dare say most southerners would be very reluctant to refer to me as a “reb.” :slight_smile:

7

in answer to all your questions… me:)

but really you cant be consistent with the bible because its just a history book… not really something to be consistent with:)

8

Okies, ** sdimbert ** and ** cmkeller **

The Torah and the later books of the prophets do contain internal inconsistencies. I’m sure the Talmud addresses and resolves them, but how? I could look it up in the Talmud myself, but have you guys seen how looooong it is? :wink:

Are their general rules, such as one book of the Torah trumps the others (esp. the prophets), or some rules are more guidelines, whilst some must be strictly observed?

Thankee in advance,

V.

9

Hey, SuaSponte, before I answer your question, let me ask one quickie of my own:

How does a thermonuclear reactor work?

Get it? ;j

I can’t answer your question as written. Are there specific “inconsistencies” between books of the Bible which bother you?

On one leg, I would suggest that most “inconsistencies” are due to lousy translations from the original Hebrew. But to go any further, I need names, dates, serial numbers…

10

As sdimbert pretty much said: there’s a lot of these apparent contradictions, and the Talmud does deal with resolving them. There’s no specific rule for resolving apparent contradictions, and no one verse “trumps” another, however, there are specific principles that Rabbis use as guidelines in Biblical interpretation. However, it really is too much to go into in a forum such as this. As he said, if there’s any specific one that bugs you, we can try to track down the answer, but we can’t explain the entire Bible to you on a message board.

Chaim Mattis Keller

11

Dammit guys, I want you to do my work for me!! :smiley:

Actually, cmkeller did answer my question - the Talmud does directly address and resolve apparent inconsistencies. I didn’t/don’t want to point to particular ones, as any post like that too often devolve into a “your religion sucks cause it doesn’t all make sense” debate, which is not where I want to go.

However, it can be funny - I recently got emailed an open letter to Dr. Laura “asking” for help with Biblical interpretation in light of her reliance on Leviticus to condemn homosexuality. My favorite question was:

The rest of the letter was a hoot, too. ;j

V. (not Jewish, but I love that Smiley!)

12

Church of the Free Spirit.

ditto.

I think Free Spirit wins hands down.

Hmmm. Hard to say here. The F.S. regards the Bible as just a book, and love (or the free spirit herself) as a guiding universal which touches the hearts of all people.

Well, the most visible “modern day” leader was Margurite Porete. She was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church in the early thirteenth century (you’ve heard of the French Inquisition, I suppose).

Again, not big into books, I’m afraid, especially after Ms. Porete’s book caused her to get rather, how shall we say, hot under the collar? Apostolic sucession back to James I guess, although it is highly uncentralized, so that is not in the Catholic sense. It is still alive and kicking in the US though – I went “undercover” to research it and found a few scattered members here and there.

I don’t know. I’d say this church as a whole isn’t a big fan of Paul’s letters, or at least some later day glosses people put on them.

Excepting areas where that collection of books may contractic the holy spirit, in which areas the book is wrong :wink:

I can’t say it has changed much. I mean other xtians talk about “early christians”. The Free Spirits are them.

I don’t know – does love count as a religious work or are you looking for something a little more tanglible?

I feel many non- or ex- xtians in the US left their churches because of a sense of hypocracy (sp?) in the leadership. The rest, like myself, were just pagans deep down and didn’t see much of a point. I think other so called xtians dismiss the F.S. (or burn them at the stake depending on the mores of the time) because they want to go to heaven without doing the work.

Even though I’m an atheist now, I still think love is a universal and so is truth. How do you mean the OT is “true”? Historically? I don’t think it matters.

I don’t know what ipu is. You might want to read Porete’s “Mirror of Simple Souls” from the Paulist Press and get back to me. I don’t know what you are looking for, but I hope you find it.

13

I’ve never heard of the Church of the Free Spirit. Do they have an official website? I looked around for one and couldn’t find any, although they appear to be loosely associated with UU in some areas.

14

Website? I guess with public libraries and free web space anything is possible. What is the UU?

15

Universal Unitarianist; a very liberal sort of church. Esprix’s the big UU proponent on this MB, so he would know more than I; they’re very accepting of nearly all religions, sort of a “find your own way” sort of church, in my untutored opinion. Anyhow, a quick web seach turned up mention of the Church of the Free Spirit at UU websites.

16

Yeah, OK. I should expect that with the limited number of nouns you can string togather to for the name of a church that a http://www.search would be imprecise (church, truth, free, saint, mary, jesus, christian, first, second, spririt, god, christian, love, bible, etc.). Like I said, this isn’t centrally organized. There are verious free floating “cells”. I really can’t promise it dates back much further than 1200 – I would only like to think so. Remember though that Protestants didn’t show up for another 200 years. You might have better luck under “brethren of the free spirit” although this was the name of the german counterpart to the french movement and I can’t vouch for them. And besides, brethren is kind of sexist in these PC times.

17

The Ryan asked:

Very roughly, a codified set of beliefs based on assumed divine literary works. I’m not trying to play semantic games (but see below.)

betenoir asked:

As I said in the OP, just to keep focus. Also, these groups are the ones with which I have had the most exposure.

I find it quite easy to dismiss most religions as a viable belief system based on what I personally consider common sense - the need for internal consistency.

Thanks to jmullaney. Never heard of The Church of Free Spirit before. It sounds like the UU, which I personally consider a non-religion. I don’t mean that as an insult, just that I don’t consider the “Whatever works for you churches” religions.

Again, I’m just trying to educate myself a little in terms of what holds up the best against outside investigation.

18

Sdim & CMK: but he wants the religion with the least additions to the OT Bible, and the Talmud, altho Holy and inspired is not part of the Bible. Orthodoxy depends heavily on Talmudic rules & interpretations, right?

And I am not going to say that “separate dishes” is a rather “tortured” interpretation of “thou shall not seeth the meat of a kid in it’s mother’s milk”, but… I am not saying that it is wrong, just that based simply on the Torah, and without any Rabbinical rulings or Oral tradition, it does not directly follow.

Please note, we are just trying to play by his rather restrictive “rules”, I am not saying that the Talmud is not inpired & Holy. Clearly, Orthodoxy is the most Observant, by definition, but what if we are limiting ourselves soley to the OT?

19

Hmmm… I guess I see where you might be coming from. I mean if you peg your doctrine of faith to love of god rather than the sanctity of the Bible, what is to keep a church from drowning under the weight of people who’s idea of love is how they feel about a baloney sandwich? With mustard. Or mayo. Or both; whatever works for you.

I guess that was always my great doubt with xtianity in general, and why, to quote the mailbot “I’ve given up – sorry things didn’t work out.” I mean – do people know what love is? And if they don’t, were this possible, how in the heck to you teach anyone love, whether through a book like the bible or otherwise? Or, if everyone knows what love is by the nature of their divinity, and they simply fail to act on it due to various selfish motives, how do you convince them of the error of their ways? Oh well, I can’t even save myself anymore but food for thought.

But what was if Fr. Mullady used to say? To paraphrase, “some people want to put a happy face on a cross and call that christianity.” He used to have a TV show on CATV. I suspect his show got yanked precisely because he wasn’t happy-faced-on-a-cross enough.
. . |
– :slight_smile: –
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Spooky, huh? I think that describes most of the protestant sects, and increasingly catholic and orthodoxy, too, no flames please. So I can see why when I say “it is all about the love, man” this might be the image that comes to mind and you think – oh, ultra-liberal protestant. Been there, done that.

You do have a good point about the UU et al. – if you believe all belief is entirely fungible, you will have an inherently coherent belief system.

Me? I believe I’ll have another beer.

20

Daniel**:
Yes, Orthodoxy depends heavily on the Talmud for interpretation of the OT. But, you have to remember that, from the Orthodox perspective, the contents of the Talmud were delivered at Sinai, along with the OT.

**

There were Jews who limited themselves to the OT: Pharisees (right, Chaim?). They have disappeared (completely, I believe) probably because a lifestyle guided “solely by the OT” is not viable - it is not what the author intended.