Official Christian Thread! - Page 11

I think he just wants you to think and structure an argument.

I have been posting on these boards a long time. With a long hiatus in the middle. BR has his good and bad days as do I. In this case, I don't believe there is anything I could post no matter how well argued that would make any difference or result in any kind of civil response on this subject. Listen to the way he requests the input from me.

Not interested in a fight right now. However I do owe him an apology which I will do in another post.

I am thinking over the best way to respond, but I believe my first reply says it best. I might write more later.

So love is just a chemical thing with no real meaning? gotcha...

And religions have just adopted and morphed the story away from a "sun god"

gotcha again.

however I take a different view. It is 2011 and I don't believe in this "sun god" idea you have been arguing for ages now. I view love as a higher process than merely just meaningless chemical induced emotion that is a manifestation of a selfish subconscious yada yada yada...

Fellows

The problem is Fellows that some non-religious people see things exactly some religious people.

The sun-god meme is a classic example of this sort of non-thinking on both sides.

1) The Catholic Church, for various reasons, did undeniably incorporate pagan elements into its teaching. These had nothing whatsoever to do with the teaching of Christ

2) Some people seeing this use it to argue that Christianity is a fake.

The point is though that neither of these groups are looking at, understanding or really having anything to do with the teaching of Christ.

It's basically a case of re-labelling a meat-eater a vegetarian and then going on to prove vegetarians are liars and they kill animals.

Still don't get what corner they supposedly have painted themselves into? Do you want to say that because back then there were not detailed rulings regarding marriage, we should therefore also do without these rulings?

Rulings can change in time, back then incest-relations were tolerated and encouraged and given the absence of options understandably but that does not mean that we should act the same today, the commandments since Moses are legitimate despite different rulings or no rulings during Adam's time.

So you DO agree that things can change with time?

In the Islam thread you were arguing that things should NOT change with time.

My point is that people are inconsistent in their rationales and logic.

For example: when Cain killed Abel it was not as sin. Nowhere had God said it was and it was only revealed to be one later in the 10 Commandments.

Yet people act as if it were already forbidden by God - it never was.

So they could argue it was morally wrong - and I would agree - but they don't. They don't because that undermines the argument that commandments COME FROM GOD.

Well..in this case this one didn't. So it was not a sin..

Same as the marriage. It is illogical.

Stoning people is not a quranic ruling, in the quran the punishment for adultery is lashings for both, male and female.

In hadiths though the prophet Muhammad ordered both punishments, lashings in cases where the adulterers were not married yet, and stoning when the respective adulterer was married.

Regardless of what punishment, it was always the way to punish both adulterers, and not only the woman.

In the case of a married man for example adultering with an unmarried woman, the woman would be lashed and the man stoned, at least according to the hadiths.

Only with four witnesses to the coition - and if the woman denies she should she believed.

I see no ruling passed down in any Islamic Court EVER that has provided these witnesses.

The ruling are therefore unlawful.


I dispute these hadiths - quote them and reference them please.


Not so.

And certainly not in Saudi now.


These hadiths are invented and I can prove it to you by logic

In the time of the Prophet (saws) it was permissable for Sunnis to have temporary marriage. In fact Muhammad himself commanded it to the armies when they were away from the wives and it remained the case - and even is allowed now in Sunni Islam. I am not talking about Shi'i mu'ta - this is a Sunni ruling.

So if temporary marriage was available why would any man commit adultery and risk stoning???????????

They would just get married to the person they wanted to be 'adulterous' with.

And they did.

Hence this law did not exist. It is an invention of the later narrow-minded woman-hating clerics. The same ones who do not want you to know what temporary marriage is legal in Sunnism.

Indeed, four witnesses are necessary or the ones committing it confess it four times.





Here are some referenced: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/c...m/017.smt.html






The application of the stoning-ruling is certainly not fair or correct in saudi Arabia, pakistan and iran... stonings are done where lashings would have been the right decision, and sometimes the four witnesses nor the four confessions are there and sometimes only the woman gets punished...





That's hardly a proof, temporary marriage was indeed allowed in early islam for people that travelled far away and for prolonged times, but the practice was prohibitted after Umar's rule.

But even if temporary marriage was still allowed, it wouldn't make adultery non-existent. Remember the stoning-punishment was for adulterers who were already married. For example a married woman couldn't marry any other man before divorcing her current one, and a man who already had four wifes couldn't marry an additional one, temporary or not.

No matter the possibilities for marriage, adultery happens, there is no logic behind it.

So, seems unlikely then that the current implementation fulfills this criteria yes?


Some of these hadiths are very weak. I would argue some are even false. For example:


That bold bit it not true.

As you yourself admit, it is not in the Qur'an yet here someone in a hadith is saying that it is. This hadith is therefore false.

But let's assume that it is all true... could be. That was the climate of the time, is the same in the Old Testament.

Assuming that - would anyone argue that the laws of the OT should be enforced today?

Well...some do....we call them fundies and religious nutters....but to be honest, there are not many in Christianity that feel this way.....very, very few.

And yet their Holy Book - which some believe is the literal word of God (as do Muslims in part) commands this.

But the religion has moved on. As it should. And Islam should do the same.

God is not stuck in the 7th century.


Kicking out the Wahabis and the insane clerics would be the right decision.....we can talk about lashings later. maybe for them....


Actually it wasn't as I will prove in a moment. But we are not talking about Umar's rule...we are talking about the time of the first umma.


I assure you it is still allowed.

Nikah Misyar


As to the illogic of it - there is none. On the contrary it makes sound sense and it COMPLETELY AVOIDS ADULTERY (which is what it is designed to do):

Yes, a lot of current rulings in this regard were done unfairly and without the right requirements.



Of course some are false or weak, but there are also some valid ones.



The real question is why should this ruling be ignored, just because the western world has no rulings regarding adultery, anymore?

Is it again a question of imitation, assimilation?

There is a death-punishment for murder and adultery for married people, one can discuss how the death-punishment be executed, maybe stoning is not modern enough, how about shooting with guns? It's similar to stoning and yet more modern.






That's the traveller's marriage, and it is indeed allowed, but only when there is no fixed time contract, fixed time-marriages are only allowed within the shia-islam.

But you didn't get my point: Adultery happens even if there are methods to avoid it like marriage or traveller's marriage... People who are already married desire the wife/husband of another man/woman, it happens, and for these married adulterers the punishment is stoning, at least according to hadiths, and for those unmarried the punishment is lashings according to quran.

That all when four witnesses are there or four confessions.

Yet I can accept what science tells us is the truth as best we draw conclusion from study of it, and still have the human feelings and meanings of love, desire, anger, etc. I can still feel love as this 'higher process' you speak of, yet dont have to deny the truth and facts, to justify my knowledge.

So the best we know, is that Love is a chemical reaction in our brains, just like the highs from cocaine, heroine, ecstacy, etc. The fact that it is a naturally produced chemical in the brain, means it evolved for some reason (or if you prefer designed by god in 4004BC) , but whatever the 'cause' its there to facilitate relationships, and ultimately to get us to reproduce. If this wasnt true, we wouldnt be here to discuss it.

The fact that we are here, and all of us products of some relationship facilitated by the release of chemicals that made someone fuck, means I must be close to right

Ditto Jesus, - knowing the facts of the origins, doesnt mean I cant understand the message or philosophy.

I guess its just a fact that evolution isnt fair that some of us are capable of contemplating many levels of context of truth - and some of us arent.

I trust youre so far up your harris that you're having issue making coherant sentances. However from logical deduction, I see you present the same old argument.

Id be happy to revisit the teachings of christ - but first it would be good if someone could show me what they are - after one removes the body of work that has become corrupted, when the sun god stuff has been removed, and all the bits that were pillaged from all the other prophets and religions of the world has been removed, and all the regurgitated teachings of prior philosophers removed...

Its rather a weightless tome.....Im sure you're now thinking...i'll never get it

why the fuck is a temporary marriage necessary if you just want to screw someone for the afternoon?

What a farce.

24 hours later, not a single disclosure of one of Jesus' original teachings....

perhaps its time for you clowns to stop the bullshit, word games, sleight of hand, golden fleece goosechases, esoteric crap, and just start being honest and talking straight.

Not for me. But for all our futures.

Ps. isnt it fucking lovely that trumptman hasnt posted for a while?

What original teachings? Aren't they in the gospels for everyone to read? Believe in God and afterlife, ressurection, judgement day... do good, charity, help, love the next like yourself, heal, work good... respect the 10 commandments, don't murder, don't steal, don't commit adultery... and don't worship any gods beside God, and if you sin, regret it, try honestly not to do it again and ask God to forgive you.

no, the gospels are the sun-god stuff created by the fusion of several solar religion mythologies.

From your list, do you really think Jesus was the originator of any of those ideas? Like no one had thought of those things before 30CE.

c'mon now

The most important thing that anyone could know about the Bible is that it can easily be interpreted in vastly different ways. Do NOT trust what a particular pastor or priest or denomination might tell you, figure it out for yourself.

For instance...

I agree with this interpretation, that homosexuality was never condemned in the Bible, and to the contrary, there are many examples in the Bible showing evidence that homosexuality was widely accepted by God among His Chosen.

Now, particular churches had a very important reason for promoting a different interpretation -- property rights and growth of the church through propogation. So that's the interpretation that was spread by the priesthood. They had no reason to support homosexuality, so it was condemned, not by God, but by those who would stand to lose if population expansion among church members weren't pushed.

I agree with your interpretation - I think what one needs to realize about religion is that it ALWAYS starts with a rebel figure who is 'at war' with the ruling classes and represents a threat to the status quo.

This is easily demonstrated and not even denied by religionists: Moses had to escape from Egypt, Jesus ended up crucified by the rulers of the day, Buddha left life as a prince to give it all up and preach against it, Muhammad waged war on the Meccans and tried to bring down their system.

It is always that way.

But the status quo ALWAYS take over. And when they do they bring into all the fucked up shit the founder - now safely dead - would never have put up with or believed and in fact wanted to stop.

This is not even a matter of belief.....it's obvious from any reading of the history or facts.

Again this solar-moonbat-stuff...



Prophethood is no contest for originality, most prophets came with similar messages, the point of the prophet was always to bring these messages in times when they were forgotten or ignored or corrupted or whatever. For example the jewish world back then when Jesus brought his message was partly (the sadducees) denying the existence of an afterlife while the other part (the pharisees) were hypocritically instrumentalising the religious rules to burden the people and keep them from doing good.

The point of the prophets was often to break up the corrupting elites and to refresh the old message by living the message as an example even if it meant dying for it.

Greatest refutation ever. Seems all you are capable of doing is ad-homming me with an insinuation of mental illness. Dont worry, i wont report - im used to it, its what everyone does when they know they've lost the argument.

Isnt it interseting that the people whose supposedly seek truth, are the ones who deny it. Didnt Jesus himself prophesise that he would be denied by his disciple- or something like that, forgive me if I am a little rusty...why do you deny? why cant you just accept the truth for what (ever) it is. Even the mighty segopath doesnt have a problem with the astrotheology. Isnt it interesting that even he - cannot produce a snippet of an original teaching by Jesus...I know im on his ignore list, but you'd think she would PM you something to 'get me with' wouldnt you?


Pardon me, but didnt you claim alot of original things for Jesus in your previous post. I see you now wish to backtrack. Were you intentionally deceitful or have I just taught you something?

What do you think of the idea that 'God' is an ancient sanskrit word for Vulva? Do you see why it very much looks like the idea of 'God' originated out of / is a natural progression the fertility religion?


Who came up with this old message? I would perhaps like to worship them.

i was doing some research of the Vulva meme of God, and I came across this , perhaps you could pass your opinion (and dmz's too, or whatever he goes by these days )

http://www.sexinchrist.com/

Sorry, I don't believe at all in astrology, including astrotheology, you have to discuss it with someone who has a hint of interest in it.




No, if you reread my posting you will see I didn't claim that jesus message was in any way original, eventhough the word "original" was used. You asked where the original teaching of Jesus was, and I took in the sense of "his first unchanged message", since segovious seemed to hint at some hidden message. I merely stated that his message can be read up in the gospels, and it's certainly not original, it's well within the messages other important jewish prophets brought.

Nonetheless the message was important and necessary to reveal again since the jewish elites at the time were in a corrupted state of mind, denying the afterlife and burdening people with rituals and rules and preventing them to do good. Additionally Jesus' important contribution was to expand the audience of his message to anyone interested, jews or non-jews.


I think it's the other way around, the message of the one-and-only God is older than all the polytheistic variations that were developed later out of it.




God came up with the message for the prophets, He created the original revelation-board from which all prophets received a localized (for every culture, time, language) version. So go worship God, our creator, if you are willing.

Excellent post. Two Thumbs up. Obviously you understand your position fully and have thought it out. Also, great job staying positive and keeping your message that way.

I agree with Nightcrawler's post and also your assessment of it which I also applaud but would add this:

There was a new element of Jesus' teaching which differed from the earlier revelations: that of turning the other cheek and moving away from 'an eye for an eye'.

I think there have always been people who seem to delight in the 'dark side' and who perhaps think that such ideas are some derisory and cynicism and negativity is somehow more 'enlightened'. Jesus' new approach was to introduce another possible response to this: turning the other cheek or not opposing them.

I think NIghtcrawler does this from the heart as you observe.

Now if only people would start dealing with religion from the head, instead...

You see, I dont really care what the truth is,

If it was proven tomorrow that there was no big bang, no evolution...If we were just a computer program, if Jesus was a real bloke from a spaceship, if it was only astrotheology, if it was pink unicorns, or as per Greek mythology, panspermia, macroevolution, Intelligent Design...

...I dont actually care. All I know is that I want to know the truth - and discovering the truth gives it the highest meaning it ever needed.

Like Fellowships refusal to believe Love is a chemical reaction, like dmz refuses evolution, like you refuse to accept the gospels are riddled with Solar mythology,

All these things are demonstratably true to the best of our current understanding. I might not ever discover what really was the truth before I die, but catagorically stating you dont have the slightest interest in something that is demonstratably true - and infact, bleeding obvious, if not a major backbone of your own beliefs - means that you have failed already.

I know, I know....but Harris and Dawkins are doing their best - if they can move on a bit maybe the followers will follow suit.

Rome wasn't built in a day...I think we've got time.

And maybe if we dealt more with the heart rather than head there would be more compassion, more helping others and putting them first, maybe we could make this world a little better rather than forcing our selfish thoughts from our head on to others.

Or maybe there's another way....I tend to look at it like people are generally more centred in either the physical, emotional or intellectual.

And whatever type they are then their religion will be of this type also. It works for politics and atheism too...you can observe it..is very revealing, you can discover many 'Americas'.

Sam Harris for example is physical - perhaps this is manifested in his irrational smoking habit but his atheism is of the 'physical' kind: supporting torture, wars, invasions etc.

Dawkins oth, is all in the head. Not really one of the great thinkers but that's where his centre is. He aspires to be a rationalist.

Hitchens - emotional. Gets depressed and alcohol problems etc.

The Pope - all in the head.

Bin Laden: physical - let's kick their heads in sort of vibe.

My point with all this is that religion - true religion (I'll get back to the complaints from the cheap seats on this claim in a bit) - is none of these things....it's a Fourth Way

Examples might be Omar Khayyam: blended all - could drink Hitchens under the table, has arguments and refutations Dawkins doesn't even know could exist and was one of the greatest poets AND greatest scientists.

And there are countless other examples all through history. Atheists and religionists don't notice them because - generally speaking - their radar are only really attuned to the type (physical, intellectual or emotional) they themselves are - so nothing else exists.

In a way they are right. For themselves.

See I think this way of thinking is what causes corruption and turmoil and hypocrits within religion. I think you are making it too complex...I think it can be broken down much more than physical, emotional, or intellectual. Those are things that go along with it but I'm talking about getting down to the true grit, the true spirit of faith...no matter what faith...

At least you might agree that true faith transcends all these things?

I definitely agree and I agree that having a balance of these is the best approach but in most of Jesus' teachings the matter of the subject was always the heart...whether or directly or indirectly. Without true faith, without heart...that's when these Ways lead to corruption or not even that just a misaligned oppression of what they think is right.

great idea, then we can create a world where any thing we want to be true really is. Genius!

Then all you need is a mad power hungry despot, who tells all these lemmings what they want to hear - to assume power andcontrol for themselves, demonizes some 'enemy' who doesn't believe their strict version of teh truth™ and goes on a spree of murder and pillage to stamp out the opposition to the truth™.

Becuase that has never happened before. Ever.

But its all OK, completely OK, really - as long as some fat ignorant american wanker gets his daily fuzzy feeling from believing that Santa and his pink unicorn created the toy elves in 4004BC on the back of a turtle.

I feel alot of things from the heart - its a prerequisite of being human I guess, AND I feel safe in the knowledge that the feelings in my heart were conditioned, experienced and founded on truth, fact and logic, processed throught my multicore CPU in my head.

Of course I am wrong, because I dont believe in this ancient greek proposition that the heart is the centre of human conscoiusness.

How can one tell the difference between someone who has disappeared so far up their ass in an attempt to boost ones ego, in that ever popular cultural pastime of trying so hard to feel more superior to everyone else, so they can metaphorically feel smug about pissing down on the cheap seats - and a complete loon.???

Please, keep believing this shit, it makes interesting reading if nothing else.

At least Nightcrawler can clearly see that you're actually into this astrotheology moonbat shit - something he needs to consider regarding his ignorance and contempt of astrotheology wrt your present love-in kissy kissy...

Your way does not control that any more than any other way if you leave out the compassion he speaks to. A true clinical perspective allows for just as much of a vision hijacking as a purely emotional perspective does. In either case, once you are convinced that your position is right and justified, the path is set.

my point that you miss, is that whatever is felt within the heart, has been conditioned by the brain through the environment, conditions and experience. Feeling things with the heart is OK (as we all do) as long as the conditioning from the head was sound.

Else you end up with tools like GWB claiming that Iraq needed invading because he has a hotline to God.

Perhaps one would not miss your point if it were not clothed in sarcasm or seemingly laced with bile towards the person you are addressing. If your original post had been worded thus, there would have been no misunderstanding. Your consciousness is how input is received into your heart/soul (I believe this is the point you are making) from the world around you. That we can agree on. That is not the full measure of how you become who you are, but it certainly does provide input.

These Islam and Christianity threads are actually an exact demonstration of what happens to religion itself - the two are exact mirrors of a process, Thread and Religion:

1) Someone starts the ball rolling with a reasonable, rational "Let's be positive and get on" vibe

2) Some people try to give it a go

3) Time goes by, others weight in with some cynicism and negativity

4) Original people still try with pleas to "let just be positive - take the negativity elsewhere"

5) No response - cynics increase their campaign because they think they know it all or just because they are assholes or want to control......whatever....

6) Original positive people get pissed off and give up and disappear (check back in sometime Fellows)

7) The opposition to the cynics is taken up by people equally certain they are right on the other side of the equation

8) The whole thing descends into a pitched battle devoid of meaning and signifying nothing with both sides at each others throats and united only in the fact they both want to ignore the original 'positive' intent.

In fact the original 'positive intention' is only ever mentioned - and then only rarely - as a by-procuct of an argument that it never existed.

So there you have it:

One side arguing obsessively about something they believe is a fairy-tale and not worth talking about (come in Dr Freud) while they ride out on Crusade to spread this view.

Another side exerting maximum effort to close their minds to anything that might open them a chink.

And some rag-tag jokers popping in once in a while to prove to themselves they are cleverer than anyone else because they've always doubted it and been in awe of anyone who seems like they might be intelligent enough to be able to expose this weakness.

Sad.

Or maybe funny

You are correct but with more compassion to your environment, conditions, and experience can't help change those for a better? Whether it be Christian related or not...That's exactly the point of having more love out there because then some nut job can sit back and use it for selfish gain.

The world is messed up, you definitely agree right? Turn on the news anytime you see all kinds of bad things. It's probably impossible to turn everything around because like you said there is always going to be some selfish jerk trying to accomplish what he wants. But my question is how can we make it better? What are some of your core ideas of making this world a better place...using your sound logic?