Your standard Internet cafe also doesn't operate at taxpayer expense, so they don't particularly care if you h4x0r the m4tr|>< from their computers. All they want is your cold, hard, plastic.
Libraries, by contrast, have to satisfy the city council, state legislature, and federal funding sources that their computers are not being used to commit illegal acts (not that they can't be, just that they aren't). So they have to keep stricter control over the publicly-funded infrastructure to keep the various funding sources.
Yes, we the shepherds must take paternalistic care of our less intelligent and conforming brethren. After all, sheep need strong leadership. Don't you agree?
Thanks for the correction - I meant, and should have said, that the historical books that are debated are Genesis, Job, Esther, and John, and that the other historical books are pretty straightforward. In no way did I mean to imply that the major and minor prophets were considered historical narrative.
"I like arguing and I like being proven wrong - I really do."
I'd guess that as a politician or other type of leader (as described above), you'll have plenty of opportuninties to be proven wrong.:)
Even academics and journalists, people whose occupations consist in tearing other people's ideas down, travel in herds. Whether they follow the dominant paradigms, "the story", or any other occupational requirement, they will follow the herd. Try to find more than the token traditionalist at an elite academic institution, or a Newtonian physicist at a major research university. Or try to find a political reporter who wants nothing to do with the story of the American presidential election. There are a couple exceptions here and there, but humans are herd creatures and always will be. That's why forums like Slashdot prosper.:)
"I'd rather do the teaching."
A noble calling. But somebody has to vote to pay the teachers more.:) Wherever your skills are best-used, I say.
'That's nice. Usually, I express genocide as "mass murder" not a "different worldview." I think it's wrong in _any_ case. Again, infants and children were killed because they were Amorites. Why?'
You are proving my point about worldviews precisely. As you say, you have already decided a priori that there is no God who *could* rightly judge a whole nation of people that included infants and children. I've already laid out why I am unwilling to come to the table with that assumption, and why the Amorite nation was judged by God. Obviously we disagree.
But I do want to stave off one possible misunderstanding: I am not in any way implying that our worldviews are compatible. One or both of us are wrong. I'm trying to convince you that our disagreement starts much deeper than this issue. We have different starting points, we have different ending points. I start with God, you start elsewhere. And there is almost no way we will end up at the same point unless one of us changes our assumptions.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence... Adding someone's God to the mix suspends that disbelief for some reason."
No, that's not exactly how it works. There are a totally different set of assumptions that underly your worldview, namely a deep, underlying skepticism. What I assume as true (the existence of a good and just God) is, in your worldview, a question that needs proving.
"Can a man live inside of a huge fish? Can the earth freeze in space so the sun doesn't set? These are easy questions to answer by themselves."
Can a man live for 3 days inside of a large marine animal without supernatural intervention? I don't know -- maybe. That would be a historical question, would it not? Can the earth be stopped from rotating for a short period of time, then restarted? Sure, if a strong enough angular acceleration is applied to it.
"So why is the answer different when you *believe* that God was involved?"
Look, we believe that God raised a man who had been dead for a weekend so he could walk around like you and I do. Keeping a guy alive for 3 days in a large animal is not so hard for a God who can bring people back to life. To answer your question, though, if God chooses to accomplish something in his creation, he is fully capable of making it happen. That is how God describes himself in the Bible. The truth of that statement has nothing to do with whether I believe it or not.
"You see the Bible as infallible, because you believe that God willed men to write it, and that it holds the key to eternal, supernatural existence."
Good, we're on the same page, except for "supernatural existence." I'd include "natural existence" in there, too, because I think the only way to fully understand what God meant mankind to be is to be in right relationship with that God.
"And the only reason you believe he is different is because lot of other people do too, otherwise you'd just believe in your personal cult."
In one sense that's true, because there were a lot of people who died so I could read the Bible in my own native language. And there have been a lot of faithful Christians in my life who have given their own testimony about the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. But if I wanted to go for the peer-pressure angle, as you imply I'm doing, I could just go ahead and deny the existence of God. I'd probably be a lot more popular with my classmates and professors.
"If God truly provided, church would be seven days a week. But history has shown that to be unreliable, so you, and I, and the rest of the world, do something besides praying to sustain ourselves."
According to Genesis, humans were intended to work. But because of our sin, our work has become uncomfortable and toilsome. We work now because we have to feed ourselves and would die otherwise. But this is not the end of the story -- Christians look forward to the resurrection of the dead, when we will no longer live by faith, but by sight.
Ah, thanks for pointing out my omission of sin. Sin is human rebellion against the God who created them, and every one of us has done it by doing what we know is wrong. God therefore, justly, must punish us for *our* rebellion. If he did not punish rebellion, he would not be just, paying to each as he deserves.
"Untrue. The Bible claims that it is the Word of God and thus incorruptible. That cannot be true when different people interpret it in different ways."
I would actually argue, contrary to the submerged premise in your argument, that the interpretations of adherents are not themselves corruptions of the Word of God. There is an objective, inalterable meaning of the Scriptures which is, by definition, incorruptible. Our willingness and ability to interpret it correctly, however, is not. Christians are humans too, regardless of what people like Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland will tell you.
There is certainly a core of doctrine that one must agree on to be, in fact, a Christian. But the fact that I consider Job to be a meditation on the problem of evil and another Christian in an underground church in China considers it to be historical narrative doesn't change any of those core doctrines. One of us is right, and one is wrong, of course. But it does not change whether we're both Christians. There are other criteria for that.
"If you are cherry-picking bits and pieces that make sense and ignoring the bits that don't, why bother with the Bible in the first place? Why not write your own book, since that is, in essence, what you are doing already?"
First, I'm not, as you say, "cherry-picking." I believe that the Bible was inspired by God, and that the vehicle for his truth was the preaching, speeches, proverbs, teaching, narrative, history, and revelation in the Old and New Testaments. Every word of every book written in the Bible through God's appointed messengers was inspired by him.
But that does not mean that passages referring to "the four corners of the earth" are using literal language to talk about plate tectonics. It's obviously a metaphor, and the passage is generally fairly obvious about it when that's the case (the book of Daniel comes to mind). When people (Middle Ages, ahem) start trying to make the text do what it is not intending to do, you get things like the flat-earth theory.
Should we take Song of Solomon 1:3 ("your name is oil poured out") to be saying that the lover's name is actually oil being poured out? "Hello, my name is 'oil poured out.'" In 1:14 ("My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi"), do we actually expect the narrator to go pick her lover from a vineyard in Engedi? No, of course not.
But with a book like Job, where the reader is given a picture of events at the throne of God himself, it's a little less clear how the book functions. The only books where we have a picture of the goings-on in the throne room of God are prophetic books, books that already use high volumes of imagery. Is Job to be read this way? Or is it to be read as a historical narrative, like 1/2 Samuel or 1/2 Kings?
This Bible-reading stuff is not simplistic, as some people (Christians and otherwise) try to make it.
"Sure! Just tell me the last time the sun stopped, or as we say in the 21st Century, the earth stopped revolving around the sun and rotating around it's own axis. I know it's terribly unscientific and everything."
Quick note: history is by definition unscientific in the sense that one cannot duplicate events to a 90% confidence interval using the scientific method. It is impossible to test hypotheses about events that occurred thousands of years ago using experimental tools. It is, however, useful to use tools of historical analysis (primary sources, text dating, archaeology, blah blah blah). That's why anthropology is only sort-of a science, and why macroeconomics will always be, at best, guesswork.
"First of all, LORD has replaced Jehovah, Yahweh, or YHVH."
First of all, there are more readable translations than the KJV.:) The Greek manuscripts that it's based on are not the most reliable that are now available, although they were the best at the time. They've discovered other manuscripts since then that are earlier versions.
Anyhoo, any preface or foreword to a committee-translated Bible will tell you that LORD is used to signify YHWH, to set it apart from Elohim or other words having a similar English translation, but different connotation. See the NIV's website for more details on how they went about translating the ancient texts.
"The bias in this passage is apparent."
Do you mean that the text's view of God's intent is biased? Well yes, of course. But the reason that you think it's biased is that it does not correspond to your viewpoint. That's exactly what I'm getting at here - everyone brings to their reading of a text a raft of presuppositions about fairness, justice, and what God is/may/might/was like or should be like. But the reason you think the passage is biased is that it represents a worldview different from your own. And that's to be expected.
"Does this look like the work of a being who loves everyone?"
I believe you are trying to measure the passage against an erroneous perception of how the Christian God is presented in the Bible. Sure, God loves all his creatures because he created them. But you've set up a straw God that doesn't correspond to the God presented in the Bible. The God of the Bible is indeed loving, and gracious, and compassionate, and tender. But he is also described as "a raging fire", a lion, a warrior, and a judge.
"Why does he hate Amorites?"
In Genesis 15:16, God tells Abram that the Amorites' sin "is not yet complete." This dovetails nicely with the more complete picture of YHWH presented above. God plans in Genesis 15 to judge the Amorites at some future date. And I would argue that God is being more compassionate and gracious than he needs to be when he gives the Amorites 450 years (I think) to turn from their sins.
"Is a person evil because they are Irish, Hindu, or if they have a tendency to have blonde hair? The God of this passage seems to believe this, but I do not."
This comment acts as if Irishness, Hinduism and blondeness are of the same spiritual import. In fact, I would argue that your statement presupposes that such differences are, or should be, irrelevant. Otherwise your implied "No" carries no force.
But Hinduism is very different from "Irishism", if that exists. The God of the Bible always opposes those who worship other gods, and Hindu worship doesn't even claim to worship YHWH. But the God of the Bible will accept Irish who turn from their sins and trust in him, and he will also accept blonde people who turn from their sins and trust in him. And if a Hindu turned from his sins and trusted in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation, then God would accept him as well.
'Now, is the passage reliable? I can find no motive, no moral other than, "You'll be massacred if you're not Jewish."'
Assuming that by "Jewish" you mean "Hebrew", then I think you are reading the passage's meaning correctly, assuming that we understand these principles to be restricted to that particular set of events in space-time Palestine a long time ago.
But we shouldn't confuse "reliable" with "agreeable". There are all sorts of things I find disagreeable in major newspapers, facts I would prefer not to be true. But many, if not most, of them are true and I must accomodate my worldview to them. It does me no good to say "It's wrong for Arab militia in the Sudan to enslave the black Sudanese! Therefore any such reports are unreliable." Is that a reasonable application of your principle, or am I misreading your objection?
There was, indeed, a long line of would-be Messiahs in the first century and before. The odd thing about the teachings of Jesus is that they aren't at all in line with the teachings of the other would-be Messiahs. A dead Messiah was, by the first-century definition, a failed Messiah. Except Jesus talked constantly about his own death, and appears to have walked purposefully into his own execution. Like you say, he "broke ranks." Even his disciples were disconcerted by his teaching on these things (see Mark 9).
The odd thing is that his disciples appeared to be convinced that he'd come back to life! I've heard a whole lot of explanations for why they might say that, but I haven't yet heard any convincing explanation that makes sense historically, except that he actually did rise from the dead. The eyewitness accounts are especially strange, because women are the first people to see the resurrected Christ. In the first-century Middle East, women were not considered reliable witnesses in court. And yet their testimony is accepted by the other disciples. And why would a group of rigidly monotheistic Jews in the first-century suddenly start claiming that their dead Messiah was now alive, and in fact God? Unless something supremely odd had occurred in Jerusalem, everything we know about first-century Palestine tells us that the 11 apostles would have been stoned for blasphemy for claiming that Jesus was God.
"Who's right? We'll find out after we die."
This is certainly true, although I think we should take it a bit more seriously than that. If the threat of hell is plausible, we have a keen self-interest in knowing the truth about it.:)
"It's all moot, really. Whether or not God(s) exist, I want to be a good person. Wish more people did."
In my case, I believe that wanting to be a good person is not enough to satisfy the God of the Bible. He demands perfection from us, and no human (save one) has lived life perfectly. Because he wants to save his creatures, God the Father is willing to credit the righteous life of God the Son, Jesus Christ, in favor of those who trust in him for their salvation. And since he is a just God, he must punish the sins of those who he saves, and punished Jesus Christ as a substitute for them.
My point is this -- Christians believe that God is perfect, and demands the same level of perfection from us. Our good intentions are not enough to repay God for our rebellion against him. But that's why the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the centerpiece of Christian theology and practice -- they hold out the possibility of salvation by and from the good, just, gracious, compassionate God who sent Christ.
Bush signed McCain-Feingold, a bill which restricts the ability of some institutions to mention a candidate by name within 60 days of a general election, and 30 days of a primary. How is this *not* a violation of the 1st Amendment? Last I checked, the intention of the 1st Amendment was to protect political speech in particular. I should be able to criticize elected officials and the rest of the government any time, any place, any medium I want to. Surely it is important to allow labor unions, which represent 13.5% of working people in the US, to talk about issues that they find important (jobs, wages, health care, etc.)!
The 1st Amendment applies, in second-order implications, to things like smearing my nude body with fudge and feces while singing Mozart's Requiem on the street corner. It bothers me, though, that people think these are the first-order implications of the 1st Amendment.
Just an FYI - my statement that "Christians differ over what parts they think refer to historical narrative" specifically acts as a summary statement of what I explain in the next paragraph. Our less-careful readers might interpret your quoting of me as a "gotcha" contradiction in my previous post.
I'm with you on televangelists. The "gospel" so often preached on TV is not the Christian Good News at all! They preach "live right/say the right prayer/pray all the time/give money and God will give you most/all the material things you want!" The Christian Gospel, however, is that we *can't* live right, and must rely on the life and death of one who already did live right. And far from getting lots of stuff, Jesus Christ was crucified on a Roman cross. If we're to be more like Christ in our hearts and actions, how do we get from following a suffering Messiah who died to save his people to a Bling-bling Messiah who promises nothing but pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by? It doesn't make any sense, but people want to hear stuff that promises them good carnal things. See Micah 2 for a Scriptural discussion of prophets who tell people what they want to hear.
"The first liberalization of the bible was the New Testament, and it'll keep going until (I hope I see the day) the United States is just like Europe - where people believe some parts and ignore others, and combine other religious principles as well."
Ah, the good old secularization thesis. It's been a while since I've seen it on Slashdot.:) The New Testament doesn't really look too much like a liberalization to me, but that's because I place it equal with the Old Testament in terms of value.
Since you refer to Christ and his life on earth, I'm going to assume that you agree that he existed and taught at least some of the things the NT says he did. Jesus preached love (he was, supremely, love incarnated), but he also preached fire and brimstone. I'd recommend looking through Mark 13 for some fire-and-brimstone, as well as some discussion of hell and sin in Mark 9 and 10.
And lest we whitewash Jesus into our own image, let's also remember that he described as sin many actions which had been considered okay (lust, anger, divorce absent adultery). Jesus gave prostitutes, the unloved, and the unaccepted the same message as he gave the normal citizens: repent and believe. When (Luke 13) people asked Jesus, effectively, why bad things happen to good people (in a particular massacre by the Roman government), he responded: "unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
My question for you is: what consistent, generally applicable principle are you using to decide which things in the Bible are and are not reliable?
"If your words were true the majority of Christians would believe in the general concept of evolution"
My comments don't imply that at all. I did say, however, that the historical narrativity (is that a word?) of Genesis and Job is disputed. It is thoroughly possible for sincere Christians to disagree reasonably about these readings of the Bible, and yet still be Christians. Nowhere in my comments, however, is there a discussion of majority or minority views in Christian communities, only disputes.
Evolution, as a scientific theory, is interesting and credible. But I, unlike you, am unwilling to elevate science to supreme status among the knowledge disciplines. It is impossible to start reasoning about the world without holding presuppositions about the nature of that world, and my presuppositions are fundamentally different from those of the secular scientist. If we assume that most Christians have the same presuppositions as I do, then I cannot and will not dismiss the Creationist viewpoint out of hand.
You make the point that the Christians you've met fail to "properly distance themselves from the parts of the bible that have been completely disproved." If, as is indicated by the context of your remarks, you are saying that the evolutionary principle has "completely disproved" Genesis 1 and 2, then I'm afraid I must disagree.
I signed up to vote in New Jersey with the College Democrats, and promptly voted for the GOP for several years. I didn't tell them at the time that I was conservative, though, and in New Jersey, Democrats are anything but conservative.
Nah, it's really not. Kerry doesn't really look homosexual, as if it were possible to "look homosexual." It's mostly that he looks "un-American", which would imply that he's a Continental or an Easter Island mask. It's a stupid way to think about Presidents anyway.
I'll spare you a long list of failed HBS graduates, but there are a ton of HBS grads who fail in life or are unethical, just like any other school's alumni. Jeff Skilling, former CEO of Enron, comes to mind.
I totally agree, though, that HBS graduates should be held to a higher ethical standard than others. They may be human, but to give them the street cred that comes with an HBS degree, they ought to show particular ethical rigor.
Quite obviously, someone attempting to kill Americans is acting in a way that the American government finds particularly interesting. There are all sorts of fun jurisdiction questions raised by this, but it's standard practice here in the US.
The Bible is not self-consistent. The Bible makes claims that contradict observable phenomenon. The Christian faith requires people to make assumptions against available evidence. The Bible is inherently anti-science.
Christians read the Bible as if it came from a teacher, not as a textbook. As a result, Christians differ over what parts they think refer to historical narrative, and which ones are meant to instruct philosophically or morally or theologically.
For example, no Christian reads the Hebrew Proverbs as if each one of the proverbs is always true in all circumstances, in all possible ways. Proverbs is a book of proverbial wisdom, that is, a book of instruction in how to live wisely. In general, following the proverbial wisdom will lead to a more prosperous life than living otherwise, and people understand that. The Gospel of Mark, however, is understood by all Christians to be a historical narrative. The book is clearly intended to be read that way, as it refers to specific people in specific places, many of which are historically verifiable. The book of Revelation, obviously, doesn't work quite that way.
The most-debated books with regard to historical narrativity are the first few chapters of Genesis, Job, Esther, and John. The rest are understood to be historical narrative. Whether or not you agree that it is true historical narrative, it is obvious that certain books are intended to be read that way (1/2 Kings, Exodus, Ruth, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts), and others not (Isaiah, Romans, Revelation, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon).
Despite your previous comments, the Old and New Testament Scriptures have shown themselves to be reliable in the vast majority of archaeological findings. Don't trust my judgment -- take a look at the Biblical Archaeology Society, hardly a bastion of evangelical fervor.
With logic like that, you should vote Republican. Some dyslexics are highly intelligent and knowlegeable.
Like, for example, President George W. Bush. HBS doesn't hand out MBAs like candy, you know. In the 60's Yale didn't hand out A's in Japanese and History like candy, either, although they do now.
It's possible to lead someone without having authority over them. In fact, that's the way leadership usually works. Anyone can command somebody who has to obey them. But true leaders encourage, inspire, and persuade people who don't *have* to follow them.
That's how captains of athletic teams are usually picked, and why middle linebackers are so important to the performance of a football team's defensive backs. The US military picks its combat leaders based on their performance *before* they have authority, not after.
The leader of the free world, if the US President abandoned that role, could just as well be French President Jacques Chirac or Nigerian President President Obasanjo.
Slashdot Mirror
Libraries, by contrast, have to satisfy the city council, state legislature, and federal funding sources that their computers are not being used to commit illegal acts (not that they can't be, just that they aren't). So they have to keep stricter control over the publicly-funded infrastructure to keep the various funding sources.
I'll feed the troll.
Would you say that our "ownership" is simply a privilege granted to us by the state?
Just so everybody is on the same page, the parent was ironic.
Jon
Yes, we the shepherds must take paternalistic care of our less intelligent and conforming brethren. After all, sheep need strong leadership. Don't you agree?
Or they're trying to put the kids through super-duper-expensive college.
Jon
Thanks for the correction - I meant, and should have said, that the historical books that are debated are Genesis, Job, Esther, and John, and that the other historical books are pretty straightforward. In no way did I mean to imply that the major and minor prophets were considered historical narrative.
Jon
"I like arguing and I like being proven wrong - I really do."
:)
:)
:) Wherever your skills are best-used, I say.
I'd guess that as a politician or other type of leader (as described above), you'll have plenty of opportuninties to be proven wrong.
Even academics and journalists, people whose occupations consist in tearing other people's ideas down, travel in herds. Whether they follow the dominant paradigms, "the story", or any other occupational requirement, they will follow the herd. Try to find more than the token traditionalist at an elite academic institution, or a Newtonian physicist at a major research university. Or try to find a political reporter who wants nothing to do with the story of the American presidential election. There are a couple exceptions here and there, but humans are herd creatures and always will be. That's why forums like Slashdot prosper.
"I'd rather do the teaching."
A noble calling. But somebody has to vote to pay the teachers more.
Jon
'That's nice. Usually, I express genocide as "mass murder" not a "different worldview." I think it's wrong in _any_ case. Again, infants and children were killed because they were Amorites. Why?'
... Adding someone's God to the mix suspends that disbelief for some reason."
You are proving my point about worldviews precisely. As you say, you have already decided a priori that there is no God who *could* rightly judge a whole nation of people that included infants and children. I've already laid out why I am unwilling to come to the table with that assumption, and why the Amorite nation was judged by God. Obviously we disagree.
But I do want to stave off one possible misunderstanding: I am not in any way implying that our worldviews are compatible. One or both of us are wrong. I'm trying to convince you that our disagreement starts much deeper than this issue. We have different starting points, we have different ending points. I start with God, you start elsewhere. And there is almost no way we will end up at the same point unless one of us changes our assumptions.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
No, that's not exactly how it works. There are a totally different set of assumptions that underly your worldview, namely a deep, underlying skepticism. What I assume as true (the existence of a good and just God) is, in your worldview, a question that needs proving.
"Can a man live inside of a huge fish? Can the earth freeze in space so the sun doesn't set? These are easy questions to answer by themselves."
Can a man live for 3 days inside of a large marine animal without supernatural intervention? I don't know -- maybe. That would be a historical question, would it not? Can the earth be stopped from rotating for a short period of time, then restarted? Sure, if a strong enough angular acceleration is applied to it.
"So why is the answer different when you *believe* that God was involved?"
Look, we believe that God raised a man who had been dead for a weekend so he could walk around like you and I do. Keeping a guy alive for 3 days in a large animal is not so hard for a God who can bring people back to life. To answer your question, though, if God chooses to accomplish something in his creation, he is fully capable of making it happen. That is how God describes himself in the Bible. The truth of that statement has nothing to do with whether I believe it or not.
"You see the Bible as infallible, because you believe that God willed men to write it, and that it holds the key to eternal, supernatural existence."
Good, we're on the same page, except for "supernatural existence." I'd include "natural existence" in there, too, because I think the only way to fully understand what God meant mankind to be is to be in right relationship with that God.
"And the only reason you believe he is different is because lot of other people do too, otherwise you'd just believe in your personal cult."
In one sense that's true, because there were a lot of people who died so I could read the Bible in my own native language. And there have been a lot of faithful Christians in my life who have given their own testimony about the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. But if I wanted to go for the peer-pressure angle, as you imply I'm doing, I could just go ahead and deny the existence of God. I'd probably be a lot more popular with my classmates and professors.
"If God truly provided, church would be seven days a week. But history has shown that to be unreliable, so you, and I, and the rest of the world, do something besides praying to sustain ourselves."
According to Genesis, humans were intended to work. But because of our sin, our work has become uncomfortable and toilsome. We work now because we have to feed ourselves and would die otherwise. But this is not the end of the story -- Christians look forward to the resurrection of the dead, when we will no longer live by faith, but by sight.
Jon
Ah, thanks for pointing out my omission of sin. Sin is human rebellion against the God who created them, and every one of us has done it by doing what we know is wrong. God therefore, justly, must punish us for *our* rebellion. If he did not punish rebellion, he would not be just, paying to each as he deserves.
Jon
And, it's on-topic. :)
Jon
"Untrue. The Bible claims that it is the Word of God and thus incorruptible. That cannot be true when different people interpret it in different ways."
I would actually argue, contrary to the submerged premise in your argument, that the interpretations of adherents are not themselves corruptions of the Word of God. There is an objective, inalterable meaning of the Scriptures which is, by definition, incorruptible. Our willingness and ability to interpret it correctly, however, is not. Christians are humans too, regardless of what people like Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland will tell you.
There is certainly a core of doctrine that one must agree on to be, in fact, a Christian. But the fact that I consider Job to be a meditation on the problem of evil and another Christian in an underground church in China considers it to be historical narrative doesn't change any of those core doctrines. One of us is right, and one is wrong, of course. But it does not change whether we're both Christians. There are other criteria for that.
"If you are cherry-picking bits and pieces that make sense and ignoring the bits that don't, why bother with the Bible in the first place? Why not write your own book, since that is, in essence, what you are doing already?"
First, I'm not, as you say, "cherry-picking." I believe that the Bible was inspired by God, and that the vehicle for his truth was the preaching, speeches, proverbs, teaching, narrative, history, and revelation in the Old and New Testaments. Every word of every book written in the Bible through God's appointed messengers was inspired by him.
But that does not mean that passages referring to "the four corners of the earth" are using literal language to talk about plate tectonics. It's obviously a metaphor, and the passage is generally fairly obvious about it when that's the case (the book of Daniel comes to mind). When people (Middle Ages, ahem) start trying to make the text do what it is not intending to do, you get things like the flat-earth theory.
Should we take Song of Solomon 1:3 ("your name is oil poured out") to be saying that the lover's name is actually oil being poured out? "Hello, my name is 'oil poured out.'" In 1:14 ("My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi"), do we actually expect the narrator to go pick her lover from a vineyard in Engedi? No, of course not.
But with a book like Job, where the reader is given a picture of events at the throne of God himself, it's a little less clear how the book functions. The only books where we have a picture of the goings-on in the throne room of God are prophetic books, books that already use high volumes of imagery. Is Job to be read this way? Or is it to be read as a historical narrative, like 1/2 Samuel or 1/2 Kings?
This Bible-reading stuff is not simplistic, as some people (Christians and otherwise) try to make it.
Jon
"Sure! Just tell me the last time the sun stopped, or as we say in the 21st Century, the earth stopped revolving around the sun and rotating around it's own axis. I know it's terribly unscientific and everything."
Quick note: history is by definition unscientific in the sense that one cannot duplicate events to a 90% confidence interval using the scientific method. It is impossible to test hypotheses about events that occurred thousands of years ago using experimental tools. It is, however, useful to use tools of historical analysis (primary sources, text dating, archaeology, blah blah blah). That's why anthropology is only sort-of a science, and why macroeconomics will always be, at best, guesswork.
Jon
"First of all, LORD has replaced Jehovah, Yahweh, or YHVH."
:) The Greek manuscripts that it's based on are not the most reliable that are now available, although they were the best at the time. They've discovered other manuscripts since then that are earlier versions.
First of all, there are more readable translations than the KJV.
Anyhoo, any preface or foreword to a committee-translated Bible will tell you that LORD is used to signify YHWH, to set it apart from Elohim or other words having a similar English translation, but different connotation. See the NIV's website for more details on how they went about translating the ancient texts.
"The bias in this passage is apparent."
Do you mean that the text's view of God's intent is biased? Well yes, of course. But the reason that you think it's biased is that it does not correspond to your viewpoint. That's exactly what I'm getting at here - everyone brings to their reading of a text a raft of presuppositions about fairness, justice, and what God is/may/might/was like or should be like. But the reason you think the passage is biased is that it represents a worldview different from your own. And that's to be expected.
"Does this look like the work of a being who loves everyone?"
I believe you are trying to measure the passage against an erroneous perception of how the Christian God is presented in the Bible. Sure, God loves all his creatures because he created them. But you've set up a straw God that doesn't correspond to the God presented in the Bible. The God of the Bible is indeed loving, and gracious, and compassionate, and tender. But he is also described as "a raging fire", a lion, a warrior, and a judge.
"Why does he hate Amorites?"
In Genesis 15:16, God tells Abram that the Amorites' sin "is not yet complete." This dovetails nicely with the more complete picture of YHWH presented above. God plans in Genesis 15 to judge the Amorites at some future date. And I would argue that God is being more compassionate and gracious than he needs to be when he gives the Amorites 450 years (I think) to turn from their sins.
"Is a person evil because they are Irish, Hindu, or if they have a tendency to have blonde hair? The God of this passage seems to believe this, but I do not."
This comment acts as if Irishness, Hinduism and blondeness are of the same spiritual import. In fact, I would argue that your statement presupposes that such differences are, or should be, irrelevant. Otherwise your implied "No" carries no force.
But Hinduism is very different from "Irishism", if that exists. The God of the Bible always opposes those who worship other gods, and Hindu worship doesn't even claim to worship YHWH. But the God of the Bible will accept Irish who turn from their sins and trust in him, and he will also accept blonde people who turn from their sins and trust in him. And if a Hindu turned from his sins and trusted in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation, then God would accept him as well.
'Now, is the passage reliable? I can find no motive, no moral other than, "You'll be massacred if you're not Jewish."'
Assuming that by "Jewish" you mean "Hebrew", then I think you are reading the passage's meaning correctly, assuming that we understand these principles to be restricted to that particular set of events in space-time Palestine a long time ago.
But we shouldn't confuse "reliable" with "agreeable". There are all sorts of things I find disagreeable in major newspapers, facts I would prefer not to be true. But many, if not most, of them are true and I must accomodate my worldview to them. It does me no good to say "It's wrong for Arab militia in the Sudan to enslave the black Sudanese! Therefore any such reports are unreliable." Is that a reasonable application of your principle, or am I misreading your objection?
Is there a
There was, indeed, a long line of would-be Messiahs in the first century and before. The odd thing about the teachings of Jesus is that they aren't at all in line with the teachings of the other would-be Messiahs. A dead Messiah was, by the first-century definition, a failed Messiah. Except Jesus talked constantly about his own death, and appears to have walked purposefully into his own execution. Like you say, he "broke ranks." Even his disciples were disconcerted by his teaching on these things (see Mark 9).
:)
The odd thing is that his disciples appeared to be convinced that he'd come back to life! I've heard a whole lot of explanations for why they might say that, but I haven't yet heard any convincing explanation that makes sense historically, except that he actually did rise from the dead. The eyewitness accounts are especially strange, because women are the first people to see the resurrected Christ. In the first-century Middle East, women were not considered reliable witnesses in court. And yet their testimony is accepted by the other disciples. And why would a group of rigidly monotheistic Jews in the first-century suddenly start claiming that their dead Messiah was now alive, and in fact God? Unless something supremely odd had occurred in Jerusalem, everything we know about first-century Palestine tells us that the 11 apostles would have been stoned for blasphemy for claiming that Jesus was God.
"Who's right? We'll find out after we die."
This is certainly true, although I think we should take it a bit more seriously than that. If the threat of hell is plausible, we have a keen self-interest in knowing the truth about it.
Jon
"It's all moot, really. Whether or not God(s) exist, I want to be a good person. Wish more people did."
In my case, I believe that wanting to be a good person is not enough to satisfy the God of the Bible. He demands perfection from us, and no human (save one) has lived life perfectly. Because he wants to save his creatures, God the Father is willing to credit the righteous life of God the Son, Jesus Christ, in favor of those who trust in him for their salvation. And since he is a just God, he must punish the sins of those who he saves, and punished Jesus Christ as a substitute for them.
My point is this -- Christians believe that God is perfect, and demands the same level of perfection from us. Our good intentions are not enough to repay God for our rebellion against him. But that's why the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the centerpiece of Christian theology and practice -- they hold out the possibility of salvation by and from the good, just, gracious, compassionate God who sent Christ.
Jon
Me too. I'm voting for myself.
Bush signed McCain-Feingold, a bill which restricts the ability of some institutions to mention a candidate by name within 60 days of a general election, and 30 days of a primary. How is this *not* a violation of the 1st Amendment? Last I checked, the intention of the 1st Amendment was to protect political speech in particular. I should be able to criticize elected officials and the rest of the government any time, any place, any medium I want to. Surely it is important to allow labor unions, which represent 13.5% of working people in the US, to talk about issues that they find important (jobs, wages, health care, etc.)!
The 1st Amendment applies, in second-order implications, to things like smearing my nude body with fudge and feces while singing Mozart's Requiem on the street corner. It bothers me, though, that people think these are the first-order implications of the 1st Amendment.
Jon
Just an FYI - my statement that "Christians differ over what parts they think refer to historical narrative" specifically acts as a summary statement of what I explain in the next paragraph. Our less-careful readers might interpret your quoting of me as a "gotcha" contradiction in my previous post.
:) The New Testament doesn't really look too much like a liberalization to me, but that's because I place it equal with the Old Testament in terms of value.
I'm with you on televangelists. The "gospel" so often preached on TV is not the Christian Good News at all! They preach "live right/say the right prayer/pray all the time/give money and God will give you most/all the material things you want!" The Christian Gospel, however, is that we *can't* live right, and must rely on the life and death of one who already did live right. And far from getting lots of stuff, Jesus Christ was crucified on a Roman cross. If we're to be more like Christ in our hearts and actions, how do we get from following a suffering Messiah who died to save his people to a Bling-bling Messiah who promises nothing but pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by? It doesn't make any sense, but people want to hear stuff that promises them good carnal things. See Micah 2 for a Scriptural discussion of prophets who tell people what they want to hear.
"The first liberalization of the bible was the New Testament, and it'll keep going until (I hope I see the day) the United States is just like Europe - where people believe some parts and ignore others, and combine other religious principles as well."
Ah, the good old secularization thesis. It's been a while since I've seen it on Slashdot.
Since you refer to Christ and his life on earth, I'm going to assume that you agree that he existed and taught at least some of the things the NT says he did. Jesus preached love (he was, supremely, love incarnated), but he also preached fire and brimstone. I'd recommend looking through Mark 13 for some fire-and-brimstone, as well as some discussion of hell and sin in Mark 9 and 10.
And lest we whitewash Jesus into our own image, let's also remember that he described as sin many actions which had been considered okay (lust, anger, divorce absent adultery). Jesus gave prostitutes, the unloved, and the unaccepted the same message as he gave the normal citizens: repent and believe. When (Luke 13) people asked Jesus, effectively, why bad things happen to good people (in a particular massacre by the Roman government), he responded: "unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
My question for you is: what consistent, generally applicable principle are you using to decide which things in the Bible are and are not reliable?
Jon
"If your words were true the majority of Christians would believe in the general concept of evolution"
My comments don't imply that at all. I did say, however, that the historical narrativity (is that a word?) of Genesis and Job is disputed. It is thoroughly possible for sincere Christians to disagree reasonably about these readings of the Bible, and yet still be Christians. Nowhere in my comments, however, is there a discussion of majority or minority views in Christian communities, only disputes.
Evolution, as a scientific theory, is interesting and credible. But I, unlike you, am unwilling to elevate science to supreme status among the knowledge disciplines. It is impossible to start reasoning about the world without holding presuppositions about the nature of that world, and my presuppositions are fundamentally different from those of the secular scientist. If we assume that most Christians have the same presuppositions as I do, then I cannot and will not dismiss the Creationist viewpoint out of hand.
You make the point that the Christians you've met fail to "properly distance themselves from the parts of the bible that have been completely disproved." If, as is indicated by the context of your remarks, you are saying that the evolutionary principle has "completely disproved" Genesis 1 and 2, then I'm afraid I must disagree.
Jon
I signed up to vote in New Jersey with the College Democrats, and promptly voted for the GOP for several years. I didn't tell them at the time that I was conservative, though, and in New Jersey, Democrats are anything but conservative.
Jon
Nah, it's really not. Kerry doesn't really look homosexual, as if it were possible to "look homosexual." It's mostly that he looks "un-American", which would imply that he's a Continental or an Easter Island mask. It's a stupid way to think about Presidents anyway.
How is it even possible to look "un-American"?
Jon
I'll spare you a long list of failed HBS graduates, but there are a ton of HBS grads who fail in life or are unethical, just like any other school's alumni.
Jeff Skilling, former CEO of Enron, comes to mind.
I totally agree, though, that HBS graduates should be held to a higher ethical standard than others. They may be human, but to give them the street cred that comes with an HBS degree, they ought to show particular ethical rigor.
Jon
Quite obviously, someone attempting to kill Americans is acting in a way that the American government finds particularly interesting. There are all sorts of fun jurisdiction questions raised by this, but it's standard practice here in the US.
Jon
The Bible is not self-consistent. The Bible makes claims that contradict observable phenomenon. The Christian faith requires people to make assumptions against available evidence. The Bible is inherently anti-science.
Christians read the Bible as if it came from a teacher, not as a textbook. As a result, Christians differ over what parts they think refer to historical narrative, and which ones are meant to instruct philosophically or morally or theologically.
For example, no Christian reads the Hebrew Proverbs as if each one of the proverbs is always true in all circumstances, in all possible ways. Proverbs is a book of proverbial wisdom, that is, a book of instruction in how to live wisely. In general, following the proverbial wisdom will lead to a more prosperous life than living otherwise, and people understand that. The Gospel of Mark, however, is understood by all Christians to be a historical narrative. The book is clearly intended to be read that way, as it refers to specific people in specific places, many of which are historically verifiable. The book of Revelation, obviously, doesn't work quite that way.
The most-debated books with regard to historical narrativity are the first few chapters of Genesis, Job, Esther, and John. The rest are understood to be historical narrative. Whether or not you agree that it is true historical narrative, it is obvious that certain books are intended to be read that way (1/2 Kings, Exodus, Ruth, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts), and others not (Isaiah, Romans, Revelation, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon).
Despite your previous comments, the Old and New Testament Scriptures have shown themselves to be reliable in the vast majority of archaeological findings. Don't trust my judgment -- take a look at the Biblical Archaeology Society, hardly a bastion of evangelical fervor.
Jon
With logic like that, you should vote Republican. Some dyslexics are highly intelligent and knowlegeable.
Like, for example, President George W. Bush. HBS doesn't hand out MBAs like candy, you know. In the 60's Yale didn't hand out A's in Japanese and History like candy, either, although they do now.
Jon
It's possible to lead someone without having authority over them. In fact, that's the way leadership usually works. Anyone can command somebody who has to obey them. But true leaders encourage, inspire, and persuade people who don't *have* to follow them.
That's how captains of athletic teams are usually picked, and why middle linebackers are so important to the performance of a football team's defensive backs. The US military picks its combat leaders based on their performance *before* they have authority, not after.
The leader of the free world, if the US President abandoned that role, could just as well be French President Jacques Chirac or Nigerian President President Obasanjo.
Jon