Various individuals have managed to act outside of their church's remit and actually do good things.
So when a christian does a nice thing he necessarily does it outside of the church's remit?
If only someone actually knew what those were, instead of knowing what was decided a few hundred years later would be a good aid to fleecing the poor and the ignorant.
with all of the USA's history, you've existed for roughly 200 years and you've been at war for that long.
I am not from the US.
It sounds fairly christian to me
It's quite the opposite of Jesus teachings.
The crusades, the biggest mass murder in history back in 1492
And those were the only two interesting things to happen in 2000 years of history. right?
No Fray de las Casas getting the "Nuevas Leyes" approved for the protection of indians, no missionaries of any kind putting their lives in danger for the oppressed and weak?
No Martin Luther telling people to go read the real thing instead of listening to the distortions of indulgence preachers?
No Albert Schweizer dedicating his life to healing and bettering the conditions of people in Africa?
No William Wilberforce denouncing slavery for like 50 years in the British Parliament and spending his money to free as many slaves as possible in the meanwhile?
No Church fathers struggling for children, the opressed and barbarians in the Roman Empire?
No St Francis trying to mend peace in the crusades and not giving two cents about Jerusalem, building the first nativity scene (as we do now), telling people that Jesus kingdom is about the hearts of men and not a piece of land?
No Casiodoro de Reyna, Cipriano de Valera, Wycliff, etc.. facing jail or having to escape their country, to translate a Bible, because they cared so much that people could know the word of the living God?
No Isaac Newton? No Blaise Pascal? No Michelangelo, No Giotto, etc...
No Mauricio Amilcar Lopez founding an University, putting it at the service of the whole of San Luis, even creating a very early remote education/updating program, smuggling people of all kinds of beliefs and ideologies out of Chile into Argentina and later out of Argentina, staying behind to do that, before getting kidnapped and killed?
No Maximiliano Kolbe, voluntarily giving his life in exchange for that of another prisoner in Auschwitz?
No one today on some of the worlds poorest and saddest places teaching, loving, giving people hope, announcing God's free salvation for man, helping people to escape material and spiritual misery, telling them in words and actions that when God created them he saw what he had created and it was "good in great manner", that even if they are rejects to society, their family or whatever, they are loved by God and the church?
It has nothing to do with christianity in its motivations. Whatever was the belief system of the US population, the warmongers would twist it to justify invading everything. Just like non religious concepts like patriotism have gotten distorted, from the founding fathers belief that goverments appetite for war needed to be kept in check by the people, to the current "we invaded Irak to protect our freedom" nonsense.
This "lets invade them all" junk is antipatriotic and anti christian, and anti "insert philosophical system with a clue here" anything.
This just in, the Vatican is raided by the FBI in search of XVI century documents and the evil mastermind of today's attack: Pope Gregory. Joining the FBI are Seals Team Six and Chuck Norris, who brought an abacus. The team sprays Gregory's coffin with bullets. Obama announces the permanent change to a non-leap calendar. The world is safe. Cue in Aerosmith.
Yeah, that's why life expectancy has been going up for the last two centuries or so. But don't let get facts in the way:)
This is why I still read slashdot. A place like any other where stupidity flourishes - but where it might meet a quick death at the hands of intelligence and inquiry. Bravo.
The missiles can have a laser weapon as its main payload. That solves the problem of a target moving out of a long range laser's way, and also solves antimissiles. Missile travels toward target and when it's at a distance close enough for the speed of light not to be a problem, laser fires.
Following doesnt mean perfection. And I've seen a few around that really, really walk the walk. Me and some friends filmed a documentary about this guy from my church, a philosophy doctor, who founded a big public university at the beginning of the 70s. The guy had been in high places in some international ecummenic organizations in Europe, but came back to Argentina, founded that university, and when Chile had its coup de etat and Pinochet started killing people, this guy, who was kind of left wing (very left wing for US standards) started organizing the escape of many (thousands) Chilean refugees into Argentina. The means of escape, housing, even jobs for them. In a time in which this country was hugely polarized along ideological lines the guy would hire right wing and left wing teachers for the Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Then came the Argentinian coup de etat (1976) and he was told he was in danger. He stayed and organized the escape of many people from Argentina. His last sermon at church was at december 1976. He returned home from a church party on New Year's eve 1977, and a few hours later a "grupo de tareas" kidnapped him. He got killed at some point in early 1977. The guys name was Mauricio Amilcar Lopez. Just one of many christians who live, rejoice and die by the gospel.
Unless you think the taking virgin slaves for concubines is somehow consensual sex, then, yes, that's rape.
(altough people choosing who they marry is something historically uncommon). good point.
And does it says that anyone can claim to have heard God? It doesn't set any tests to any so called "prophet"? Nor penalties? And does Jesus and his disciples leave *any* room for anyone to do such a thing ever again?
I have no clue what you are talking about here. Please clarify.
It means that the Bible does establish tests for anyone claiming to be a prophet and bringing "new word of God" . Tests such as "does 100% of what he predicts become true", "does he glorify God" etc... and the penalty in OT times was stoning. (Yeah, Harold Camping had it good, if he had lived at 1000 bc he would have been more careful with his "end of the world next week" junk). In new testament times (present) there is no room for "new revelation". All the important stuff to be revealed before the second coming is revealed, and what we dont know, well too bad. The new testament establishes what Christians are to do, and how we are to do it. We are told to carry the word of His kingdom to the last reaches of the earth. But we are told how to do it and how not to do it. "for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh ", "love thy enemies", "love thy neighbor", and all that. There's no room for shortcuts like "well, if we support bombing this or that country that could pave the road for this or that" nor anything like that.
I concede the point, if it is put this way: when faced with a monolithic, religious cultural force like Christianity, it is prudent to know their source books in order to attack them more successfully.
Monolithic? Really? The diversity of ideas and thoughts in Christianity is huge. Right wing, left wing (really really left wing, like liberation theology), hierarchical structures, democratic structures, anarchic structures, etc...
No, a "Christian" is one who self-identifies as believing in Christ. They typically also claim to follow sets of (selected) teachings. But there is no test of behaviour other than belief in Christ to be Christian
"You will know them by their fruits"
"This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."
So no, a christian is someone who follows Christ. Someone who claims to be a christian is, a priori, just that.
I think your succinct distillation is far superior to the original.
How would you know without reading the original? That's the point.
Dude, have you not read it? There is PLENTY in there to support those politics. Do you not remember the bit in the beginning, for example, where that loving god sent his chosen people on a rape, pillage and murder rampage through the "promised land?"
Rape, are you sure? Read again. They were banned of any sexual relations with the people that was there.
And does it says that anyone can claim to have heard God? It doesn't set any tests to any so called "prophet"? Nor penalties? And does Jesus and his disciples leave *any* room for anyone to do such a thing ever again?
But, then, I suppose that the fact that I knew that supports your view, doesn't it? I would say that there is one good reason to read the bible: to be able to expose it for the steaming pile of evil it really is.
Yes, that's the point. In favor or against, you need to read the source in order to inteligently discuss it. This is a problem with our current education, and not just with the Bible but with all source material. It seems we now "know" that people are too dumb to read the bible, Plato, Burke, the Constitution, etc... Some centuries ago, that was not "known" and people would read and discuss such stuff and discuss it at school.
It's true that you don't need to read what someone claims is source material for their ideas in order to accept or reject them, but you do need to if you are to engage in intelligent discussion. I don't think there's much of a chance for democracies without that.
I'll spare you comments about the "no true Scotsman" fallacy you committed in your last paragraph.
Scotsman: Someone from Scotland.
Christian: Someone who follows Jesus, or closer to the original ethymology, a little Christ.
So there's no fallacy there. Being a christian is not being part of a club or being born in a christian family or something like that. Just like being a pacifist. You wouldnt claim that saying that someone who carpet bombs people is not a true pacifist is a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Same deal here.
To know where a lot of western civilization ideas come from? To compare and challenge what a lot of "christian" preachers and politicians claim that it says?
A lot of the junk conservative politicians tell "christian" masses in the US would go nowhere if those same masses had good understanding of the Bible.
There's lot of interesting stuff in there. In the book of Samuel, you can find a passage where a nation which had laws, judges and teachers (and a God), gets tired of it and wants something more fun; they go like "oh the nations around us have powerful kings, it would be so cool to have one", and they get told "look, if you get a king, he will take your sons and daughters as servants for himself, he will send them to fight useless wars, etc..." And the nation tells the prophet "whatever, we want a king". A few pages later things get awry for them.
There's lot of stuff like that, politics, ideology, morality, economics... And just like the above example, a lot of stuff to confront "manifest destiny" "it's God will that we rule by the sword" politics.
well, the church I attend to is not affiliated with any denomination, altough it traces back to the brethren. If I had a copy around of our "Core beliefs statement" in english I would paste it here.
as the AC just said it, bread and wine is shared as communion on all christian churches, but the interpretation is different. In evangelical churches (at least on my country) we believe it to physically be just that (bread and wine) while being *symbolic*, a *metaphor* of Christ's sacrifice and gift of grace for humanity.
The catholic interpretation, transubstantation, conflicts with the fact that Christ himself established communion *before* being crucified. He was at the table sharing bread and wine (that's what the bible calls it) with his disciples.
So unless he was in two places at the same time and unless flesh looks like bread and wine tastes like blood, he was plainly having bread and wine with them, while making the sharing of those a symbol of His sacrifice.
The Presbyterian church is an anglican flavor and preserves a lot of stuff from the catholic church. Things are very different in most evangelical (lutheran derived) churches.
"but it is still the ritualistic consumption of the body of Jesus in every case." No. On many (might be the majority) of protestant churches, it is the figurative consumption of the body of Jesus. It's a *memorial* of the last supper.
That is quite different from the catholic ritual where Christ sacrifice is *repeated*, therefore then need for the physical presence of His body. (And that has a lot of biblical problems, such as contradiction with the letter to the Hebrews where it is stated that Christ was sacrificed once and for all)
"you ritually eat crackers that you pretend are the flesh of your 2000 years dead savior."
That applies to catholicism, not to protestant branches of cristianism.
Slashdot Mirror
Various individuals have managed to act outside of their church's remit and actually do good things.
So when a christian does a nice thing he necessarily does it outside of the church's remit?
If only someone actually knew what those were, instead of knowing what was decided a few hundred years later would be a good aid to fleecing the poor and the ignorant.
Wikipedia: canon
with all of the USA's history, you've existed for roughly 200 years and you've been at war for that long.
I am not from the US.
It sounds fairly christian to me
It's quite the opposite of Jesus teachings.
The crusades, the biggest mass murder in history back in 1492
And those were the only two interesting things to happen in 2000 years of history. right?
No Fray de las Casas getting the "Nuevas Leyes" approved for the protection of indians, no missionaries of any kind putting their lives in danger for the oppressed and weak?
No Martin Luther telling people to go read the real thing instead of listening to the distortions of indulgence preachers?
No Albert Schweizer dedicating his life to healing and bettering the conditions of people in Africa?
No William Wilberforce denouncing slavery for like 50 years in the British Parliament and spending his money to free as many slaves as possible in the meanwhile?
No Church fathers struggling for children, the opressed and barbarians in the Roman Empire?
No St Francis trying to mend peace in the crusades and not giving two cents about Jerusalem, building the first nativity scene (as we do now), telling people that Jesus kingdom is about the hearts of men and not a piece of land?
No Casiodoro de Reyna, Cipriano de Valera, Wycliff, etc.. facing jail or having to escape their country, to translate a Bible, because they cared so much that people could know the word of the living God?
No Isaac Newton? No Blaise Pascal? No Michelangelo, No Giotto, etc...
No Obispo Romero giving his life to protect human rights in El Salvador? http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero
No Palotinos giving their life in 70's Argentina
No Mauricio Amilcar Lopez founding an University, putting it at the service of the whole of San Luis, even creating a very early remote education/updating program, smuggling people of all kinds of beliefs and ideologies out of Chile into Argentina and later out of Argentina, staying behind to do that, before getting kidnapped and killed?
No Maximiliano Kolbe, voluntarily giving his life in exchange for that of another prisoner in Auschwitz?
No one today on some of the worlds poorest and saddest places teaching, loving, giving people hope, announcing God's free salvation for man, helping people to escape material and spiritual misery, telling them in words and actions that when God created them he saw what he had created and it was "good in great manner", that even if they are rejects to society, their family or whatever, they are loved by God and the church?
Lets not forget, if Saddam had agreed to the terms of the ceasefire and disarmament fully, none of this would have happened.
So it was Irak's (or its government's) fault that the US decided to lie and invade?
It's the fact that they won't comply with International inspections which every country with that capability Should have to conform to
Every country? Including the US?
It has nothing to do with christianity in its motivations. Whatever was the belief system of the US population, the warmongers would twist it to justify invading everything. Just like non religious concepts like patriotism have gotten distorted, from the founding fathers belief that goverments appetite for war needed to be kept in check by the people, to the current "we invaded Irak to protect our freedom" nonsense. This "lets invade them all" junk is antipatriotic and anti christian, and anti "insert philosophical system with a clue here" anything.
This just in, the Vatican is raided by the FBI in search of XVI century documents and the evil mastermind of today's attack: Pope Gregory. Joining the FBI are Seals Team Six and Chuck Norris, who brought an abacus. The team sprays Gregory's coffin with bullets. Obama announces the permanent change to a non-leap calendar. The world is safe. Cue in Aerosmith.
Yeah, that's why life expectancy has been going up for the last two centuries or so. But don't let get facts in the way :)
This is why I still read slashdot. A place like any other where stupidity flourishes - but where it might meet a quick death at the hands of intelligence and inquiry. Bravo.
The missiles can have a laser weapon as its main payload. That solves the problem of a target moving out of a long range laser's way, and also solves antimissiles. Missile travels toward target and when it's at a distance close enough for the speed of light not to be a problem, laser fires.
If light is too slow...
Active homing missiles.
No need to go so far back in time.
Following doesnt mean perfection. And I've seen a few around that really, really walk the walk. Me and some friends filmed a documentary about this guy from my church, a philosophy doctor, who founded a big public university at the beginning of the 70s. The guy had been in high places in some international ecummenic organizations in Europe, but came back to Argentina, founded that university, and when Chile had its coup de etat and Pinochet started killing people, this guy, who was kind of left wing (very left wing for US standards) started organizing the escape of many (thousands) Chilean refugees into Argentina. The means of escape, housing, even jobs for them. In a time in which this country was hugely polarized along ideological lines the guy would hire right wing and left wing teachers for the Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Then came the Argentinian coup de etat (1976) and he was told he was in danger. He stayed and organized the escape of many people from Argentina. His last sermon at church was at december 1976. He returned home from a church party on New Year's eve 1977, and a few hours later a "grupo de tareas" kidnapped him. He got killed at some point in early 1977. The guys name was Mauricio Amilcar Lopez. Just one of many christians who live, rejoice and die by the gospel.
Unless you think the taking virgin slaves for concubines is somehow consensual sex, then, yes, that's rape.
(altough people choosing who they marry is something historically uncommon). good point.
And does it says that anyone can claim to have heard God? It doesn't set any tests to any so called "prophet"? Nor penalties? And does Jesus and his disciples leave *any* room for anyone to do such a thing ever again?
I have no clue what you are talking about here. Please clarify.
It means that the Bible does establish tests for anyone claiming to be a prophet and bringing "new word of God" . Tests such as "does 100% of what he predicts become true", "does he glorify God" etc... and the penalty in OT times was stoning. (Yeah, Harold Camping had it good, if he had lived at 1000 bc he would have been more careful with his "end of the world next week" junk). In new testament times (present) there is no room for "new revelation". All the important stuff to be revealed before the second coming is revealed, and what we dont know, well too bad. The new testament establishes what Christians are to do, and how we are to do it. We are told to carry the word of His kingdom to the last reaches of the earth. But we are told how to do it and how not to do it. "for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh ", "love thy enemies", "love thy neighbor", and all that. There's no room for shortcuts like "well, if we support bombing this or that country that could pave the road for this or that" nor anything like that.
I concede the point, if it is put this way: when faced with a monolithic, religious cultural force like Christianity, it is prudent to know their source books in order to attack them more successfully.
Monolithic? Really? The diversity of ideas and thoughts in Christianity is huge. Right wing, left wing (really really left wing, like liberation theology), hierarchical structures, democratic structures, anarchic structures, etc...
No, a "Christian" is one who self-identifies as believing in Christ. They typically also claim to follow sets of (selected) teachings. But there is no test of behaviour other than belief in Christ to be Christian
"You will know them by their fruits" "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother." So no, a christian is someone who follows Christ. Someone who claims to be a christian is, a priori, just that.
I think your succinct distillation is far superior to the original.
How would you know without reading the original? That's the point.
Dude, have you not read it? There is PLENTY in there to support those politics. Do you not remember the bit in the beginning, for example, where that loving god sent his chosen people on a rape, pillage and murder rampage through the "promised land?"
Rape, are you sure? Read again. They were banned of any sexual relations with the people that was there. And does it says that anyone can claim to have heard God? It doesn't set any tests to any so called "prophet"? Nor penalties? And does Jesus and his disciples leave *any* room for anyone to do such a thing ever again?
But, then, I suppose that the fact that I knew that supports your view, doesn't it? I would say that there is one good reason to read the bible: to be able to expose it for the steaming pile of evil it really is.
Yes, that's the point. In favor or against, you need to read the source in order to inteligently discuss it. This is a problem with our current education, and not just with the Bible but with all source material. It seems we now "know" that people are too dumb to read the bible, Plato, Burke, the Constitution, etc... Some centuries ago, that was not "known" and people would read and discuss such stuff and discuss it at school. It's true that you don't need to read what someone claims is source material for their ideas in order to accept or reject them, but you do need to if you are to engage in intelligent discussion. I don't think there's much of a chance for democracies without that.
stop ruining it with facts!!!
I'll spare you comments about the "no true Scotsman" fallacy you committed in your last paragraph.
Scotsman: Someone from Scotland.
Christian: Someone who follows Jesus, or closer to the original ethymology, a little Christ.
So there's no fallacy there. Being a christian is not being part of a club or being born in a christian family or something like that. Just like being a pacifist. You wouldnt claim that saying that someone who carpet bombs people is not a true pacifist is a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Same deal here.
To know where a lot of western civilization ideas come from? To compare and challenge what a lot of "christian" preachers and politicians claim that it says? A lot of the junk conservative politicians tell "christian" masses in the US would go nowhere if those same masses had good understanding of the Bible. There's lot of interesting stuff in there. In the book of Samuel, you can find a passage where a nation which had laws, judges and teachers (and a God), gets tired of it and wants something more fun; they go like "oh the nations around us have powerful kings, it would be so cool to have one", and they get told "look, if you get a king, he will take your sons and daughters as servants for himself, he will send them to fight useless wars, etc..." And the nation tells the prophet "whatever, we want a king". A few pages later things get awry for them. There's lot of stuff like that, politics, ideology, morality, economics... And just like the above example, a lot of stuff to confront "manifest destiny" "it's God will that we rule by the sword" politics.
well, the church I attend to is not affiliated with any denomination, altough it traces back to the brethren. If I had a copy around of our "Core beliefs statement" in english I would paste it here.
as the AC just said it, bread and wine is shared as communion on all christian churches, but the interpretation is different. In evangelical churches (at least on my country) we believe it to physically be just that (bread and wine) while being *symbolic*, a *metaphor* of Christ's sacrifice and gift of grace for humanity. The catholic interpretation, transubstantation, conflicts with the fact that Christ himself established communion *before* being crucified. He was at the table sharing bread and wine (that's what the bible calls it) with his disciples. So unless he was in two places at the same time and unless flesh looks like bread and wine tastes like blood, he was plainly having bread and wine with them, while making the sharing of those a symbol of His sacrifice.
The Presbyterian church is an anglican flavor and preserves a lot of stuff from the catholic church. Things are very different in most evangelical (lutheran derived) churches.
"but it is still the ritualistic consumption of the body of Jesus in every case." No. On many (might be the majority) of protestant churches, it is the figurative consumption of the body of Jesus. It's a *memorial* of the last supper. That is quite different from the catholic ritual where Christ sacrifice is *repeated*, therefore then need for the physical presence of His body. (And that has a lot of biblical problems, such as contradiction with the letter to the Hebrews where it is stated that Christ was sacrificed once and for all)
yes, it's a metaphor, just like when people in my country tell a kid "I'm gonna eat you" meaning they love them and will kiss them
A lot of christians believe in neither of those
"ritualistically eat one of their gods." Catholicism there, it doesn't apply to protestant christianity.
"you ritually eat crackers that you pretend are the flesh of your 2000 years dead savior." That applies to catholicism, not to protestant branches of cristianism.
Sheldon Cooper is that you?