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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
That's precisely why everything should be related back to the words - and the spirit - of Jesus teachings. Otherwise you end up with things like Calvin's predestination. And we don't need theories like that.
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ha ha ha, calvin... yeah... but like calvin there were a myriad others-- even today, the televangelists scamming millions of people into sending money to support hate-- the thing is that the words are not so easy to fathom-- there are various diverging versions plus the writings of the apostles plust the apocryphal gospels and who knows what is what? so in the end everyone grabs a piece of scripture and builds an edifice of bullshit on top of it with which to wield power over others.
which is by the way one of my problems with the reformation-- sure, the catholic church at the time was festering with corruption, but the centralized interpretation of the bible kept things more or less in check.
once everyone had the freedom to make up their own meaning, all kinds of shit religions started to pop up.
the reformation was great for the cause of freedom, but its downside is that it opened the door for all manner of cuckoo cults (ah, makes me miss the inquisition!-- no, not really).
i think the story of jesus is a nice metaphor for overcoming the limitations of the ego, and a good inspiration for socialism, and that's about that, but to try to turn it into a historical figure and find the "truth" about it is a kind of a wild goose chase.
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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
Yes it does, yes there are, yes they can. But it's not hard to spot if something is going against the teachings of Jesus. In fact, it's about as difficult as breathing.
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"as difficult as breathing"-- then history suffers from a case of punctured lungs.
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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
The whole debate about contradictions and stuff is something I'm happy to discuss, but I won;t expand upon it right now.
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that would be more theology than the interwebs can handle, and i could make a case about them myself, but in the end it ends up all being subjective. and subjective is fine, except that it's hard for it to become intersubjective.
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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
All of the bad behaviour you rightly point out is nothing to do with being religious, it's to do with being human. Totally secular countries haven't been moral pillars either.
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right, but we don't need religion in order to have morality. we have our own animal behavior and if we work it out with some philosophy morality is just fine-- we don't need a deity or metaphysics to justify morality.
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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
The same goes for the atheists. I know atheists who are not bullies or bigots. And I know ones who are. They are every bit as repulsive as the aggressive Christians.
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yes, but here in 'merica the aggressive christians are legion (yes, there's a pun intended). bazillions of demented believers in the clutches of a handful of quacks. it's frightful.
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Originally Posted by Hip Priest
But I think we should avoid saying that talking about something is the same as forcing something upon you. Otherwise we should all shut up about everything. And the forum would be a tad dull.
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oh, absolutely. love a good discussion. i don't think anybody here has accused you of being the next pat robertson.
behold:
http://www.patrobertson.com/
i can't look much cuz i just had breakfast and i don't wanna vomit. but check it out.