The Bible

Funny remark in view of the fact that Congress, the Supreme Court, the White Wash House, state legislatures, web forums such as this one, and AM radio are all controlled by the far right.

 

Here, I'm going to go ahead and explain why I call links like this canned, fabricated responses, since we haven't had this debate before, so you can see why I say this. Then I hope we can discuss the example verses I've provided.

(The rest of the quote blocks you are going to see come from the link)

No one is denying the fact that some verses in the Bible contradict the collectivist message with an individualist one. The Bible has many authors. They sometimes disagreed. This is one example.

People are "lead . . . to believe" that because that is literally what the Bible repeatedly says. I've provided examples.

Here the authors are just outright dishonest and are trying the "the Bible doesn't mean what it says" argument and attempting to re-write its words (see bolded part above). And, as we've seen in the 1 Samuel 15 example, this can't be the explanation, otherwise the punishment would come after the crime. Instead, children are punished before any crime is repeated. I can provide more examples of this if you wish.

Here the author is being honest and admitting to the sort of collectivist punishment I'm criticizing.

Here is where the author drifts into complete dishonesty again, and this is one of the most common canned, fabricated responses: to try to equate natural consequences with deliberate punishments. His first explanation here is that people naturally see consequences for the actions of others because their life is more difficult now. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that God delivers the punishment, not that it happens by some unfortunate accident outside of anyone's control. There is a difference between unfortunate circumstances beyond our control and deliberate punishments. A son may have a crappy life if his father is a thief, but if a court deliberately jails the son for the actions of his father, which is more akin to what the Bible actually says, that's just ****ing evil.

The second explanation is that, well, maybe the son will repeat the crimes of the father. That has already been addressed. If that were the case, the punishment would come after the crime. The Bible contains examples of children being punished before any crime committed on their part. Again, I can provide examples.

In fact, I'll return to my 1 Samuel 15 example. In this chapter, God remembers the actions of Amalek against Israel (this had been many generations before) and orders Samuel to go and slay the Amalekites: every man, woman, child and even their livestock. Do any of the excuses offered in this link hold up? Not a single one. Let's run through them.

The "natural consequences" excuse. Does it work? Nope. God doesn't say "Sit back and look at how the sins of Amalek have created a bad situation for his descendants. He says to go kill them. Murder isn't a "natural consequence" that is a matter of happenstance. It is a deliberate act.

The "they repeated the sin" excuse. Does that work? Nope. He says to even kill the infants, who obviously haven't repeated such sin, and unless you think the livestock was somehow going to repeat the sins of Amalek, this excuse holds no water. This was a ritualistic revenge killing for intergenerational "sins." If such a God existed and commanded such a ritual killing, he's evil.

 

Funny that you equate the bible with the 'far right', whoever they are..

They are all bible thumping fundamentalists, to you?

 

That is a fairly common opinion, among leftists. They believe that beliefs that do not match their own, 'deserve!' ridicule, and they demonstrate that belief, constantly. There are multiple examples on this thread!

 

Just going to sit back and enjoy the irony of the fact that the Bible repeatedly suggests violent punishments for free speech, free thought, new ideas, etc. Funny stuff.

 

Good example of religious intolerance. YOUR beliefs are 'good!', while any you don't hold are 'bad!', and deserve to be mocked.

I find it incredible that overt religious bigotry like this is encouraged and cheered.

 

So . . . like prescribing the death penalty for those who insult or leave your religion?

 

You can mock my beliefs to your heart's content. Just don't convince somebody in my immediate family to adopt a belief that I am going to hell. Anything else is fine and the hell thing is fine for anyone outside my family.

 

. . . have you read the Bible? You'll find much more severe religious intolerance in there.

YOUR beliefs are "good" while any you don't hold are "bad" and those that hold them will suffer for eternity and, at least in the past, such beliefs were deserving of execution? That's way worse.

 

That is not what i said or meant, and i don't appreciate you misrepresenting me. An opinion is a threat, when it is intended to be a threat, not just by virtue of being an opinion. This is a fact, whether or not the target of the threat actually believes the threat is real.

So, when you tell someone they will suffer for eternity, if they don't believe in a certain bit of magical nonsense....yes, that is a threat. An arrogant and evil threat, to be more precise. Everyone who makes this threat should be shamed and mocked for such terrible behavior. And they typically are, when they don't shield themselves with the veneer of a major religion.

Imagine your reaction, if I threatened you with eternal suffering, should you not accept the belief that i can saw an elephant in half and put it back together as if nothing happened.

 

No, Christianity still has a supermajority.

Our secular government is composed of representatives chosen by the people, of which Christianity is a supermajority. You can't hide behind the fact that our government is secular. Besides, humans TRIED religious government for centuries.

And, let's remember that the "ideals of Progressivism" share a LOT with Christianity.
- Progressives want the poor, the sick and the destitute to be cared for. So did Jesus.
- Progressives want significant reduction in the number of abortions.
- Progressives want equal treatment for every person - an end to discrimination, equality in democracy. Jesus demonstrated his opposition to discrimination on various well recorded occasions.

I could go on.

These ideals are in integral part of the foundation of America as well as being part of Christianity.

It makes sense that more and more Christians become politically progressive, as there are solid shared values there.

What we are seeing is Christianity choosing to accept bigotry, lying, sexual promiscuity, etc. - as demonstrated by who we
elect. Christians need to step up to the plate on this. It's time they started focusing on their Christian values.

Christianity will decline if in the end it means nothing.

 

I don't mock anyone's beliefs.. i bristle, some, at religious bigotry, but that is just a pet peeve.

And i have never made a judgement about anyone's eternal destiny. How could i know something like that?

 

Thats Islam.

 

And also the Bible.

 

But you do not believe in hell, so if someone tells you that you are going to hell, it is a statement with no impact to you. It is invalid, its the same as saying a dragon is going to swoop down and burn you up with fiery dragon breath.

Its words, nothing more. To your ear, they are stupid infantile words. So why do you care?

My reaction would be, it does not bother me.

 

You dismissed all my points and just reasserted your opinion..

 

So what? That has no bearing on the fact that it is still arrogant, bad behavior.

And I would tell that person that they are insane. And you would be right there to complain about me saying that. Right?

No, of course not, because you don't believe that nonsense.

Yet here you are, complaining. And that is because you actually agree with the nonsense in question, and so have sympathy for the threatener. It is your behavior that should be examined, not mine.

 

Not Christianity. Christianity is totally voluntary, its a decision between the individual and God. No other person can make it for someone else.

 

Until the Enlightenment, it was Christianity too. After the Enlightenment, Christians began teaching that God only uuuuuuused to approve of killing people for their thoughts and words and that it was totally okay to make that decision for someone else. Then he changed his mind. (Hence more of the relativism of the Bible).

Regardless, those commandments are still in the Bible. Christians just eventually changed their minds about them.

 

Well, I went farther than that by quite a bit.

I don't see how your points can possible stand up given the two points I made - that Christians have a supermajority, and that progressives and Christians clearly share a significant portion of their agendas.

I've asked before why a Christian would NOT be a progressive. Obviously, there is the one argument that "progressive" implies change and "religion" is pretty much fundamentally opposed to change.

But beyond that, I really don't know why progressives and Christians can't work together on the portions of agenda they clearly share - portions that are in high contention today, portions that I identified.

 

That's a softball question.

This is because people often do not actually derive their morality from their religion. Instead, they snap-fit their religion to suit their own morality, superstitions and bigotry. Racist? Why, you'll have no trouble finding justification in a nebulous book of fairy tales from the bronze age.

Homophobic? Same.

Climate change denier? Well looky there, the Bible has what you need to claim divine authority for your nonsense.

 

There are arrogant and rude people in all walks of life. Thats human behavior, it isn't caused by or limited to religion.

Wrong. The Christian street preacher can say what he wants, a muslim can stand on the street corner and proclaim his belief, and you can tell them both they are insane. Fine with me. Its called the public square, and freedom of speech, and interchange of ideas.

I am a Christian, and I talk to atheists and muslims and people who just haven't thought about religion. Its much better in person than on a forum, but I truly enjoy those conversations particularly with people who are willing to spend some time and effort on it. Some people get a bit fanatical, and sometimes you just have to say you respect their position and let it go.

 

There are people who abuse any religion. You have to go go the source, and that's the Bible.

 

. . . Which has verses prescribing the death penalty for idolatry, blasphemy, and apostasy. The Bible itself has man examples of God commanding these "abuses."

 

So what? I didn't say all bad behavior was caused by religion, nor does anything I said rest on such a claim.

The threat by religious people that others will suffer for eternity, unless they adopt the same, magical beliefs is vile and arrogant. It matters not to me from which particular religion they derive this threat.

But, given your lack of condemnation for this behavior and self professed affinity for one religion in particular, I think we can safely conclude that it matters to you.