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@Richard, What I hear you saying is that you would prefer that I didn’t challenge your beliefs. I can do that.
Well honestly Richard it does seem as if it goes beyond challenge. It is one thing to explore our differences, but quite another to continue to seek to prove me wrong. I love a rugged and direct debate and have thick enough skin to be able to handle the personal insults and attacks that so often seems to accompany them. But David set this place up for a different purpose. This is meant to be a safe place. I don’t believe he meant safe from question or even challenge, but certainly safe from criticism and attempts to prove another’s views to be wrong. Wouldn’t you agree?
Hey guys can we call it a draw? Or take it outside?
(I don’t mean to sound harsh if I do. Just playful. I hope we can, out of respect for the space and each other, let this one go. I believe the best of both you gentlemen, intentions and all.)And I like how it’s being called TLC (tender loving care). That works!!
@Admin I don’t mean to sound harsh if I do. Just playful. I hope we can, out of respect for the space and each other, let this one go
I can do that.
@Gary It is one thing to explore our differences, but quite another to continue to seek to prove me wrong.
I’m sorry if that is how I came across. In my mind I was talking about ideas, not you personally. I’ll try and dial it down in the future.
Thanks guys.
Bah I have been too busy and thus missed out on the thread! Very interesting discussion. @Richard, in response to your reply to my point, I agree with what you said though I don’t think it actually addressed my point… I was just making a note that there seems to be this desire, especially among the anti-theistic community, to slate religions such as Christianity and Islam because of the violence that is depicted in its history and within its holy books. It just seems to me to be a tad unfair when you have violence that occurs from all sectors of society, secular or not, and that history is just splendor with violence of varying degrees. I think its picked on more because religions are seen to be the epitome of morality, and the existence of such violence in its histories contradicts such a notion. As I said, the violence recorded in the Old Testament for example is just an historical account, we simply cannot take it as red that God was somehow behind it because we simply don’t know. The same way that we don’t know that if Constantine I saw that great vision of the cross in the sky before his beating of Maxentenius which led him to convert the Roman empire. Its written down on paper, but such notions sometimes have to be taken with a pinch of salt. The difference with the New Testament accounts is however, that there are many testimonies of the same thing, so the validity is much higher. Violence occurs via many avenues, not just religion, its the people behind it that is the cause. Its humanity which is the ultimate cause of violence.
As for the talks on pacifism, very interesting! It makes you wonder where to draw the line in such a thing. Jesus did indeed promote the idea of turning the other cheek but I think its important to remember that Jesus was on a very specific mission to sacrifice himself, and think he was merely showing an example of how to behave as his disciple. Does that make it wrong if someone injures another person in self-defense when their lives are in danger? Or if Hitler is threatening to take over Europe and a Christian in conscripted into the army to be sent abroad to shoot and kill German soldiers? I would say no. Injuring or killing someone else is always wrong, but sometimes its just necessary, their hands are forced. Saying someone lacks faith in God because they defended themselves is silly in my opinion, the desire to defend ourselves is a natural human instinct called the fight or flight response, I know all about it because I’ve suffered from anxiety issues for many years. If such a system exists then God intends humans to have the want to defend themselves, to save their own lives, to save the lives of others. Jesus’ purpose was to sacrifice himself, to show himself to be the servant of humanity, that’s not our purpose. We can live by such an example but it doesn’t make it a guideline to salvation.
Just my 2 cents
@Shift Jesus did indeed promote the idea of turning the other cheek but I think its important to remember that Jesus was on a very specific mission to sacrifice himself, and think he was merely showing an example of how to behave as his disciple. Does that make it wrong if someone injures another person in self-defense when their lives are in danger?
It seems there is a misunderstanding here. I thought I was clear that my value system would say that one needs to defend themselves emotionally, intellectually, and physically. I’m not trying to make anyone wrong for defending themselves.
My point is: If we are going to take Jesus seriously at his word and be internally consistent it brings up some questions about the use of violence, even to defend oneself.
Let’s say I’m a million years into my time in heaven and I killed someone to save my wife. Jesus comes and asks me if maybe if I had let my wife’s attacker live he might have had a chance to get to heaven. The price would have been some suffering on my part and my wife’s part, but after a million years together, what is the 50 years we were apart because she died early? And Jesus might point out that he suffered on the cross for us, it seems like we could have done the same for another. And he might bring up the parable of the two debtors. One owed the King a billion dollars and the other owed 50 dollars to the other. The King forgave the debt of the first man, but this same man went and threw the man who owed him $50 in prison.
I’m not saying I believe this way or you should believe this way, but it would seem more internally consistent for Christians to not use violence at all. And I would have much less concern with Christians if they took this position.
It just seems odd that Christians in this country line up with Capitalism (Which by the way is a Darwinian survival of the fittest philosophy), harsh punishment instead rehab, the right to bear arms, and hate homosexuals. They also seem alright with divorce even though it’s actually one of the 10 commandments and has far more violators than homosexuality. Christianity seems to pick and choose all over the place to the point where it’s difficult to know what Christianity even is.
So when you say the Bible is a somewhat reliable record of what Christianity is and you pick different things that you think are true I find it difficult to see how the Bible is even useful at all if you are going to dismiss things you don’t like. Why not start with reason in the first place and skip all the Bible mental gymnastics?
Here is a classic Russell’s Teapot Cartoon
http://www.freethunk.net/russells-teapot/metaphorical-scripture.jpg
I agree with everything you said really. Yes, it would be more consistent with Jesus’ teachings if violence was avoided altogether, and that those Christians who advocate violence are doing so in serious distortion of Jesus actually practiced. I’m just saying that if a Christian was put in situation whereby they simply had to fight to defend themselves, or were drafted into the military perhaps during World War 2 to stop a tyrant, then they simply have no choice and have to fight to survive. I don’t that would be against Jesus pacifist nature because it attunes to our natural fight or flight response, being that its inherent in everyone, then obviously God has made it possible that we all have the ability to defend ourselves if needs be, from a believers perspective anyway.
Though I never said the Bible is a reliable record of what Christianity is, as far as I am concerned, the accounts of Jesus alone are really what represent Christianity, the rest of it is background noise. Hell, the Old Testament is Jewish more or less! And the accounts of Paul and so on, though important for historical purposes, are merely human additions to what Jesus had already taught and achieved. That’s when the religion starts to be formed in the nature of the early church. Its only the advent of Biblical infallibility that the Bible has become this great relic of Christianity, but frankly, the concept is complete bullshit and there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it. The concept was developed because skeptics began picking apart the Bible following the Enlightenment, and due to the increase in believers in Darwinism, it was a defensive response. People just decided that God somehow wrote the entire Bible and therefore it can’t be challenged. Ridiculous.
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