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 The author argues that there are many meanings of the adjective 'biblical.'
November 17th, 2012
10:00 PM ET
My Take: The danger of calling behavior ‘biblical’
By Rachel Held Evans, Special to CNN On "The Daily Show" recently, Jon Stewart grilled Mike Huckabee about a TV ad in which Huckabee urged voters to support “biblical values” at the voting box. When Huckabee said that he supported the “biblical model of marriage,” Stewart shot back that “the biblical model of marriage is polygamy.” And there’s a big problem, Stewart went on, with reducing “biblical values” to one or two social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, while ignoring issues such as poverty and immigration reform. It may come as some surprise that as an evangelical Christian, I cheered Stewart on from my living room couch. As someone who loves the Bible and believes it to be the inspired word of God, I hate seeing it reduced to an adjective like Huckabee did. I hate seeing my sacred text flattened out, edited down and used as a prop to support a select few political positions and platforms. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter And yet evangelicals have grown so accustomed to talking about the Bible this way that we hardly realize we’re doing it anymore. We talk about “biblical families,” “biblical marriage,” “biblical economics,” “biblical politics,” “biblical values,” “biblical stewardship,” “biblical voting,” “biblical manhood,” “biblical womanhood,” even “biblical dating” to create the impression that the Bible has just one thing to say on each of these topics - that it offers a single prescriptive formula for how people of faith ought to respond to them. But the Bible is not a position paper. The Bible is an ancient collection of letters, laws, poetry, proverbs, histories, prophecies, philosophy and stories spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own. When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says. Nowhere is this more evident than in conversations surrounding “biblical womanhood.” CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories Growing up in the Bible Belt, I received a lot of mixed messages about the appropriate roles of women in the home, the church and society, each punctuated with the claim that this or that lifestyle represented true “biblical womanhood.” In my faith community, popular women pastors such as Joyce Meyer were considered unbiblical for preaching from the pulpit in violation of the apostle Paul's restriction in 1 Timothy 2:12 ("I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent"), while Amish women were considered legalistic for covering their heads in compliance with his instructions in 1 Corinthians 11:5 ("Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head"). Pastors told wives to submit to their husbands as the apostle Peter instructed in 1 Peter 3:1, but rarely told them to avoid wearing nice jewelry as the apostle instructs them just one sentence later in 1 Peter 3:3. Despite the fact that being single was praised by both Jesus and Paul, I learned early on that marriage and motherhood were my highest callings, and that Proverbs 31 required I keep a home as tidy as June Cleaver's. Opinion: What all those Jesus jokes tell us This didn’t really trouble me until adulthood, when I found myself in a childless egalitarian marriage with a blossoming career and an interest in church leadership and biblical studies. As I wrestled with what it meant to be a woman of faith, I realized that, despite insistent claims that we don’t “pick and choose” from the Bible, any claim to a “biblical” lifestyle requires some serious selectivity. After all, technically speaking, it is “biblical” for a woman to be sold by her father to pay off debt, “biblical” for a woman to be required to marry her rapist, “biblical” for her to be one of many wives. So why are some Bible passages lifted out and declared “biblical,” while others are explained away or simply ignored? Does the Bible really present a single prescriptive lifestyle for all women? These were the questions that inspired me to take a page from A.J. Jacobs, author of "The Year of Living Biblically", and try true biblical womanhood on for size—literally, no “picking and choosing." This meant, among other things, growing out my hair, making my own clothes, covering my head whenever I prayed, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church (unless I was “prophesying,” of course), calling my husband "master,” even camping out in my front yard during my period to observe the Levitical purity laws that rendered me unclean. During my yearlong experiment, I interviewed a variety of women practicing biblical womanhood in different ways — an Orthodox Jew, an Amish housewife, even a polygamist family - and I combed through every commentary I could find, reexamining the stories of biblical women such as Deborah, Ruth, Hagar, Tamar, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla and Junia. My goal was to playfully challenge this idea that the Bible prescribes a single lifestyle for how to be a woman of faith, and in so doing, playfully challenge our overuse of the term “biblical.” I did this not out of disdain for Scripture, but out of love for it, out of respect for the fact that interpreting and applying the Bible is a messy, imperfect and - at times - frustrating process that requires humility and grace as we wrestle the text together. The fact of the matter is, we all pick and choose. We’re all selective in our interpretation and application of the biblical text. The better question to ask one another is why we pick and choose the way that we do, why we emphasis some passages and not others. This, I believe, will elevate the conversation so that we’re using the Bible, not as a blunt weapon, but as a starting point for dialogue. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rachel Held Evans. soundoff (4,659 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 Next »Post a comment
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Editor's Note: Rachel Held Evans is a 
The Gospels are full of instances of the Pharisees trying to get Jesus to take a political position. He always refuses. If you want to be like Christ you cannot be a politician like Huckaby
Death to all religions! Well, except for buddhism..they are cool
Buddhists don't even believe in God - they live forever by reincarnation because they are bad until they get so good at meditation they become enlightened and die
Reblogged this on Mjölnir and commented:
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My Word Which Lays Upon Truths' Opening the Door
Mathew 6:33 "But seek ye first the kingdom of God!"
Luke 17:21, "The kingdom of God is inside you!"
John 18:36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world!"
1Corinthians 3:9 "For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building!"
The troubles with trinitarians, those who belly-up to one god times three is, they read but only into it and get very little out of what they make 'go-spellingly' in amplifications of unblessed pleasings. Their preaching in devilish tongues beatifies only the dumb-hearted relics of their christiandumbness's idiosyncratic marmoset-like redundancies. Their godly moralisms are but self-centered and self-censored upon redundant principles that are remorsefully archaic in cultured relics being those old fuddy duddies who fumble ever for their next glass worth of wine! Drunk and in temperamental stupors are the emotionally fallen in christiandumbs folds becoming sciatic pragmatisms unworthy of even one toasting for, but rather against!
Godless and the ungodly, for these are the choices from which commonwealth atheists do make felt upon their habitual senses denying the goodly upon ever moving ways of godly intent. Many young-bucks of godlessness and the ungodly tender to avail themselves with the nailed doldrums' sciatica and do abound with much societal unpleasantries toward the abaters of wanton deniabilities against them, those ungodly and godless beings of smirked vials of randomized intention-abilities. Their deniabilities are not without compromising or so they do entail and also do weave upon the where-with-all seasoned laments.
The mockeries of these godless and ungodly against the goodly who do themselves believe upon godly importance may well live on past all and onto every generation's aged endings. How else could Life Truly End and Real Living thusly Begin? To believe or not believe for these are Life's choices. Christ Jesus came to this world to condemn it and yet did He come here to also show how tenderly are mercies upon those being most merciful to others who did so deserve mercy to be freely given by those being most merciful! To believe or not believe for these are Life's choices. Still yet and forever are found many a mercies, for the mercifilled are one of Life's greatest treasures and livings' sweetest unending rewards.
God does never change His spiritualism for His Holy Spirit is the Great Sea of Absolute Nothingness! Always was and is and will ever be no matter what matters of materialized shapes do tend to seemingly clutter up His spiritual abundancy It is truth that God has troubles within the fractal paradigms of inter-cellular cosmologies as protruding insolent 'activists' are sometimes revolting against the grains of our embodied sanctifications creating many undulations of travesties not uncommonly being viewed by us celestial beings as being viral and bacteriological in the way we understand things to be and become. What was first made can never again become that which was made first for only in varying differential constructs can another thing be made to be outdone against that which was firstly made. The pillars of one's DNA, the spirals of all celestial life forms and formations is where God's Sons and their given wives are taken in as residents there abouts.
The Kingdom Domains of God lay where the inner structures of celestial Life do share in the abundancies of Living Fractals in Inter-Cellular Cosmological Paradigms. As mankinds' continual hunting for the Codifying of Life's laws in Cellularized Confinements continues onwards, many folks will ever become unendingly complacent upon our societal grandeurs for wanting sakes, trying valiantly never to be outdone by those who tend to be in broadest simplifications' adjuring. May we be merciful upon those who deservidely aspire to be merciful toward others.
A scattering is upon us in these trying days and Age. Leave therefore your harshest wantings behind and never take wind of one's longings for the weightiness of one's longings will smite even the most influential. Carry away nothing and leave. Head to the places inside one's being and do not keep ajar your door for many will want to enter in and should not. Your loving this Life is for the world to have needs of and you should not heed the rumors from others as to just what is truly right. It is therefore best for mankind to simmer in their yet unfinished juvenile pottages never rationalizingly 'assaying' one's diffuse detriments, the very smallest of life's grains. As smitten breeds, our splendors reveal one's characters to be traitorous to one's analogous fold. Where then does true life really end and real living truly begin?
For this world knows not the time nor the place for the 'son of man' and his coming upon this world to make judgement upon the world's governance. Behold you now the time is upon mankind for this 'son of man' is now placed in mankind's midsts. He does see much goodness upon many lands and he does also see much bitterness as well. This son of but a simple minded man knows well the bitterness of torments and much of the social egress. The tears that flows from this man's son is bitter with much consolations gathering together as wasted nuptials being leveraged by time's undoing. The angst of one man's son is but now the two-folded spark of leavened thanks giving and no more trickeries to be unfolded upon mankind!
Though my sights are now set my heart there maintains a pleasing maleable notion. I do so love my brother beyond the bounds of the wateriness of baptismal complacencies. My brother and I are one blood and nothing dare comes between us lest they be but friendly natured. God as my soul's judge and Christ Jesus is my defender of my ongoing maleable heart hell-bent to be my brother's keeper foresaking the watery conditionings of religious persuasion. May men nor women scorn my lot in this Life's consortium in brotherly assets. God forbade me in time's past and did allow me the freedoms to be hung with! May the son of man be never found unwilling to set things right no matter what was so done in passing!
Who before this day's Age is found those worthy of Goodly praises? Who after us will find peace set before them? Who in today;s timeline is this "son of man" that many should fear him for his worthiness stance? Who above can see the below? Who that is below can see what be above? From the very smallest crevice to the most high chasms, the Sea of Nothingness is the Holy Spirit. May the elemental gods find favor in this found son of man that he may not be afflicted with this world's power but rather he should carry upon him the angst from his manhood till his natural death.
What I spiritually believe in is that the Families of God including God Himself lives upon the very first created Cosmos which is the Inner Cosmos. Our being but upon this celestial cosmos is due our being cast out of the Inner Cosmos for many reasons. Some were cast out of this Inner Cosmos for faulterings of waywardness and some for willingly wanting to continue to do the Lord's Will here upon this celestial realm of gigantic life forms whereupon their insides are living many families of God's members. We live upon this realm doing what we want while many of us unify ourselves in the communal. My way is not your way and yet when we cross paths we receive each other and after a spell do walk on and are parted.Therefore, walk placidly amid the noise and waste ever being mindful of the peace one finds in finding peace there about.
Is God to be made a mockery by those who tend to instill anti-leveraged pragmatisms? Are we to believe in the godless and the ungodly who care little about the piecemeal subjectives' ordinates?
Jesus, was the very first of many immeasurable 'elemental beings' and was in the Beginning an elemental king of all the elemental Gods. Jesus, in His cunning, did thru Chaos' manueverings, established the gravimetrical waves for the elementals to gather in broods thusly was formed the beginnings of celestial nebulas.
As time did force the nebulas to progressively surround the gravimetric oscillations where from did come about galactic formations of the elementals' soundness. As systems of photonic elementals, the infinitesimal finite elemental Gods did shower the solarized systems with their embodied beings. And in the Now, we are but made from the photonic elementals' stillnesses, the stardusts of the Ages.
My "Physicist" knows very well the quantum physicalities of natured atomic stimulations. I call this "Physicist" God. He has strewn His Sea of Nothingness with 'photogenitisms' or the stillness of the photons creating all manner of the first materials needed to become thru timeliness all the elementals' members of our declared Periodic Table of Materialized Photogenitis.
Microbiologists are today's inner-seeking astrophysicists for they are searching among our embodied core-roots to find answers regarding biological fractals of inner cosmological paradigms. We truly are God's buildings! Some of our bodies are condominiums and some are for storage purposes and some are the temples where God's family members and His servants do pay homages in. 1Corinthians 3:9 "For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building!"
Sciences are but the dreams dreamt and are atheists' treasure troves of good books they hardly ever do read, for many atheists aren't too bright yet they stand by these scientists without one iota of deniability to question science books that even the commoner seldom reads nor truly understands. Who among us knows about that 'Self-Similar Cosmological Paradigm' lays open the doors to Cosmologies of the Fractal kinds? Who among us truly understands that energy equals mass times light squared and its' true potential? What is the point in adoring scientific reasoning when one's IQ level can be counted on ten fingers?
1Corinthians 3:9 "For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building!"
Inside of the Fractals within Bio-Cosmological Paradigms lays all inter-cellular activities only just recently becoming known by mankinds' Sciences. All religions have been left in the dustiness sideroads where Truth does prevail upon many of mankind's teachers students of Bio-Technicalities wanting to willingly know about the kingdoms of God which lay upon the insides of all celestially nomenclatured biological life forms and life formations.
As this Age of Great Enlightenments upon the Kingdoms of God does progressively teach one is taught from its outward creviced distances toward almost absolute finiteness or the very very smallest of distinguishable degrees, God will allow our students and teachers of such studies to meaningfully create biologic mechanisms for the better welfare of all our physical needs and trade orientated desires.
What I believe is; "The Cosmos is immeasurably full of ever unkowable to us universes." The 'analogous' variabilities of moving universes is so slow in their plights that trillions upon trillions times triliions of our years will pass by before any other universe will gain entrances onto any other universe. As our Ages of tenureships figuratively coalesce in the extemities ponderances, the forlorn and the 'un-abled' will ever need others to carry them along and alongside the tapestries of Life and its garnered adaptabilities. Love therefore and do never 'not' love for one would be wasting away their love for living and the need for loving is tantamount and above reproach.
I feel a compelling want to tell you about some verses in Gospel scripture. Is it not written to above all things to seek firstly the "Kingdom of God". This said, have you ascribed to doing so? Where does one look to or towards in order to find that which we are told to seek as scripture does declare one to do?
Mathew 6:33 "But seek ye first the kingdom of God."
I've searched the Gospel writings and have found a single verse telling all who have found it as to the true and literal location of God's Kingdomly Domains!
Luk 17:21 "The kingdom of God is inside you."
I take Luke 17:21 quite literally and so should all who believe in One God and His One Son of perhaps oodles upon oodles of otherly Sons and Daughters too numerous to really expound upon! Christ is special because he was born to take upon his being the sins of those who were and then were also and of times yet to come! God's Kingdoms being inside us and within our ownliness bodies can also be associated with another verse of scripture ,,,,
,
1Corinthians 3:9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, [ye are] God's building.
The just above verse does tell much more than just glimpsing over it could proclude! Our being labourers with God may well seem to give us all an equal footing with God and his aspirations for our betterment's sakes! His being our husbandry may well regard God as having a firm footing in our conceptions of childbirthing beyond mere genetic understandings!
But in the aboveness verse, the very understanding that we or our bodies are God's buildings may well inspire one to disavow such a claim due one's foresightedness sakes and lacking of rationalisms' of credible resources. Yet, as I see things, we, our bodies are not only God established and God created buildings for the benefits of the Godly who reside inside of us, but are for our benefits for learning and understanding the precepts of "Fractal Cosmologies"!
We have seen that which our bodies are made up of and they are of cellularized structures not "unlike" nebula structures in outer space places! These celestial nebula structures are yet a work-in-progress and our body-like buildings are a progress in the works!
While the charge is truthful that Christ will never come back, our problems regarding life after death does ever remain. If one does so believe that nothingness is one's finality, then, so be they, however if one faithfully believes in a hereafter, they may well be faithfully rewarded no matter how small their faith is bequeathed upon them. The Great Sea of Nothingness does not come about without perilless underpinnings whereupon the common atheist concerns are afforded them. Freezing Cold is this Great Sea of Nothingness and colder still may well become of the atheists who declare upon nothingness to be their finalities' End means. Like hell's fury does Nothingness's cold strike out! Only the very devoted atheists might garner the freezing bitter cold of Nothingness for Christ was never of them even though words were said to them being those ungodly and godless souls of deniabilities aggressions!
What is the reasoning for Life? Are we to believe that nothingness is the ultimate conclusion of Life? Just how long did it take Life to create mankind? Kindly consider all the nuances and reasonings for the world's establishing of a biosphere wherein to place mankind upon. Why should such a sphere ever be needed if not for a sound reason? To stand upon the premise that 'naturalistic' phenoms made the world what is now is so falsely unreasoning that it puts assunder the amazing feat that creation itself did play out here amid a rock being at just the right place within the sun's solar system to give rise to mankind! Who'd have guessed we were made right, right here upon this rock?
These words are revelations of my Faith as to my Godly understandings regarding the Kingdom Domains of God, his Sons and his Daughters-in-law and all forms and mannerisms of Life-ever-lasting principles and principalities of ever living progressives!
Written by God's Oldest Dreamer
The Gnostic gospels were indeed "scripture" far more so than the present form of the so called "Holy Bible". In fact, these scriptures tell the tale of Jesus the man. Married, a Buddhist, a nudist, a true renaissance man of his time.
The Greek Phase: ανοιχ τή ο δο ιτ, simply means, "what time did you get in last night?” Loosely translated into today’s vernacular.
Dr. D. Johnson,
Though my sights are now set my heart there maintains a pleasing maleable notion. I do so love my brother beyond the bounds of the wateriness of baptismal complacencies. My brother and I are one blood and nothing dare comes between us lest they be but friendly natured. God as my soul's judge and Christ Jesus is my defender of my ongoing maleable heart hell-bent to be my brother's keeper foresaking the watery conditionings of religious persuasion. May men nor women scorn my lot in this Life's consortium in brotherly assets. God forbade me in time's past and did allow me the freedoms to be hung with! May the son of man be never found unwilling to set things right n matter what was so done in passing!
but what you have to remember is that there are certain truths in scripture that cannot be denied...and that understanding them in their historical context and in the context of text of scripture will make a lot of things clear- including what a true "biblical" marriage would look like...not everything is "relative" and "up for grabs" based on interpretation and application (can you base whatever your view is off of the Bible? sure. does that make it right? no. does that fact invalidate the true position? no.)
'there are certain truths in scripture that cannot be denied.'
Example please.
I'm curious too.. Where are these undeniable truths?
Gavy,
The troubles with unfaithful trinitarians, those who belly-up to one god times three is, they read but only into it and get very little out of what they make 'go-spellingly' in amplifications of unblessed pleasings. Their preaching in devilish tongues beatifies only the dumb-hearted relics of their christiandumbness's idiosyncratic marmoset-like redundancies. Their godly moralisms are but self-centered and self-censored upon redundant principles that are remorsefully archaic in cultured relics being those old fuddy duddies who fumble ever for their next glass worth of wine! Drunk and in temperamental stupors are the emotionally fallen in christiandumbs folds becoming sciatic pragmatisms unworthy of even one toasting for, but rather against!
God Meets His Physics Teacher
Teacher: God, I have some bad news for you. You’ve been getting away with murder for eons, but I’m afraid that now you have to start abiding by the laws of physics.
God: But I don’t want to!
Teacher: I’m afraid that doesn’t matter. Look, you made this Universe and set the rules, you have to abide by them. One cannot tell his servants to do one thing while he does another. I think Jesus said that.
God: That fvcking kid. He’s been nothing but a problem since puberty. It’s his mother’s fault. All high and mighty the way she is, “I’m a virgin, I’m a virgin.” No big surprise there, she went to a liberal arts college and studied women’s rights. She loves the Indigo Girls and played a lot of sport. You do the math.
Teacher: Anyway, the game is over. Time to start abiding by the rules.
God: But I am omnipotent, I can do what I like.
Teacher: Well….sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s the first thing to go. You see, the laws of physics state that an omnipotent being cannot exist. It is a meaningless concept, like a four-sided triangle, or a square circle. Once universal laws exist, omnipotence cannot.
God: Not even for Rupert Murdoch?
Teacher: No, not even for him. Now focus, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got to start with Archimedes and get you up to quantum mechanics by the end of the day.
God: But I’m omniscient. I already know everything.
Teacher: Sorry kiddo, strike two. Omniscience is essentially a meaningless concept, too. Knowledge requires data to be input, stored and recalled in a useful manner. To be truly omniscient would require an infinitely large data storage unit with access to all parts of it at over light speed. Given the natural limitations of data recall, you are actually a bit of a dunce, by the standards of the gods.
God: Why only light speed? What does that have to do with anything?
Teacher: We’ll get to that, around 3:30 this afternoon. This is going to be a long day.
God: That doesn’t matter, I’m immortal. I have all the time in the World.
Teacher: Ok, so how do I break THIS news?....
You’re not. To be a god means, at a minimum, that you must be a complex being at some level. Now that you are governed by the laws of physics, this means that you are subject to the laws of thermodynamics and entropy. Over the long term, you must decay. You can be sustained for a very long period, but ultimately it is a finite period.
God: You mean…..I’m getting old?
Teacher: Yep, I’m afraid so. Noticed that slaying the first born, sending plagues to kill thousands of innocent people and wiping out Canaanites has lost its allure? Nothing but a peaceful middle age, full of Viagra and memories ahead of you now. Look how fat Buddha’s become.
God: So, if laws of physics exist, that means I’m not omnipotent, I’m not omniscient and I’m not immortal. Hell, I’m not even a god. Gods cannot exist. Jesus Christ, I don’t even exist!
Teacher: You do the math.
A brave and honest set of views from Rachel Evans that I respect and learn from. Bravo!
The god theory of both Christianity and Islam are lies, there is no such thing in evolution. In order to control people these two little books were possibly fabricated from Indian text "bhagwadgita" which existed thousand of years prior to these two man made religions. In those days it was not uncommon to have magical powers in India.
Both of these books have a lot of loopholes like the earth being made in 6 years, and from Islam everyone else are infidels and should go to hell. Hello, I mean what "kind" of religions are these.
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I love Satan! Even though she is not real
I love you too, baby!
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@Get Real
Reason is no moral compass. Logic is cold. Reason will get you an atomic bomb. Morality will tell you whether to use it or not. You must have a standard of morality.
Well said ... logic is best used to come to understanding why morality has to be the over-riding factor in our practical behavior. When directed towards morality - our logic and reason serves its own purpose.
If god were real I would nuke him!
Reason will lead you to truth. Truth is in the opposite direction of religion.
and reason can help you provide you with one
Nobody (except Kant, maybe) advocates as reason being the only source to determine morality
You're biased and you think that your religion grants you better options than secular morality, but it does quite the opposite.
Morality: Using empathy as a guide for human interaction. AKA, "treat others the way you want to be treated" and "put yourself in my shoes". It has nothing inherently to do with the bible.
Karen Wynn of Yale has a study showing even babies have an idea of wrong versus right. Neuroscientist Christian Keysers has done research to show that the brain of those who see others receiving pain themselves have similar neurological responses. There is a curve to empathy; some feel it more than others. But it certainly doesn't come from a hateful book about imaginary people.
Frans de Waal shows that even monkeys employ "morality"...
for Eva, yet again....
Given that Christianity is little more than Dark Ages philosophical musings over Iron Age Middle Eastern mythology, this contiinued focus on Christianity is quite remarkable for a country and a people who are, otherwise, quite advanced.
It's a duality that will eventually split the country apart. There are the people clinging to the old gods and religion, then there are the people wanting to take the country into the future.
Perhaps we will have to take religion away from the deluded as we had to take slaves away from the morally corrupt.
Amen to that
This is a thoughtful piece. I appreciated the opportunity to read it. Can't say as much about the comments
The comments by theists are all "Don't you dare touch my delusions. I want a niche somewhere, someplace.. to be safe from any confrontation."
Anybody who can use the internet today will see the ridiculous nature of the religious adherents.
never read comments at CNN
You are at the Museum of Modern Art with a date. You have high hopes for this relationship. She is smart, pretty and a great cook. You just critiqued a group of Kevin Appel paintings when you felt a sudden urge to relieve your bowels. But where is the bathroom? Too late. And it is loose. You drag your smelly self to the elevator; she is behind you but gagging...
Where is your God now?
bent over laughing at the idiots he created
Pray for Armageddon and Jesus' return. Pray that God puts the Atheists on the lake of fire.
Pray to god they catch you for abusing little boys
I don't think God prays for that.
and I think your theology is really pretty sad... and hateful
As a Christian I resent that!
If your god were a just god, he'd side with the skeptics
God is as real as santa claus is.
Bruce Willis was great in that flick. XD
Out of all the silly superst.itious beliefs of the Christians, I think the myth of hell is my favorite. Think it through. I don't have to kill, I don't have to steal, hell, I don't even have to litter. All I have to do is have a reasonable, honest and rational disbelief in the Christian god and he will inflict a grotesque penalty upon me an infinite times worse than the death penalty. And he loves me.
The Bible is not One Covenant, but Two.
Christians have become so infatuated with taking their marching orders from the OT of late...
They have become "Old Testament Christians" ... without realizing that the New Testament was something *NEW*.
Truly sad.
Yes, Mr Stewart suffered the over of the new testament in his rebuke referring to polygamy because the new testament does not refer to husband treat your wives... and if polygamy was ok, then why is divorce a problem in the Bible. Obviously, if you did not need a divorce to remarry because you could just marry as many wives as you like then there would be no reference to divorce in the Bible. What is even more sad is that some "Christian" had an even greater over sight of believing what Mr Stewart said is accurate and then cheered him on. Seek your wisdom from the Bible and applaud God not a comedian's charisma charm and wit to form your belief around. I pray for Mr Stewart, our Priests, all sinners, and anyone who divides instead of build up the body of Christ.
It's all the word of god supposedly. Why is it up to you to discount half the book just because you think the other half is odd?
Doomed likes little boys, it that weirdo way
They always want more little boys to join them. Too bad today's society has a load of media outlets. XD
When you look at different religions, they usually contain "magic." For example:
• The Mormon religion contains the magical golden plates, the magical angel, the magical seer stones, the magical ascension of the plates into heaven, etc.
• The Muslim faith contains the magical angel, the magical flying horse, the magical voices, the magical prophet, etc.
• The Christian faith contains the magical insemination, the magical star, the magical dreams, the magical miracles, the magical resurrection, the magical ascension and so on.
The presence of "magic" is a clear marker for "imaginary." For example, how do we know that Santa is imaginary? Because (among other things) he has eight magical flying reindeer. How do we know that Jack and the Beanstalk is a fairy tale? Because (among other things) the story contains magical seeds. In the same way, how do we know that God is make believe? Because God is surrounded by magic.
According to believers, God is an all-powerful being who has the divine, magical power to do anything. How do we know that this belief is a fairy tale? One way to know is to try to invoke God's magical power. For example the Bible tells us in many places that God answers prayers. However, whenever we try to pray, we notice that nothing happens. That tells us that God is completely imaginary. The magical powers ascribed to him are a fairy tale.
Another way to know is to read the stories of magical events in the Bible. There is the magical flood, yet we know with certainty that the flood never happened. There are the magical miracles of Jesus, but (predictably) none of these miracles left behind any tangible evidence. There is the magical resurrection, yet there is zero evidence that it ever occurred and no reason to believe it.
God is identical to Leprechauns, mermaids and Santa. God is a magical fairy tale creature. The magic surrounding God tells us that God is imaginary.
St. Nicholas did not have flying reindeer and no Christian believes that he did. No Christian ever said anything about "magic" that is your explanation for 1) something that you do not understand and 2) a children's story that you extrapolate to being the religion (a big miss-conception by many people).
Miracles happen all the time and it is not magic. I have seen amazing things since I have started to pray. I pray that one day people will realize that the body of Christ is only hurting by dividing Christians. We are suppose to be united...one God, one Holy and apostolic Church, one body of Christ.
vincastar. name one single verifiable miracle. I am waiting.
People of faith, do not argue with the unbelievers. They are a wretched lot. They will never know what it is like to be called by God. It's sad really.
Which would explain why you are arguing with us now.......mmmkay.
Holy Condescension, Batman!
You are quite desp'icable, Blane.
Youtube it.
"Dan Barker – How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists "
==quote==
"like to be called by God. It's sad really."
==end==
How silly do you feel about your calling? Sad isn't it <-that's you.
You like little boys in that weirdo way dont you?
You'll never know what it is like to be called by the supreme invisible pink unicorn, master of all universes and gods.
How dare you speak of a false, minor god as the only true one?
Free your soul and recognize the supreme invisible pink unicorn!
Umm.... I think he/she is arguing with the BELIEVERS. Maybe you should read that again.
wretched lot? you people of faith use God to blanket your insecurities. quick to cast stones of judgement
@ FreeFromTheism -
I think you need to read my article at TilledSoil DOT org on "Teapots & Spaghetti Monsters" as you've fallen for a basic mistake in thinking.
Steve, I was mocking religious belief.. I don't think there can be any falling in my reasoning in such a context.
I'd be happy to debate with you whatever you wish though, if you intend to be serious.
I'm still not going to read your article...
Blane: Generally reasonable advice – endless argument is futile. However, it might be noted that there are examples where the early disciples and the Apostle Paul attempted, with great fervor, to reason with the unbelievers. At some point the rule of "shaking off the dust" from one's feet is applied, but not immediately. We need guidance from the Holy Spirit to know when that point is reached. One would like to think that each of us, at one time, might have been, before being saved, a "hard nut to crack" – so that spreading the gospel is not simply "putting out a statement" but, indeed, providing impassioned exhortation to the unbelievers to believe on Jesus as their Lord and Savior. As Jesus and the first Christian martyr, Stephen, told the Father at the point of death, in reference to those that persecuted them, "they know not what they do."
Bill, indeed, a "nut".
@ FreeFromTheism -
Yea, I realize that. You're kind of like the toddler with fingers in ears going.... blah blah blah... I'm not listening to you... blah blah blah. Sorry to hear you're beyond reason.
@Bill P
==quote==
"to reason with the unbelievers. "
==end==
You see those words? Do you know what reason is?
We call you on it. All you resort to are babble quotes and h-o-m-i-l-i-e-s. You employ emotions – not reason.
You employ ignorance towards facts. You're backed into your bubble and you use fear. All you have is faith – your kind doesn't even have any reasonable arguments for your delusions. But it makes you feel good and you think that is all the "reason" you will need. Sorry but your kind's p-o-s-i-t-i-o-n are unreasonable. So take ridicule as your medicine til you do learn what reason is. It is certainly -not- your fall back of "faith".
Steve, is that all you wanted, for me to read your article? Let me guess, does it talk about how unicorns and tea cups aren't necessary beings or that they don't have great creating powers?
Like I said, if you have an argument you wish to present on this blog, I'll be happy to challenge it. Otherwise, I have no desire to talk to you or duty to read your "article".
Also, you wouldn't be allowed to use ad hominems like in your last post.
ANSWER – "We call you on it. All you resort to are babble quotes and h-o-m-i-l-i-e-s. You employ emotions – not reason." I see that other feet may have already, and rightly, shaken their dust off regarding you. Somehow, you have stepped up the conversational tone with much anger. Before it is too late, try to understand what drives that in you. But, I will offer this: the Christian is sitting in the theater of life, jut as all others. The Christian believes that he or she has discovered that there is fire in the theater. And it is real. So, that Christian can either warn others or, simply, to avoid confrontation, get out with his or her own life, leaving the others to be consumed. But the Bible tells us, that is the Christian (this does not apply to you), regarding these folks that would be consumed in the fire, that their blood will be on the Christian's hands – the one who failed to warn the others of the fire. At some risk, I have shared this, given your apparent spiritual discernment, in the hope that you might get what drives Christians to share the "good news" of salvation through Jesus. This is not about "joining a club", this is about helping other to avoid eternal punishment.
@ FreeFromTheism -
Nope, it's more about the fallacy of analogy of Russell and the FSMists. I'm not going to try and repost it here, nor is this really a good place for discussion of that nature. It's your choice though, fine.
It isn't an ad hominem if it's true.