I know what you are going to say.
"Gryphen surely you realize that this does not represent the truth found in the Bible, nor the truth about Christianity."
But alas I realize no such thing. In fact I think the evidence suggests quite the opposite to be true.
And that evidence is found in the pages of the "good book" itself. Here are just some examples:
A wife is a man’s property: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Exodus 20:17
Daughters can be bought and sold: If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. Exodus 21:7
A raped daughter can be sold to her rapist: If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Women, but only virgins, are to be taken as spoils of war: Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. Numbers 31:17-18
I could go on and on, but you get the drift.
As much as Christians might wish to make the point that morality flows from the Bible as the word of God, and that how we conduct our lives should be shaped by the messages within, that is absolutely false on the face of it, and is, in practice, quite harmful when taken literally.
In fact what is true is that the reason we have so much justice in many parts of the world today is in spite of rigid religious doctrine, not BECAUSE of it.
As we have become more aware of our humanity, and more empathetic to our fellow creatures, religion, including Christianity, has been forced to adapt to those changes in order to survive, not the other way around.
The Bible has not only been used to subjugate women, it has also been used as an excuse to wage war, to enslave other people, and to engage in genocide when there is land or resources that Christians want to access. (The Iraq War anyone?)
The thing to keep in mind is that the Bible was not written to bring peace to the planet, or to provide guidelines for treating all people equally.
It was written to instruct its adherents that THEY had been given dominion over all things on this planet, and that ANY who stood in their way were standing in the way of God and should be treated with extreme prejudice. And the evidence of how that has been carried out through the ages flows like arterial blood from the pages of history.
But how the book treats women specifically may in fact be its most egregious crime of all.
Not only does it steal from women their very birth right, the power of creation. It hands that power to a single, heartlessly authoritarian, male figure, whose every word must be followed without question, and instructs that those who refuse to do so be struck dead.
In other words he is the very antithesis of the female goddesses who preceded him.
And if THAT were not enough, it also lays the blame for ALL of human suffering at the feet of the very first female, and states that her descendants must be punished with immense pain during childbirth and must forever subjugate herself to the will of man for daring to "defy" this patriarchal figure; Genesis 3:16:
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
So again I must ask the question, why?
Read your Marx, Gryphen: Religion is the opium of the people the sigh of distress of teh oppressed.
ReplyDeleteThe more oppressed, the more religious. And the more the oppressors encourage it, as it stifles revolt.
Exactly!
DeleteReligion is sold to society's oppressed by rich people who want to stay that way.
Even if we take away what Marx said, religion, which tells promises a reward after death, which assures that there is a heavenly father looking out for even the lowliest among us, and which states that the meek shall inherit the world would appeal to people at the bottom of the food chain. That explains not only women, but also African Americans and poor, rural white folk.
It also appeals to grifters, for obvious reasons.
Do you even need a degree to become a preacher? Can't one just get a certificate online by paying a fee and buying some religious products? The charming snake-oil salesman/woman can develop a flock of followers and over time become very rich.
DeleteI think it was Bill Maher that recently stated the church sells an invisible product. Thus, we can't have recall or rating of the results promised. We'll never see a Consumer Reports ranking the various denominations.
I don't know why a woman would buy into this religious bondage. But then, I don't know why women are buying into crippling shoes, surgical procedures, wired push up bras etc except to attract the very people that have the power to oppress them.
Also, too, Sarah you don't need to get one of those fancy degrees that cost a bunch of money to open a church of your own. It works sorta like your PAC. You can preach to the choir and they can send you money. You might make more and you won't need to do the political pole dance and hope your admirers stuff money in that jeezus, g-string of a belt that you wear with your tight-fittin' jeans. Praise the lawd!!! And, pass the plate.
I recall at least two women of my past acquaintance who couldn't have survived living with their miserable husbands if they hadn't clung desperately to their religion. One did finally get a divorce. I have no idea about the other one, but I recall him waving around a gun threatening her and their son. I hope she left him eventually.
DeleteWell, the quotes you give are from the Old Testament. When Christ died the era of the Old Testament ended and that of the New Testament began - the symbolism of the torn curtain in the temple. Now most 21st century fundamentalist Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, do not believe much in the New Testament. They are Old Testament pseudo-Christians. And I personally have no respect for them at all.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
I could NOT get past about two minutes (and I'm not sure I made it THAT far!) of this ignorant pig! (And I am insulting the pigs.)
ReplyDeleteOf course, a lot of the people who are in agreement with this a**hole will simply say that all this comes from the Old Testament and that isn't the main thrust of Christianity.
LIKE HELL!
Never once have I asked a Christian (well, shits like this piece of crap) about why they don't simply drop the Old Testament due to its dangerous and lethal prejudices (I could go on all day along those lines, as could you Gryphen) and gotten an affirmative response that it should be dropped. "Those are the basic laws given by god. We HAVE to have those!"
Yeah. Right. I agree with you, Gryphen.
WHY do women adhere to this the most?
My personal feeling is they are brainwashed even more severely when young than males are - just to KEEP them there! (And before anyone argues with that, I have watched it several times with my own nieces, who, by the way, are in three different southern religious factions - and STILL they get this shit thrown at them.)
Fortunately, two of them have enough brains to come to me privately after noticing the looks of extreme disdain I get when the family begins to talk about crap like this. And I have a hunch the third is being talked to by those two.
MAYBE there is hope for them.
There is the late 20th century term for this kind of brainwashing...Stockholm syndrome. It is known how easily it can be achieved, and when we consider that this has been done for many generations, it becomes to be held an accepted state of being.
DeleteConsider the vulnerability of the pregnant/lactating female: the easiest way to make her pliable is to remove her from her birth family and place her into a household of a husband as early as onset of menses, to remove the "it takes a village" philosophy of the Goddess religions.
This mindset is on display in the recent furor over the words of the eloquent Melissa Harris-Perry.
It’s early and I’m not a theologian, but I’ve had lots of biblical exposure.
ReplyDeleteWe’ve all had spiritual experiences whether we acknowledge them or not. Enter the early shamans (shamen?) who evolved into priests, with occasional deep thinkers like Jesus acting as accelerants. Although those deep thinkers didn’t care, some leaders and priests were obsessed with the lady bits, same as now (Ryan?), and that’s how all those proclamations and prohibitions came into being. I think their thoughts gave them sexual stimulation, otherwise, why carry on so much?
I was a devout Christian until about, say, 12, when the hypocrisy was obvious to a Tween.
ReplyDeleteI won't even force it on my kids, I'm not a hypocrite and to attend church, even for the sake of sense of community, would be to lie to myself and my children.
Morality and ethics are not defined by Christianity, it is from the church within each person. It's quiet convenient also too, when the fundies and dominionists started going against Christ's teachings and making money-changers more i'dill than honest working folk. See Anchorage political-mega-church prick Prevo as an example.
Palin's M.O., quit four colleges before progressin enough credits to graduate in a degree in something she's good at, asking loaded, class and culture-warfare questions - never caring what the answers may be.
ReplyDeletePound vocational training instead of critical thinking, so that your intellectual and philosophical growth is limited. No wonder hair school is all Willow and Bristol aspire to. And if you do go into a trade, make sure you don't join a union because fair pay is socialism.
You want serious influence on our children? Do the opposite of whatever the Palin's sell, abstinence, education and whatnot.
http://www.adn.com/2008/09/04/516085/palin-education-took-her-to-five.html
This is an infuriating example of the purveyors of the Abrahamic/Patristic religions. To put it bluntly, once the males of their time realized that the revered Maiden/Mother/Goddess did not create Life from within herself, that it took the help of the sperm, the sperm carrier became their God, the owner of the womb became merely a handmaiden, a vessel, and with that the male arrogance of possessing the power over siring offspring became sacrosanct. It also gave rise to the hatred of the power of Woman to cause the post coital deflation of the most cherished part of the male anatomy. This is the brutal core of religion.
ReplyDeleteToday, the most pressing agenda of these arrogant religions is to bring women back under complete domination, and they will have done so when they succeed in outlawing birth control in all of its forms.
Gryphen, I thank you once again for pointing out this ancient hatred, though it makes me sick.
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY TEE TOTALLY CORRECT. Never before have I seen the truth so clearly stated.
DeleteThere is an entire book on this topic - "When God Was a Woman"
...written by Merlin Stone and published in 1976 by Barnes&Noble.
DeleteYou have my thanks, anon@9:00. It is always good to have like minded company.
fromthediagonal5:27 AM
Deleteyep, that's the unfortunate truth. it's pervasive in that many people don't even understand the origins, but due to the general workings of current society, they carry out the tenets of this basic idea.
Well, I understand your puzzlement, of course, Gryphen. But consider the traditions among the rural poor. We travel areas of South Carolina with isolated houses, not that different from olden days where working on your farm (or the landlord's farm) was your life six days a week. How important it must be for women, especially, to have some social contact once a week, going to church. And to have someone--Jesus--on whom to cast the burdens of your difficult life.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before:
ReplyDeleteThe dirty little secret of Christianity is:
MOST Christians have not read the Bible.
And most of those who have, have done so under the "tutelage and guidance" of the ministers in their church - to make certain the "students" understand the teachings the way the church WANTS them to understand the teachings instead of the way the basically plain english says it.
DeleteThey throw out so many bouncing back and forth scripture quotes they actually deliberately confuse the "student" into agreeing with THEIR "interpretation".
Those who read it on their own generally fall all over themselves laughing at the contradictions and hate printed in black and white.
I remember classmates laughing about Shakespeare, Plato and Homer (to name a few) and I even joined in with the latter, asking if the record was skipping (you remember record albums?) when the text repeated itself (a practice, I later learned, attributed to the epic's original oral form).
DeleteLater, I also learned it wasn't the book that made me mock and laugh.
I'm currently introducing my son to Shakespeare, enjoying his chuckles over the "thy"s, "art thou"s and "dost"s, and knowing that further exposure will help him see through the anachronisms to the underlying sense.
Faith and being churched are two different things. I have faith and worship with those who help me nuture my faith. Churching nutcakes like this one have nothing to do with a life in faith and everything to do with being misogynistic control freaks. Just because women have faith doesn't mean we are fools.
ReplyDeleteNo, you're a fool. Either that or you're a hypocrite; only picking and choosing what to believe in a book that openly condemns doing so.
DeleteAlso, you don't get to decide who is and isn't a member of your religion. You have no idea whether or not these men have faith, you just condemn them because they don't believe the same way you do. Much the same way they condemn gays or pro-choice people for not believing the same "truths".
They are if they stay in a church like this bastard promulgates!
DeleteWhat YOU are describing has absolutely NO resemblance to what THIS POS is talking about.
And he is too stupid to recognize that this kind of preaching is exactly why there are more and more people telling organized religion to kiss off! Or that the news media was laughing at him BECAUSE he is too stupid to see it.
Some interesting demographics to chew on:
ReplyDeleteAfrican-Americans are probably the most religious of any group.
Regular church attendance tends to depend on your level of education. High schools dropouts are the least regular and college graduates the most regular.
"Regular church attendance...."
DeleteGuess I'm the exception that proves the rule. But then, I threw out religion YEARS before I got out of high school! And most of the college grads I know would disagree with you, too.
It may have been true decades ago, but I would like to see some modern statistics on that point.
"college graduates the most regular"
Deletehmmm, was this a scientific survey? got a reference? link?
I would argue exactly the opposite. Where did you find those supposed "facts?"
DeleteAnon 4:36 and Randall,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sense of both of your posts.
As in many disciplines some texts are difficult to read with comprehension yet without that understanding the disciple will never be what he/she claims.
To wit: you can be like a chemist without reading and understanding Avogadro and Lavoisier (to cite a few key names) but you'll never really be one- at best you'll just be aping another's behavior.
There's a reason for the term "New Testament"- in part the radical shift from an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek, or so I believe. I'll concede Gryphen's point: it is sometimes (he'd likely say, not without justification, often) difficult to see the shift manifest in real life, but I'd add this seems more a function of human failing, as in the chemistry example above, than of the texts themselves.
I have read all the comments made on this string three times now and I must seriously disagree with your thinking that it is a human failure rather than a textual one. To say that the failure is mainly in the human side of the equation is to COMPLETELY ignore the very foundation of the Judeo/Christian religion, which is the old testament.
DeleteIt is vicious. It is bloody. It espouses the murder of infants and children and the rape of women. It gives examples of a so-called god that is deadly and which apparently adores mentally torturing its subjects. It gives guide lines on Who may or may not be enslaved.
The crimes of the so-called god of the old testament are extant and the laws put down in that book are so outlandish as to make anything WE do look saintly.
We at least TRY to reduce the pain involved in executing a person! The old testament decrees one of the most painful execution methods one can think of - short of burning at the stake, which was a Catholic tool based on the fact that someone decided it was not "christian" to spill blood - stoning.
I could continue, but I believe I have made my point - except for one.
MAN created the bible and all the religions of the world. At least, a tremendous number of us believe that, anyway. And it was written to codify what Man WANTED to be able to do. So from THAT angle, you are correct. However, since a huge number of people claiming to be christians (as only one example) actually think the old testament is crucial to their beliefs, the point is rather moot. It is now an organized religion failure.
I agree, all books are human creations. The texts thereof are but an intermediary of thought between author and reader.
DeleteGod (or gods, depending on perspective) doesn't commit crimes, people commit crimes, admittedly sometimes in the name thereof, sometimes in the name of a nation or ideal, sometimes for selfish reasons and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
I also agree that quite a few promoters/teachers of what they call Christianity promote views I find un-Christian, including, as you note, the conflation of old and new testaments.
To cast the issue in a slightly different mold, I prefer to blame Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz and the naive Bush, inter alios, for the Iraq debacle rather than organized government in general or the US variation thereof. Others see things differently and not without cause.
People, in my view, are the only actors in this thing we call life.
The religions that survive and prosper are the ones with the most marketable product. Money and power flow to controllers of that product. And in turn, the controllers tweak the marketability.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about understanding the market.
Men will pay big money to have their sense of power and entitlement enforced by a religion. And women will pay to feel safe.
Religion is economics, god is not relevant.
"THE" bible is a figment of the imaginations of endless selectors and translators, all of whom were/are intensely affected by the politics and social pressures of their times, and by the distortions of their own psychological makeup.
ReplyDeleteAnd all that manipulation of "sacred" text was done with very little input from women.
Until just recently, selective quoting from "THE" bible was a lucrative employment of the bible preachers. Comically, it is now possible with the simple use of a search engine to find contradictory quotes or show multiple mis-translations for the supposedly immutable word of god.
It really is very "convenient" that Jesus was not literate and need so much "interpretation".
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this site http://www.drunkwithblood.com where author Steve Wells has painstakingly laid out, both on his blog and in his book, the countless rapes, genocides, and murders committed by the psychopathic Abrahamic god - the same god worshiped in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Once you see the actions of an obvious clinical psychopath (or mythical figure, take your pick) laid out in detail, with estimated numbers of humans killed due to "god's" bloody whims, any sane or kind-hearted person HAS to go, "What the fuck? Why should we give this entity one moment of attention, one molecule of our emotional energy?"
ReplyDeleteJesus is stapled to the back of the Bible as a lame attempt at apologizing for the dark deeds of those earlier times, and anybody with a brain can see that Jehovah does NOT equal Jesus; they are two completely unrelated stories/entities/energies.
Jennifer aka Media Insider aka Lipstick Mystic
Thanks for the referral to drunk with blood. i think Gryphen should like to it instead of the now defunct sites that inhabit the left side of his page.
Deleteanon@9:01, I second that!
DeleteDo you hear us, Gryphen? There are several sites in the middle of the left side that I (and probably others on this blog) would like to see replaced with sites that can lead to interesting discussions.
Thanks, Jennifer. This is a fantastic reference and supportive of my current efforts to walk away from strongly-held religious convictions. It's powerful to see the heinous acts listed together.
DeleteBart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus' is pretty fabulous, too, for seeing the man-made effort that is the New Testament.
Some of us have escaped and are still in hiding...Bwahahahahahahah
ReplyDeleteThe Old Testament is difficult for any individual to accept, but it was a 'time' or a dispensation where unrepentent men went haywire. They sacrificed each other to gods and went wild. There was no mercy with men. If Adam and Eve had not disobeyed just one rule, they could have enjoyed the utopia of heaven on earth and walked and talked with God, having immortal life. God wanted men to choose him, and obey one thing, but, choosing poorly, they ruined it for future mankind. However, the New Testament, which Jesus overrides, is about God giving man a second chance, where He gives His son to the world, so that we, in eternity, can live with God. Man's sin cannot live alongside God.
ReplyDeleteFor those who believe it's a fable, then so be it. But, the New Testament tells the story that man's curse in the garden of Eden, of which he chose to disobey and ultimately put his own curse on himself, has been washed away through Christ now. The New Testament washes all the former curse away. The judgments of God, in the OT, do not work the same way as it did with Abraham's promise to God, and through Moses obedience. The children of Israel were, like all of us today, as stubborn and rebellious and the old Law was a way to keep men in control of not hurting others. However, the punishments were cruel, it was because men were first cruel. For instance, God did not accept divorce; those in Moses camp wanted divorce and it was through their looking for loopholes in their contract with God that they made their own rules. The NT says those old contracts are done away, so that Christ's sacrifice cancels legalistic laws and rules and gives us two new rules. Love the Lord God with all heart, mind, soul, and the second command, love others as we would have them love us.
That's the story, of which I find it beneficial to my soul. Just a few titles over the paragraphed verses in my bible, which give me hope are: Christ Fulfills the Law; Jesus cleanses a leper, Jesus heals a centurion's servant; Peter's mother-in-law healed; Many healed after Sabbath sunset; two demon-possessed men healed; a girl restored to life; two blind men healed ; a mute man speaks; the comapassion of Jesus; many touch Him and are made well; Jesus heals great multitudes; a boy is healed; With God all things are possible; Dorcas restored to life; A woman with a flow of blood for 12 years and touch His garment and was healed.
This tells me Jesus loved women as much as men.
I agree.
DeleteThe oft evidenced misogyny wasn't part of the original teachings. That view was added when Constantine institutionalized Christianity and was unfortunately well articulated by Augustine of Hippo who apparently couldn't help himself from projecting the fault of his sins of lust on the object thereof rather than himself.
That habit of projection is just as common today, or so it seems to me.
NUTS!
DeleteMatthew 5:7 - I come not to abolish the law nor the prophets!
Jesus specifically eliminated the dismissal of the old testament with that one line.
If YOU wish to ignore the OT, fine. Do so. But the overwhelming majority of so-called christians DO require it and therefore react accordingly.
Had you simply said YOU believe the OT is no longer valid I would have applauded your intelligence in being able to ignore a book of hatred. And further, I would have said I agree with you - in a very limited way.
I live by five words boiled down from all of Jesus's EARTHLY teachings - those that do not pertain to a god or a heaven or a hell: Love. Understanding. Compassion. Forgiveness. Tolerance.
Having said all that I need to point out one more major thing here: The A**hole in the above video was not even coming CLOSE to the NT that I knew about before I figured out that organized religion is a scam.
The christians weren't the first to lay blame for all sin on women, the staory of Adam and Eve was stolen from the Egyptians, the original title was Isis and Osiris. The Christian bible is a collection of stolen stories, from the Muslims( you know those Arab people) Many parts of the Bible are direct chapters from the Quaran, the Egyptians, Assyrians, and the Jewish Torah. There is very little in the Bible that wasn't stolen.
ReplyDeleteBRAVO!
DeleteThe vast majority of the bible is stolen as you say. And also the holidays and many of the "quotes".
But that still doesn't mean that modern christians need to accept that sh*t! It's all ignorance and fear of learning they were taught wrong.
Oh! And brainwashing by the power brokers.
The old and new testaments were written thousands and hundreds of years before Islam, they couldn't have been stolen from the Muslims, yes, I know, those Arab people. The Quaran was written After the old testaments.
DeleteYour basic premise is correct about bible stories being similar to earlier myths. But most of your details are embarrassingly wrong and work against the point you seem to be trying to make.
DeleteThe Jewish Torah is the same as the first five books of the Old Testament (i.e. first books of the Christian bible). This was intentional--Jesus was Jewish and Christianity is rooted in Jewish scripture. The New Testament predates the Quran by several centuries. It's more accurate to say the Quran takes stories from the Christian texts.
Tuchy, touchy. Just because the stories weren't written down in one book a culture, doesn't mean they didn't have them first. They were stolen. All these stories were written long before the Bible or the Quaran.
DeleteI could write a "new" collection of Shakespear's plays today, that doesn't mean that those plays were written today.
Actually, Isis and Osiris myth was NOT the origin of the Adam and Eve myth. Those are 2 very different stories.
DeleteYou can't imagine how odd and foreign these conversations are to someone who was raised Atheist. I simply am confounded by the arguments that take place over something that's never been proven to exist. It was the religious arguing that drove my Grandfather to Atheism during his early years and there's been nary a religious adherent of any sort on my father's side since then. It's refreshing.
ReplyDeleteI assume then you find arguments about, say, liberty, similarly odd and foreign. Liberty being "something that's never been proven to exist" although I hold the truth thereof to be self-evident.
DeleteGreat snark! After all the very serious and heartfelt comments, it's a blast of cold air reading your short parody. Thanks!
Deleteall work and no play....what would be the fun of that?
DeleteI hope, however, some find sense within the snark.
Dave Lewis - It's illogical to compare the concept of personal 'liberty' to the specific construct of the Hebrew/Christian god.
DeleteLogic, as I understand the term, refers to the form of an argument, not its content.
DeleteI suspect your objection to the comparison is semantic.
The Bible and Christianity are more complex subjects than can be accurately summarized in a blog post. I wish Gryphen would stop trying.
ReplyDeleteA few commenters have pointed out the common mistake of confusing the Old Testament of the ancient Hebrews with the New Testament. Jesus was a radical rabbi with an apocalyptic message. Although the apocalypse he seemed to predict did not come about, he did succeed in inspiring an entirely new faith. Paul, in spreading the message, added a few of his own opinions, some of them holdovers from his strictly law-oriented Pharisee past.
Jesus's simple message of love, compassion, and caring was powerful enough to survive and grow over the centuries. Of course there are those who pervert it for their own purposes. And it takes effort to cut through the BS (like the Christ myth Jesus=Osiris=Mithras, ad nauseam) so some people rely on whatever they read or hear, as long as it appeals to them.
There are many good books which can correct some of the misconceptions. A relatively easy read which gives a historically accurate overview of the Bible was written by the late Etienne Charpentier. For a little more depth, James Hannam is another scholar who can provide context for understanding scripture. Genesis, for example, was written as a liturgical poem, and was never meant to be construed as an historical account of creation.
With his finger-pointing, Gryphen is unfortunately, and no doubt unintentionally, adding to the misunderstanding and upping the hostility factor just as the faux-Christian fanatics do.
Certainly modern interpretations and commentaries provide thought provoking reading, especially when non-christian religious texts are included and women's points of view are explored.
DeleteEven Jesus didn't have all the answers.
I would LOVE to see what happened to you if you tried to tell the evangelical extreme right that Genesis was a poem not intended to be taken literally!
ReplyDeleteAs for the books you have listed (and hundreds - if not thousands - more), I couldn't agree with you more. There is only only TINY little problem: You have to get people to READ them for them to do any good!
The old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water....
As for Gryphen adding to the hostility factor? I have to agree with Neal deGrasse Tyson when it comes to the fanatics currently trying to have their way with our government: "Urges to deny facts that conflict w/your politics or religion thwart efforts to embrace reality and make a better world for it."
Even HE is getting tired of all their crap! And if no one speaks up and contradicts them, they will win. Discussion is CRITICAL! And the group screaming the loudest USUALLY has the weakest argument.
It's not difficult to stump evangelicals who insist that the Bible is inviolate God-breathed truth. Just have them read it.
DeleteGenesis, which I used as an example in an earlier post, has conflicting versions of the order of creation in its first couple of books.
You're right, many people are incurious and do not like to read, especially material that might undermine their dogma. This is true of religious fundamentalists and also of some atheists/agnostics.
I've been encouraging people to read professionally and personally (as a teacher and bookworm) for half a century. Prof. Bart Ehrman is a Biblical scholar who happens to be an agnostic himself. Maybe this link will provoke enough curiosity for Christ-mythicists to read his books:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html
You're right, Jude. It ISN'T hard to stump them. However, it is nigh on impossible to get them to admit it isn't 100% accurate, because they don't WANT that to be true.
DeleteI guess one of the reasons I was able to break away from all the dogma (my grandfather was an episcopal bishop!) was my reading. I started at a very early age and just kept on reading - mostly philosophy. (My father had a set of "The Great Books" collection and I scoured those things from front to back! I LOVED them. And they got me out of the religious trap.
It's no wonder the highly religious don't want people to read!
"The Christians did not invent Jesus. They invented the idea that the messiah had to be crucified."
DeleteDitto the encouragement to read Ehrman. He started out as a committed evangelical whose collegiate study of scripture led to the only honest conclusion: scripture could not be accepted as the authoritative 'word of god'.
Evangelicals take Ehrman's work so seriously that a few have tried to debate him. They always lose but the efforts are fascinating.
List of Ehrman debates videos:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bart+ehrman+debate&oq=bart+&gs_l=youtube.1.0.35i39j0i10j0l8.800.2074.0.4768.5.5.0.0.0.0.317.816.2j2j0j1.5.0...0.0...1ac.1.grJS_GE6bVs
Ehrman doesn't strike me as agnostic about Christ, but rather about fundamentalist interpretations of the texts and even the texts themselves which, he argues, correctly in my view, emerged from 300 years of lively debate after culling and editing when orthodoxy was established. Many of his views are agreeable to me.
DeleteTo wit: The thing is, I’ve never understood my writing to be debunking religion—even though a lot of people think that’s what I’m about. I’ve never seen myself as attacking Christianity. I have seen myself as a historian, saying it the way a historian would say it, and looking at evidence the way historians look at evidence.
And I think when you do that, it shows that both extremes are wrong. The far right, the fundamentalists, are absolutely wrong in their views of the Bible; but the far left, the mythicists, are wrong in what they think as well.
A historian simply goes where the evidence leads.
It has always amazed and amused me that these people worship a BOOK. A BOOK!!!
DeleteA book compiled and edited over hundreds of years by many different writers. Unbelievable....
I wonder if future generations will wonder why a nation of people worshiped a few documents A FEW DOCUMENTS compiled and edited over only a few years by less than 100 people- those documents including, most prominently, The Declaration of Independence and The US Constitution
DeleteThis video is of Jack Schaap, a disgraced Indiana megachurch leader who seduced his teenage parishioner and told her Jesus wanted them to have sex.
ReplyDeleteTHIS HYPOCRITICAL BASTARD used the BiBUll to seduce an underage girl from his church, and just got 12 years in jail!
http://www.christianpost.com/news/jack-schaap-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison-for-teen-sex-case-92280/
Schaap, 55, was subsequently fired by his church. He eventually pleaded guilty to the federal charge of taking a minor across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity
Yet another PERFECT example of the self righteous
in-your-face lying idiots who want to control everyone's life right down to what medicine they are allowed to use, but is meanwhile raping a teenager.
But, you can bet he'll be back after he serves 1/2 a sentence grifting off hard working people using religion and redemption as themes in his next scam.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/jack-schaap-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison-for-teen-sex-case-92280/
What a horrible man!
DeleteChristians behaving badly get a lot of exposure here. Since no one else is likely to mention a Catholic priest who was just posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for putting his courageous faith into action in the Korean War, here's a link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/11/president-obama-awards-medal-honor-father-emil-kapaun-0
My dad was in a German prison of war. On a forced march, the call went up for all Catholics, so they filed into a church and heard Mass along side their captors. My dad felt those same good little Nazis probably toddled off to Mass after a long day's work at the Dachau concentration camp. Good Christians all, doing the lord's work.
DeleteThe guy in this video is an extreme of the biblical teaching, repeated in the New Testament, of the hierarchy of earthly authority. What isn't addressed in the video is the New Testament teaching that (roughly translated) 'men are to love their wives as Christ loves the church and gave His life for it.' This takes some of the sting out of the misogyny.
ReplyDeleteSome christian churches have interpreted scripture to grant teaching authority to women. Sarah Palin's New Apostolic Reformation group is an example of one that has plenty of women so-called prophets and apostles. A number of older denominations evolved to allow women to be priests and pastors, including Methodists, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, although this splintered the denominations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women_in_Protestant_churches
Wish I had the energy to answer Gryphen's question and explain why I, as a woman, accepted christianity, the bible, and church authority for many years. It's complicated. Happily, I broke free. There is, however, much good in some of the Christian churches which shouldn't be minimized. Not all of them take the bible literally.
"Some christian churches have interpreted scripture to grant teaching authority to women."
DeleteI don't need some christian church to interpret scripture and make decisions for me. If a man has teaching authority then so does a woman. "Grant" is so effing condescending it sickens me.
I'm sorry you feel that we think all christians are bad. That's not the case. There ARE some who are sincere and devout. It's just not NORMALLY the case.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you look at the history of the fanatical religious right - which is what we dislike the most around here - you will notice a very sudden upswing of that fanaticism beginning in the 80's - NOT during the Korean War.
And wartime has a tendency to bring out the best in people - along with the worst. Some of the greatest acts of heroism were perpetrated by pacifists. Look at the number of pacifists who won the MOA during Vietnam as one example.
Please accept that while we denigrate a tremendous number of so-called christians, we usually speak in GENERALITIES which automatically should tell people that not ALL are what we complain about.
I have said it many times: Fanaticism for ANY reason is dangerous!
And I have caused them to eat the flesh of their sons, and the flesh of their daughters, and each the flesh of his friend they do eat, in the siege and in the straitness with which straiten them do their enemies, and those seeking their life.
ReplyDeleteJeremiah 19:9
Wow. Dick move, God.
What is the name of that preacher in the video??
ReplyDeleteThat is the pond scum known as Jack Schaap of Hammond, Indiana. It's in northwestern Indiana, but is considered a long-distance Chicago suburb.
DeleteHe was sentenced last month for initiating a sexual relationship with a female (teen) parishioner because "God sent her to him".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/jack-schaap-sentenced-ind_n_2918139.html
Scroll down in the link and you can see him instruct his parishioners on "How to polish a shaft." It is most definitely NSFW.
Let's throw some kindling on the fire because -- oh, I dunno, why the hell not?
ReplyDeleteThere are some of us who have been able to gain recall of various past lives we've lived; and no, nine times out of ten, when you start to access memories about past lives, you're NOT going to remember being some celebrity or king or queen -- it's amazing how many fakers are out there claiming to have been Cleopatra in a past life! (They can't ALL have been Cleopatra!) :)
But I remember knowing Jesus very briefly; I was a woman who helped organized gatherings where loads of people would come and listen to him, sometimes in a network of caves; he was already "on the radar" at that point and he had moved underground with a lot of his work. I was enormously impressed by him. Saw him with his love, Mary Magdalene; and more. Later I was inspired to join the loose-knit group of his original student and friends, those who are called "the Gnostics" today. And I can tell you that just about NONE of his original teachings has surfaced in any written document; the dead sea scrolls that mention Gnostic teachings were written by one of the many splinter groups (the Gnostics were soon at war with each other and within 200 years had all been either killed off by the Romans or went underground.)
So....you can't trust ANYTHING written about Jesus. Period.
Love to throw some kindling on the fire! For more info, folks might want to see:
http://www.lipstickmystic.com/so-heres-what-jesus-told-me-part-one/
Crackle,crackle,crackle - burn, baby burn! :)
Jennifer aka Media Insider aka Lipstick Mystic
I agree. The past gets murkier the further back and more specific the object of study. Dinosaurs, yes. Homo erectus , yes. A specific homo sapien who did this or that many centuries ago, not so easy.
DeleteWho really wrote Shakespeare? Who was Homer? Did Socrates exist? get condemned to death? and share his wisdom with Plato?.....did Plato exist?
Proof is hard to come by, in my view such issues are matters of hopefully well informed faith.
To wit: I believe Homer refers to a person or persons who put parts of Archaic Greek oral tradition in written form thus ending the so-called Mycenaean Dark Age, but I can imagine
valid arguments against my view. At core, its a leap of faith.
Interesting statement 2:23. It reminds me of an old saying: ANYTHING Man gets his hands on is eventually corrupted!
ReplyDeleteLeland wrote at 1:14 P.M. "I'm sorry you feel that we think all christians are bad. That's not the case. There ARE some who are sincere and devout. It's just not NORMALLY the case."
ReplyDeleteThere are an estimated couple of billion Christians in the world, and Leland feels competent to pronounce judgment on whether Christians are NORMALLY sincere and devout. Unless one has supernatural psychic powers, it's not wise to make that kind of sweeping indictment.
Pax et bonum
gryphen, your answer - humans are weak. why women? because more pressure is put on the males to be "strong." it's more acceptable for women to be weak, and therefore more acceptable that women would seek help elsewhere, ie. these nutbag churches.
ReplyDelete