Free will and religious faith

Almost as wrong as the Catholic pedophiles

Lightgigantic said:

approaching a multi-authored text without addressing text critical issues is to assert a point with no support
(or at least to do what you outwardly condemn - "dressing" the text according to one's own bias)
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I find your approach unsatisfactory for its complete lack of intellectual investment. Raise whatever text-critical issues you would like instead of dumping the burden of an entire problematic text on other people. After all, if you can transform Genesis 3.23 into "everything is going according to the plan", great, I look forward to it. But more important is the question of whether people should continue to lie to children in order to indoctrinate them. If the Word of God is all that and a side of fries, why the hell do people need to "improve" in order to make it more accessible/palatable to children?

I recognize that it's simply not important to some Christians to adhere to the Bible or to represent God honestly. And that's fine. If that's the case, though, I want them to leave the children the f@ck alone. The one thing I can say on behalf of predatory Catholic priests is that they cut to the chase and just f@ck the kids. There's no cute metaphor there. If these people actually believe in God, they ought to take a few minutes to think about how much they might be pissing God off by altering His Word in order to make it easier to indoctrinate children. This is not what Jesus meant when he said "Suffer the little children to come unto me."

(And I'm pretty sure the Catholic priests got it wrong, too.)

Tell me the stories of the Bible with reduced violence. Tell me about Sodom and Gommorrah; tell me of Lot's piety without explaining the bit with his daughters. Tell me about Saul; explain why God repented of making him king without the genocide. Raise whatever text-critical issues you want. Prove to us all how widespread Christian misunderstanding is in order to salvage this one issue. Seriously, it's one of my favorite spectacles. Go for it.

A bit of integrity ought not be too much to ask of those who would indoctrinate children according to an assertion of Truth.

You can rape the world and be creative now,
You can kiss the right side of your brain.
Oh, they can tell the tarot for the rest of us,
And I can crown me Tarzan, king of Mars.
Oh, they can tell the tarot for the rest of us,
And I can crown me Tarzan, king of Mars.

All the blazing suns
Suck up all the gods and punks.
It's enough to change your life,
And you know I love to come.
I can see beyond your dreams,
I can see on TV.
Keep it all for me babe, all forever.

You can rape the world and be creative now,
You can kiss the right side of your brain.
Oh, they can tell the tarot for the rest of us,
And I can crown me Tarzan, king of Mars.
Oh, they can tell the tarot for the rest of us,
And I can crown me Tarzan, king of Mars.
You can rape the world and be creative now,
You can kiss the right side of your brain.
Oh, they can tell the tarot for the rest of us,
And I can crown me Tarzan, king of Mars.
Oh, they can tell the tarot for the rest of us,
And I can crown me Tarzan, king of Mars.

(Monster Magnet)​
 
Carcano said:
Except there is no devil in Genesis, or the old testament generally. The devil was an idea borrowed much later in Hebrew history...probably from the Persians.
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I am curious: Where did you learn this (that there is no devil in the OT)?
 
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Tiassa said:
I find your approach unsatisfactory for its complete lack of intellectual investment. Raise whatever text-critical issues you would like instead of dumping the burden of an entire problematic text on other people. After all, if you can transform Genesis 3.23 into "everything is going according to the plan", great, I look forward to it. But more important is the question of whether people should continue to lie to children in order to indoctrinate them. If the Word of God is all that and a side of fries, why the hell do people need to "improve" in order to make it more accessible/palatable to children?
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in short - if there are a range of authors offering a range of recommendations for a range of issues, why the hell would someone insist that they all be placed on the same platform?

There are very good reasons why Jewish people in contemporary New York are violating OT recommendations for camel maintenance

Its called hermeneutics

:shrug:
 
Lightgigantic said:

in short - if there are a range of authors offering a range of recommendations for a range of issues, why the hell would someone insist that they all be placed on the same platform?
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Whatever you say, LG. Now then: For what reason is it necessary or advisable to lie about the Word of God in order to make it more accessible and palatable to children?

I don't care if your answer is right or wrong. I'm having a hard time thinking of a "right" answer. I'm open to suggestion.

It seems strange that you should go out of your way to pretend to address a question when your whole argument best suits some other discussion, apparently of your imagination.
 
Censoring the Bible is not merely a matter of hermeneutics

Lightgigantic said:

hermeneutics is lying?
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What the hell is your problem?

It's not just a matter of hermeneutics. The idea that the Bible needs to be bowdlerized in order to make it more accessible and palatable to children is not a matter of hermeneutics.

Is there some reason that the question at hand is the one point you simply refuse to address?

Hermeneutical and text-critical issues make for fine discussions, but you've yet to make the case that altering the text and narrative of the Bible in order to make it more accessible and palatable to children qualifies as hermeneutical or text-critical.

Like I said in the topic post, I actually understand the idea of reducing the amount of repetition and genealogy. This makes sense compared to the attention span of children. It's harder to brainwash them when they're not paying attention.

But to alter the narrative? To alter God's character? To bend God's Word to human will? To censor the Bible because God's Word is too violent for children?

The functional point is that if these children come to "choose" the faith, what are they really choosing? Certainly there are interpretive questions, but one way to avoid interpretive problems is to reduce the amount of material to be interpreted.

Adding it back in once you've convinced them they'll be punished if they don't believe it seems both cowardly and dishonest.
 
Tiassa said:
But to alter the narrative? To alter God's character? To bend God's Word to human will? To censor the Bible because God's Word is too violent for children?
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I guess its a pretty obvious thing to say - but here goes ....

your atheistic values concerning what is essential about the bible or god's character make for dressing the text in a different way

perhaps we could talk of atheistic hermeneutics (lol)
 
light said:
your atheistic values concerning what is essential about the bible or god's character make for dressing the text in a different way
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It is you who is (or appears to be, it's hard to tell what you are actually doing if we assume you are being honest) defending dressing the text of the Bible.
Does the Bible actually support the notion that man has free will? ”

discussion of issues of god/evil or love certainly requires it
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Yet many Christians (Calvinists, et al) deny it, based on the Bible.
 
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iceaura said:
It is you who is (or appears to be, it's hard to tell what you are actually doing if we assume you are being honest) defending dressing the text of the Bible.
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dressing scriptures for the sake of practice is what hermeneutics is all about

dressing scriptures for the sake of non-practice is also what atheistic analysis of scripture is all about too

one is working with the view "how can I make this relevant"
the other one is working with "how can I make this irrelevant"

needless to say, the two schools of thought hotly contend with each other

:)


Yet many Christians (Calvinists, et al) deny it, based on the Bible.
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then it would be interesting to hear their arguments for issues of good/evil and love

(although I suspect it involves issues of determinism ..... which is a further break down to a context in which free will appears)
 
Lightgigantic said:

your atheistic values concerning what is essential about the bible or god's character make for dressing the text in a different way
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For some reason you are apparently incapable of seeing any difference between the idea of how one interprets the Bible and deliberately omitting portions of the Bible in order to shape the interpretation.

For instance:

• The believer might argue that Lot's offering of his daughters represents the depth of his piety, that God's law is more important than anything else.

• The nonbeliever might argue that Lot's offering of his daughters represents the depth of insanity about religious faith, that one would see their own daughters gang-raped in order to please God.

• Another way of looking at it, of course, would be to say that Lot never offered his daughters for gang-rape. This option would not require some arcane interpretation of the situation presented in the Bible; one merely need pretend that the entire episode never occurs in the Biblical narrative.​

Or perhaps:

• The believer might argue that, in hacking Agag to death, Samuel righteously carried out God's will and ended a war.

• The non-believer might argue that God demanded genocide.

• Another way of looking at it is to say that God never demanded genocide, and Saul never failed to deliver it. This option does not require some arcane interpretation presented in the Bible; one merely need pretend the episode is never mentioned.​

I would propose, then, that you might have a better understanding of what I'm talking about, that you turn to the relevant pages in the Bible and tear them out. Simply discard those pages. That way, if you don't like some infidel's interpretation of what the Bible says, you can simply say, "What are you talking about? Those pages aren't in my Bible." And you wouldn't be lying, then, would you?

So go on. Tear them out. Throw them away. Set them on fire if it makes you feel better. Or wipe your ass with them. Doesn't matter what you do with them if they're not part of the Bible, right?
 
Tiassa said:
that you turn to the relevant pages in the Bible and tear them out. Simply discard those pages.

...

So go on. Tear them out. Throw them away. Set them on fire if it makes you feel better. Or wipe your ass with them.
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Tiassa,

All of that was very well stated.

But I'm going to especially heed your advice per the above. I'm going to tear all of the pages out of my bible since none of them are relevant. Not as soft as Charmin, but they'll do.
 
light said:
dressing scriptures for the sake of practice is what hermeneutics is all about

dressing scriptures for the sake of non-practice is also what atheistic analysis of scripture is all about too

one is working with the view "how can I make this relevant"
the other one is working with "how can I make this irrelevant"
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Well, I'm going to stay with the assumption that you are writing this gibberish in good faith, but there's no relevant argument yet. Does that mean you are working with the view "how can I make my posts irrelevant" ?
 
Tiassa said:
For some reason you are apparently incapable of seeing any difference between the idea of how one interprets the Bible and deliberately omitting portions of the Bible in order to shape the interpretation.
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just out of curiosity, if you were presenting the bible to children (in the mood of spreading the cheer and good will of atheism), would you make a publication that presents a selection of claims made in the bible or would you go for an expanded King James version with footnotes?
why?
 
iceaura said:
Well, I'm going to stay with the assumption that you are writing this gibberish in good faith, but there's no relevant argument yet. Does that mean you are working with the view "how can I make my posts irrelevant" ?
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thanks for your input

you illustrate concisely my point about contending foundations and their pursuit of relevancy/irrelevancy

;)
 
lightgigantic said:
thanks for your input

you illustrate concisely my point about contending foundations and their pursuit of relevancy/irrelevancy

;)
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LG, I'd like to point out that you spelled 'contending' in the above sentence correctly. Nicely done.

What do you have to say about that?
 
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