Dan1123
I tried
actively not paying attention to your post,
Dan1123, but in the end I found it too fulsome to ignore.
Such a person must ignore the low loss of life in the crusades and witch trials
By what measure,
Dan1123?
On the one hand, if someone starts a nuclear war and kills, say, a billion people, does that mean we're being too hard on Hitler or Stalin? To the other, what constitutes a low death toll?
Here's
one person's take on the situation:
It is ironic that the most famous "meetings" between two of the great (as in having many believers-not "great" as in "very good") religions-Islam and Christianity- have been through a series of wars called the Crusades. An estimated nine million people died during these series of wars.
Christian intolerance extended beyond fighting "infidels". It turned inward as well. The medieval Inquisition caused the death of more than one million people in the crusade against what was considered a "heretical" sect called the Albigensians in the South of France.
Of course it did not stop there, fresh from this "success" the Inquisition hunted down witches all over Europe. The death toll for the witch-hunts which terrorized Europe for three centuries (from 1487 to circa 1782) has been estimated to be as high as two million.
The Spaniards learned from these and came up with their own Spanish Inquisition. The death toll here exceeded thirty thousand. The victims ranged from girls as young as thirteen to women as old as ninety. Such was the extend of God's grace!
Now, those are some stiff numbers; if you go to the page, you'll note he's got a bunch of his assertions linked to other essays, such as this one to support his claims about the
Crusade ....
To respond to you in kind, sir, for someone to ignore the low loss of life in the Crusades is to respect history; for someone to accept the notion of the church bringing higher education, we might ask whether it was
education or
indoctrination, and, furthermore look to Christian opposition of the mass-printing of the Bible, thus removing church monopoly on scripture, as well as the anti-Darwinian temper-tantrum that still goes on today; to note the church as pro-woman is to ignore the result of it, as well as the scriptures about it (I'm intrigued by your idea of the "early feminist movement"); to note the church's role in ending slavery--which slavery? for many of the faith in the United States invented "Christian" justifications to keep human beings in shackles; here, let's look at these:
Galations 3:28 with respect to women, the church starting the hospital movement, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 with respect to homosexuals. To choose one set of facts and ignore another is the definition of misrepresentation.
• There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3.28)
So,
with respect to women, what does this mean? That they are one and equal in Christ? What, then, of 1 Timothy?
• A woman must receive instruction silently and under complete control. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. But she will be saved through motherhood, provided women persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1 Timothy 2.11-ff)
So what, then, is the actual
result of the Bible's seemingly mixed-up, muddled-up, madonna/whore approach to women? This is why I'm interested in what you mean by
early feminist movement; were women raised by education or indoctrination? I assert that we can see the oppression of women throughout Church and faith history; there are organizations today (SBC) which mandate dress codes for a proper woman.
• Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6.9-11)
It's a nice interpretation of Jesus by a later author. It is also an excellent example of why Christianity is a danger to the United States of America. We live in a society which guarantees equality and freedom. What, then, does this mean? Does the above passage from 1 Corinthians justify the actions of the bigots and haters who clothe themselves in the appearance of the lamb's mercy? If it's merely about wanting to believe in Heaven and going there, then I have no real objections to the passage in Corinthians you've provided. However, in terms of the license Christians take to legislate against others who are outside the faith, I think you may have missed the point.
To choose one set of facts and ignore another is the definition of misrepresentation.
Then why do you? You show me a part of the Bible that says "women are equal in Christ"; well, what does that mean? After they go to heaven?
For instance, do you really think that we've never heard of these passages before? Do you really think that we're so inherently sinful by proxy of creation that we would not have been bright enough to honestly consider such a passage?
We see, we read, we observe. We judge according to the result. Imagine this: I give you a design for a building that is attractive, large enough for your company's needs, and insanely inexpensive. Great plan, eh? So we build the building and the reason for its phenomenal price is that it's not actually well-designed, so that it falls down shortly after completion. Is it still a great building plan?
The failure of Christians to execute the idyll you advertise is a
result. We see misogyny in Christians, we see a
lack of equality. The
living result of the implementation of the Biblical result more closely agrees, for instance, with the part of 1 Timothy I have cited. I would love very much for Christians to properly apply what you've presented from Galatians 3.28, but the observable fact is that it's not true.
I agree with you,
Dan1123:
To choose one set of facts and ignore another is misrepresentation.
Why, then, are you misrepresenting the Bible? Is it really the notion of being born into sin, of corruption requiring redemption, that would compel you to operate from the perspective that I've spent the last 15 years of my life
not seeking a reconciliation 'twixt scripture and conduct? That I've spent all that time slobbering over the politics and dogma? Take a look over in the crucifixion thread; I admit there's a couple of your posts I haven't gotten to, and I've lost them in the mire, but we've got 10 pages of someone standing on dogma and refusing to look at the scripture behind the dogma.
Or is it that you're
not misrepresenting the Bible, but merely speaking out without knowing the intricate details of Christianity? After all, such details are unnecessary when you're scrambling after the comfort of eternal life:
You don't need to know the intricate details of Christianity in order to be close to God in faith.
What does that mean,
Dan1123? Does it mean that someone like Lon Mabon, who worked to destroy liberty and civil rights, doesn't need to know what he's talking about? Does it mean that he's only viewing one set of facts and therefore misrepresenting?
Your answer is well enough, but I would here echo
G0D's note that you're reinforcing the notion of the sacrifice of the intellect.
Perhaps it's just a simple difference: When it's about such an ultimate stake as your eternal soul, I understand that you would not be well-inclined to consider those facts and the issues they present. Since you've made such a thoughtful and well-considered conversion, we might then ask you for the resolution to the issues we have before us.
What, for instance, is the result? Does the Bible's regard for women give us a living result that more closely matches what you cite in Galatians or what I cite in 1 Timothy? Does the Bible's regard for homosexuals truly license you to go out and violate a free society which, by any definition of liberty,
allows your faith to exist? Take a look at the state of Christianity before its post-American liberalization. Would
your faith have survived and been accepted by the extant European churches?
And so now we have a society in which you are free to believe what you choose, and the Christian belief seems to have a consistent result, as seen in the case of homosexuals at least, but well-known beyond that particular issue, of working to undermine the freedom which Christians enjoy. To me it's ridiculous that the freedom that allows you to hate someone else should be taken away from the object of your hate. E.g. I think it ridiculous that a free society should be reserved to Christians. Remember that, technically, Nazi Germany was a free society:
You are free to agree with us. And if you didn't meet the prerequisites of the society--e.g. non-Jewish &c.--you did not qualify even as "you". It's not too different, in that abstract sense, from the living result of Christianity. I've often said that the only difference 'twixt "then and now" is that nobody's being burned at the stake.
I've tried to take your post in the most open sense possible, but it can't clean the offensive taste it leaves behind from my palate.
Watch the process at work,
Dan1123; compare the process to the scripture. The process is sinister; whether you choose to believe the process reflects the scripture is up to you, but the implication becomes clear: if the process reflects scripture, the scripture is sinsister. If the process does
not reflect scripture, then the scripture is ineffective. Christians have had two millennia to blow it out their asses; that, at least, I can say they did supremely well.
If only it was as simple as abstractions of faith on paper or e-stock. But it's not. Some of us are watching very closely, and I deeply resent the hypocritical implicatons of your post.
It does, in fact, make it easier for your argument to achieve legitimacy if we're all blithering idiots, but we're not. It's well enough for you to believe that Christians are so inherently evil as to require intervention, but leave the rest of us alone in the meantime.
thanx,
Tiassa