Church sign contest

[GreyGhost]

Craigs said:

I'm an atheist. Does that mean I'm gonna start a civil war?

Only if you are without sin, in which case you're permitted to cast the first stone. :-)

[Gokuma]

GreyGhost said:

Only if you are without sin, in which case you're permitted to cast the first stone. :-)

Make it count.




Matthew 10:34 (And Islam which came 600 years later is the one that gets blamed for this).

Matthew chapter 10 altogether is pretty vile.

[myk]

I don't really dislike what it says there, as it's rather revolutionary. It's saying he's there so sons and daughters may confront their elders. It's not a surprising statement anyhow, with Christianity breaking off from traditional Judaism.

[Gokuma]

myk said:

I don't really dislike what it says there, as it's rather revolutionary. It's saying he's there so sons and daughters may confront their elders. It's not a surprising statement anyhow, with Christianity breaking off from traditional Judaism.

That's just plain Bullshit. It doesn't say simply confront and there's nothing revolutionary in a good way. Matthew 10:21 says, "Brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death."

The whole chapter goes saying how these consequences and more are for not loving Jesus most and other bullshit. See it for the plain vile shit it is.

[myk]

Gokuma said:
Matthew 10:21 says, "Brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death."

Which does not seem like an order but a description of events. It doesn't even say who's killing whom exactly, although there's evidently a conflict of interests between the disciples preaching and much of the culture they preach to. It seems like a way of saying "be ready to face torture, interrogations and horrendous violence on your way."

[Creaphis]

You have to look past the words in the bible to their original cultural contexts, to understand what they really mean. For example, the famous "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" is not an endorsement of retaliatory violence and capital punishment, but is meant to condemn excessive retaliation, which was the norm in that area (and hey look at that it still is).

[Gokuma]

When it blatantly says something so stark, saying it doesn't mean it like that is putting more spin on it than the O'Reily Factor.

Matthew 10:35 says "For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

He's saying that he will set people against each other not that you can simply expect it from others. He goes on to say it's punishment for not being worthy due to not loving and following and sacrificing for him most.

The proof is in the pudding. Christiandom has killed more and erased more cultures than anything else, though Islam would like to catch up.

[myk]

Stark? Should it be politically correct or mellowed out in the name of idealistic pacifism? How could a complex cultural artifact which is part of our historical world seriously do that?

The New Testament was written and edited by many hands during a considerable period. It's not so hard to find some sort of meaning that suits your moralistic reading the way you are doing because it's attempting to encompass multiple points of view and interests at once (sometimes inconsistently), but if you do that you'll have to ignore or downplay various other points found in it. You'll be saying more about yourself than what it says in the work as a whole.

Anyway, do you also believe that Darwin, Nietzsche and Marx were the cause of genocide too? If consider what Stalin and Hitler and their followers did and place enough emphasis on certain things the authors said and tend ignore or diminish others you can do it in the way you are doing it for the New Testament.

[Creaphis]

Exactly. I've similarly heard some very malicious quotes from the Qur'an, but I take them with a grain of salt, as I imagine that as a whole it promotes peace, and not peace by the sword (to be honest, I haven't read any of it - I'm going on what I hear). The scriptures themselves don't promote more violence than other religious texts - they're just interpreted that way by certain unsavory groups.

[GreyGhost]

Islam doesn't strike me as being a particularly peaceful faith

Here's one more for the collection.

[Joshy]

^ That is very true. Sad but true. *Goes off to watch the Matrix and read more philosophies*

[Creaphis]

GreyGhost said:

Islam doesn't strike me as being a particularly peaceful faith

You're certainly right. But if you could abstract the scriptures from the people that follow them, you may find them more congenial than you expect.

[Gokuma]

myk said:

Stark? Should it be politically correct or mellowed out in the name of idealistic pacifism? How could a complex cultural artifact which is part of our historical world seriously do that?

The New Testament was written and edited by many hands during a considerable period. It's not so hard to find some sort of meaning that suits your moralistic reading the way you are doing because it's attempting to encompass multiple points of view and interests at once (sometimes inconsistently), but if you do that you'll have to ignore or downplay various other points found in it. You'll be saying more about yourself than what it says in the work as a whole.

Anyway, do you also believe that Darwin, Nietzsche and Marx were the cause of genocide too? If consider what Stalin and Hitler and their followers did and place enough emphasis on certain things the authors said and tend ignore or diminish others you can do it in the way you are doing it for the New Testament.

Ok Ok... I recognize that Mein Kampf is merely an allegory for personal improvement by elimination of bad habits associated with undesirable traits.

[myk]

I'm not sure, but if that was irony, I was referring to the original authors, not Hitler as an author. In fact Hitler is a good case of selective reading; he took bits from various sources and used them in his scheme, and misinterpreted many of his sources while attempting to give some credibility to his book with them.

Any book which becomes influential in regard to politics will be used in this way by some people, because they need to validate their actions.

And I'm not even looking at it from a strictly moral perspective. The Biblical writings back a sort of social tradition geared around certain concepts which can be applied in many situations even through a long period in time. Is this "good" or "bad"? Probably better than nothing (if that is possible, which I don't think) although it does carry certain conflicts within it and it does clash with other traditions or systems from other cultures or branches.

It's closer to how ducks or ants form their social structures than something really about "good and evil", if you ask me.