Republican Party Modus Operandi

[dimethylsea]

I don't care much for the GOP or republicans, though I agree with some of their views and don't get me started on Fundamentalist Christians, but painting EVERYONE with the same brush is NOT what you wanna be doing.

What part of "evangelical" in the descriptor did you not get? I said exactly what I meant and I stand by it.

The evangelical wing of Christianity (at least as it exists in the US) is an intellectual cancer, the charismatic faction of the evangelicals is even more insane and magical-minded.

I grew up around these people. I was born in the town that houses the World Assembly of the Churches of God. It's kinda like someone slagging the Mormons when they grew up in Salt Lake City. I know these people like I know my family (most of my family thinks the evangelicals are "backslid" .. i.e. not religious ENOUGH).

You can hate my attitude about cops but when it comes to the Christian Right I've got 20 years of INTIMATE exposure to the disease.

[dimethylsea]

Can you give some examples of this?

As far as I know, it's not the Christians beheading people with other religious beliefs. It's not Christians killing women who don't cover themselves entirely. We don't kill women who are raped. We don't chop off people's hands for stealing. OTHER religion(s) do, but you don't see Christians doing that stuff.

The only reason you Christians aren't STILL doing that religious violence crap is because over a century of religious warfare in Europe made Europe into a intensely secular place and made the founding fathers write state religion out of government here in America.

And even now the Christians who have been dragged kicking and screaming into some kind of moderation try to claim the Deists and freethinkers among the Founding Fathers as their own.

The sooner Christianity dies, root and branch.. the better for Western Civ. Can't happen soon enough IMO.

[dimethylsea]

Get off it.

Lets look at the 10 Commandments. Those are, in short, a blueprint of how God wants Christians to live their lives.

1. You shall have no other Gods before me

No freedom of religion

2. You shall not worship idols

Restriction of religious freedom and (historically) suppression of art/icons/sculpture

3. Do not take the Lord's name in vain

No freedom of speech.

4. Keep the Sabbath holy.

No freedom of assembly.

5. Honor thy father and mother

Justification for abusive parenting.

6. You shall not murder

Unless they aren't "the right people" (i.e. heathens).

7. You shall not commit adultery

God cares who you screw!

8. You shall not steal

.. again except if they are heathens.

9. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor

In the religious courts that enforce all of the above.

10. Do not covet others possessions

Can you show us the hate in there? Can you show us the "bad" parts?

Just did. May the love of the One True God flow out your cheeks like a running gurgling, churning stream.

[1bad65]

That's a copout so you can cherrypick the parts you like (God destroying Soddom, for example) and neglect the parts you don't (eating shellfish and getting to marry girls you rape, for example).

Like you are doing?

And you still haven't answered my question about your background/studies of Christianity...

Did I say I liked that part? No, I did not. But since you brought it up, I'll give you my .02 on that. In the Old Testament times, God would destroy people and cities he felt had turned away from Him. After Jesus came down, His attitude was more like 'If you repent, you can have eternal life. If you do not, the wages of sin is death.' See the difference?

Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Notice Jesus did not say 'Well pass laws that take others' possessions and then give them to the poor. Then you will be blessed.'

The list of 10 you posted never appears in those words. You paraphrased three different sections to arrive at that list, basically cherry picking the ones that make sense and leaving out the ones that don't.

I never said I quoted them directly. I figured speaking in modern English would be best for the discussion. Are you reduced to arguing semantics now?

Or are those not the 10 Commandments? Which did I leave out? Which did I include that I should not have included?

[1bad65]

Are you saying that because Christ died on the cross no one, even nonbelievers, will go to hell?

OR

Are you saying that ONLY those who accept Christ aren't going to hell, so you better believeth in him or he'll **** you up.

That's the culture of fear I'm talking about.

The second one.

So by your logic, all of civilized society is a "culture of fear" then. Since we say, obey our laws or you will face punishment, we must have created a "culture of fear". Correct?

And FYI, there is more to it than just accepting Christ. Maybe instead of bashing Christianity, you should study it first.

[1bad65]

The evangelical wing of Christianity (at least as it exists in the US) is an intellectual cancer, the charismatic faction of the evangelicals is even more insane and magical-minded.

Gee, who sounds like the intolerant one now?

I grew up around these people. I was born in the town that houses the World Assembly of the Churches of God. It's kinda like someone slagging the Mormons when they grew up in Salt Lake City. I know these people like I know my family (most of my family thinks the evangelicals are "backslid" .. i.e. not religious ENOUGH).

You can hate my attitude about cops but when it comes to the Christian Right I've got 20 years of INTIMATE exposure to the disease.

While you no doubt are well versed in the World Assembly of the Churches of God, keep in mind they are not the same as the Baptists, or the Catholics, or the Jehovahs Witnesses, or the Lutherans, etc. Again, you are the one stereotyping people.

The only reason you Christians aren't STILL doing that religious violence crap is because over a century of religious warfare in Europe made Europe into a intensely secular place and made the founding fathers write state religion out of government here in America.

And even now the Christians who have been dragged kicking and screaming into some kind of moderation try to claim the Deists and freethinkers among the Founding Fathers as their own.

STFU with that. Some religions are still doing it now! Why are you not bashing radical Muslims?

And FYI, the Baptists have never persecuted anyone. Nor have religions like the Lutherans. There are many more as well. Now the Catholics do have a history of bloodshed over religion. I'll not argue that. But again, you are stereotypins all Christians and Christian religions. Even in the Christian religions, Catholics and Protestants are very different.

The sooner Christianity dies, root and branch.. the better for Western Civ. Can't happen soon enough IMO.

Now there's the hatred I was talking about! But wait, it didn't come from God, Jesus, Bible thumpers, or Christianity. Hmmm....

[1bad65]

Just did. May the love of the One True God flow out your cheeks like a running gurgling, churning stream.

No you didn't. And to anyone with an open mind, it's obvious you cannot find any hatred in the 10 Commandments. You can make fun of them, but you can't find hate in them.

But you sure seem to hate certain groups of people....

[dimethylsea]

No you didn't. And to anyone with an open mind, it's obvious you cannot find any hatred in the 10 Commandments. You can make fun of them, but you can't find hate in them.

But you sure seem to hate certain groups of people....

Oh I think the Caanites felt some hate when they were the subject of divinely-mandated genocide.

I don't "hate" like that.. I just speak my mind.

I'm not the one whose professing belief in a genocidal rape-ordering mountain deity who orders killing and conquest in his name.

[MasterKiller]

This is from Exodus 34, and it is one of the passages that is often paraphrased into the form 1bad presented.

Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you.

You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles(for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).

You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice.

And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods.

You shall not make cast idols.

You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.

All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep.

The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.

No one shall appear before me empty-handed.

For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest.

You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year.

Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.

The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.

You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.

So, do you offer the first of every womb to God?

Do you observe the festival of unleavened bread?

I don't remember Jesus saying it was OK not to.

[Drake]

I'm an atheist, and even I know that all the OT stuff went out the window with the NT. Learned that when I was getting my tree-hugging liberal arts degree before switching to the hard sciences.

[MasterKiller]

I'm an atheist, and even I know that all the OT stuff went out the window with the NT. Learned that when I was getting my tree-hugging liberal arts degree before switching to the hard sciences.

Jesus never mentions gay people once. So, if all the OT is out the window, does he approve of hom0sexual relationships as long as they accept God into their hearts?

[David Jamieson]

Okay, I'll list some centuries, and you reply with the ones in which it would have been okay to form a club that said there was no God in a Christian land.

3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

I'll pick the 3rd century because that would be the 200's and I think it would've been pretty much ok anywhere to do that with the exception of maybe the Essene places or the Nasarene places...

[David Jamieson]

Is it not cool to worship other Gods?

Well that depends.

what "other" gods have you got? And why do you think they are cooler than the one and only god that ever there was, don't say the name *bow head, chant 3 times etc*

[Drake]

Jesus never mentions gay people once. So, if all the OT is out the window, does he approve of hom0sexual relationships as long as they accept God into their hearts?

Technically, yes. What I got out of it was basically, we all f^%$ up, and as long as we accept this guy as our savior, all of our f-ups are forgiven, be it ****sexuality, mass murder, or being a jerk.

All hogwash to me, but I hate seeing people misjudge this stuff.

[sanjuro_ronin]

cherry picking the bible eh? lol

Leviticus is the book you're looking for (again) on what to do about gays.
I believe we are supposed to stone them as well due to their being abominations before god.

Christianity isn't based on teh ten commandments. IN fact, the OT is decidely jewish end to end. It is a set of Jewish texts dealing with jewish matters of religion and faith.

the new testament is for the christians. the old testamnet is to give them a reference when they want to understand where Rabbi Yeshua Bar Joseph (Jesus) was getting his guidelines for teaching from.

Many who proclaim themselves "Christian" cannot grasp this. they do not see themselves as an offshoot or spin off of being jews. Many cannot even accoet that Jesus was a jew and all his apostles were jews and all his early followers were jews and that Christianity itself was a form of Judaism right up until Constantine, the Roman emperor took that flavour of jewish and made it the official religion of the roman empire.

But, history doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people anymore. They just want to hold onto their peculiar brand of judging the world around them and will do exactly that to suit their mood or will that day (cherry pick the bible that is)

i challenge any Christian to be a better Christian and to be a humanist as guided by Jesus's own words. If you need to ask how Jesus addressed our humanity and how best to live within it, then you need to read the gospels again.

don't be shallow! go deep! it's worth it and when I say go deep i don't mean give in or give yourself up. really study it because it is very cool and you will learn a lot about humanity in general by actually reading a bible as opposed to skimming it looking for talking points and argument closers.

Well said on many points David, BUT, while there is no doubt that Christianity was an "off-shoot)" of Judaisim, it is also very clear that it views itself as a "stand alone".
The New Covenant replaces the "obsolete" OC in Christianity.