I think it's been hijacked by conservatives moreso than Christians. It takes a very specific reading of the Bible to oppose gay marriage and not hold all sorts of weirdly bizarre beliefs like not looking at a woman while she's menstruating, and killing your child if they swear at you. I'm sure there are plenty of progressive Christians who can hold their faith while understanding that the bible was written in a completely alien culture.
I'm not calling you out for being a Christian (I should have used the label fundamentalist Christians hijacking the term marriage), I'm calling you out for being a bigot.
I think it's been hijacked by conservatives moreso than Christians. It takes a very specific reading of the Bible to oppose gay marriage and not hold all sorts of weirdly bizarre beliefs like not looking at a woman while she's menstruating, and killing your child if they swear at you. I'm sure there are plenty of progressive Christians who can hold their faith while understanding that the bible was written in a completely alien culture.
The first pastor I ever knew tought us from day one 'Yup, just ignore the old testament, especially Leviticus' and posited that all we should get out of Christianity is to not be a dick. I liked that guy - he taught us a bunch of neat shit about buddhism too. Pretty sure the school asked him to leave. Just as well they got in a younger albeit far more fundamental pastor to replace him. Virtually guaranteed that a sizeable chunk of my class graduated completely blasé about spirituality and contemptuous towards organised religion.
I'm not a Christian, but if you strip away all the supernatural elements and the possibility that Christ was just a charismatic that liked attention, the core message and accompanying examples of 'Don't be a dick to each other' holds value for pretty much anyone regardless of background. That core philosophy runs counter to this entire anti-gay marriage movement.
Surely the supernatural stuff is an inbuilt part of religion anyway? If you strip all that away you're pretty much just left with a philosophy.
Had an interesting conversation with some... can't think of what to call them. Evangelists? Wandering campus the other day. I asked them about this whole morality thing and they said their deal was God first, Morality second, since Morality was just a way to get closer to God. I'm paraphrasing of course so I'm probably missing some subtleties, but that seems to be to be a dangerous way of thinking.
Kerrby said:
Could say the exact same about your original comment.
The first pastor I ever knew tought us from day one 'Yup, just ignore the old testament, especially Leviticus' and posited that all we should get out of Christianity is to not be a dick. I liked that guy - he taught us a bunch of neat shit about buddhism too. Pretty sure the school asked him to leave. Just as well they got in a younger albeit far more fundamental pastor to replace him. Virtually guaranteed that a sizeable chunk of my class graduated completely blasé about spirituality and contemptuous towards organised religion.
I'm not a Christian, but if you strip away all the supernatural elements and the possibility that Christ was just a charismatic that liked attention, the core message and accompanying examples of 'Don't be a dick to each other' holds value for pretty much anyone regardless of background. That core philosophy runs counter to this entire anti-gay marriage movement.
That's what we got taught at my catholic highschool, old testament are stories of creation, like dream time stories. New testament are parables to give you guidance in life, simple rules for life: dont steal, dont be a jerk and so on.
we also spent time learning about other religions and their histories.
Thread says the party members will be driven by AI if you're soloing, so who knows if there's an offline mode or not. If it's like Guild Wars and is a one time payment then I'd be happy.
Even if you don't strip it away it's still a form of philosophy.
Bernbaum said:
I'm not a Christian, but if you strip away all the supernatural elements and the possibility that Christ was just a charismatic that liked attention, the core message and accompanying examples of 'Don't be a dick to each other' holds value for pretty much anyone regardless of background. That core philosophy runs counter to this entire anti-gay marriage movement.
Yeah, Christianity is all about the primacy of the new testament and WWJD and all that. It's only the power mongers that fear social change that refer to the old testament as if it meant something. If you take the new testament at face value, Jesus was all about social change.
I went to one (1) youth group meeting when I was younger, it was with a friend + family member who regularly went, although it was 'my' family church I suppose. We were told flat out that homosexual people were wrong.
Lutheran church, shit yeah. I have no time for intolerance.
And my mother was hurt when we said we weren't getting our child baptised. Heh. He can make his own choices, I am not imposing anything on him.
Thread says the party members will be driven by AI if you're soloing, so who knows if there's an offline mode or not. If it's like Guild Wars and is a one time payment then I'd be happy.
Yeah, I think it'd be safe to assume that you wouldnt need to subscribe for 1p mode, unless the sub is what nets you all the extra content.
Still, the fact you can "100% the story in solo mode" is the quote that I wanted to hear to assuage the mmo fears. The "also on Wii U" quote is the one that came as a surprise.
Really? It's practiced by most of the protestants too though right? I know there are some denominations that do the whole adult bathing thing, but I thought they were well in the minority.
Even if you don't strip it away it's still a form of philosophy.
Yeah, Christianity is all about the primacy of the new testament and WWJD and all that. It's only the power mongers that fear social change that refer to the old testament as if it meant something. If you take the new testament at face value, Jesus was all about social change.
I'm not going to get into an argument in here, but people who flat out ignore the Old Testament are disingenuous in their beliefs. Obviously a correct reading based on context is hugely important, but simply ignoring it is, as I said, disingenuous, considering Jesus and the authors of the NT quoted it all the time.
I wish GhaleonQ was in AusGAF. He argues this stuff better than me.
I'm not going to get into an argument in here, but people who flat out ignore the Old Testament are disingenuous in their beliefs. Obviously a correct reading based on context is hugely important, but simply ignoring it is, as I said, disingenuous, considering Jesus and the authors of the NT quoted it all the time.
I wish GhaleonQ was in AusGAF. He argues this stuff better than me.
Ive heard a few different views on the OT, but I'll short-form them here.
1. Written in Hebrew initially (or whichever languages, some now dead), the OT was and is a lot more 'allegorical' than it is since KJV. So when they mention stuff like power over water and fire etc, they are saying those are traits a godly man would have - not that they literally happened.
2. Didnt Jesus say he was here to fullfil the OT prophecies and was not acting in contradiction of it? ie he wasn't condemning any of it that we rightly find unsavoury nowadays.
3. People who ignore the OT are disingenuous - you don't get to pick and choose what the religion says, but people who believe in the OT and as a whole agree with it are holding dangerous ideas. The OT is full of despicable acts and is quite frankly, morally reprehensible.
But this is only going to end in an argument I have neither the time nor interest in. Not here at least. I'll just leave with one quote which sums up my thoughts on beliefs in general.
"If you have faith, you don't need proof. But if you cannot prove something, why should you believe it?"
Needless to say I find all religions, organised or otherwise to be philosophically and intellectually hollow
broadly speaking - this isn't a statement about moral character of individuals
. I hold the same ideas about tarot, astrology, scientology, psychics etc.
If you get up to the bit where you get sealed out of the future time zone (where theyre in the sky) by the queen.. can you tell me what to do after that.. ive walked around for hours lost
I'm suggesting that instead of accepting Christ as a figurehead of a religion (along with all the supernatural trappings) that it's still possible to merely follow the example of someone who was selfless and taught to think of your common man. The fact that someone (son of god or otherwise) held strong altruistic values 2000 years ago speaks volumes about the inherit goodness of the human species.
Despite identifying as 'Christian' up until I was 16, not once did I believe the creation story (a sentiment paralleled by my Lutheran school, family and church) and I never quite understood the chief value of the faith - Christ's sacrifice. The death on the cross was always treated as this amazing event that still affects people emotionally to this day but it went right over my head. No-one has ever explained to me the logic behind how the death of a single figure results in the wiping clean of the slate and all I get are convoluted answers. In the end, that didn't matter to me - we'd go to chapel and the lesson every time was "You're going to do some dumb shit in this life, try not to hurt anyone" and that was a great lesson.
It wasn't until we got a genuine fundamentalist pastor on the scene who scrapped all of that and said 'Nope, all that magic stuff really happened' that I realised I wasn't really a Christian anyways.
I'm not going to get into an argument in here, but people who flat out ignore the Old Testament are disingenuous in their beliefs. Obviously a correct reading based on context is hugely important, but simply ignoring it is, as I said, disingenuous, considering Jesus and the authors of the NT quoted it all the time.
I was being overly simplistic, mostly based on my ignorance of the subject. If you feel like explaining why there's lots of crazy shit in Leviticus that can be ignored, but others that are relevant, I'd be interested to hear. Do you think that taking the general "Jesus was a cool guy" philosophy, while accepting that stuff like Creation and so forth can't be taken completely literally, is necessarily disingenuous? That is, does your faith require you to agree with the whole framework, or one particular interpretation thereof?
I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm just interested!
Jintor said:
I mean, the supernatural stuff is what seperates a religion from a 'mere' outlook on life.
I'm suggesting that instead of accepting Christ as a figurehead of a religion (along with all the supernatural trappings) that it's still possible to merely follow the example of someone who was selfless and taught to think of your common man. The fact that someone (son of god or otherwise) held strong altruistic values 2000 years ago speaks volumes about the inherit goodness of the human species.
Despite identifying as 'Christian' up until I was 16, not once did I believe the creation story (a sentiment paralleled by my Lutheran school, family and church) and I never quite understood the chief value of the faith - Christ's sacrifice. The death on the cross was always treated as this amazing event that still affects people emotionally to this day but it went right over my head. No-one has ever explained to me the logic behind how the death of a single figure results in the wiping clean of the slate and all I get are convoluted answers. In the end, that didn't matter to me - we'd go to chapel and the lesson every time was "You're going to do some dumb shit in this life, try not to hurt anyone" and that was a great lesson.
It wasn't until we got a genuine fundamentalist pastor on the scene who scrapped all of that and said 'Nope, all that magic stuff really happened' that I realised I wasn't really a Christian anyways.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you don't accept the religious trappings of it than, as you say, you're not really a Christian anyway. The core moral values of Christianity, of do unto others as you would have them do unto you and so on, that stuff's awesome. But without the religious trappings it's not, well, a religion.
What I'm saying is that if you're all up with the moral teachings and not so hot on the mythology then you're probably not a Christian.
Well, it's more to do with the definition of religion under the law. I don't know about any specific talk about overturning Church of the New Faith v Commissioner for Taxation (or whatever it's called), since most High Court talk is currently focused on the Malaysia thingy...
Well, as an atheist I ignore both testaments in roughly equal measure but one of those tomes clearly has a higher proportion of everyday magic; boring extended family trees; lists of rules about what animals/objects/family members you can't have sex with; and fire and brimstone than the other.
Not sure if I was paying enough attention or not, but Lutherans seem to be all about the New Testament so maybe my experience in the matter is biased in that respect.
Jintor said:
What I'm saying is that if you're all up with the moral teachings and not so hot on the mythology then you're probably not a Christian.
Exactly, I'm not. That said, there's lessons in Christ's teachings not because he was sent from heaven but because a core part of his message was forgiveness and kindness to your common man. That's about all I got that I wouldn't have gotten from a state school education.
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As for a serious chat on religion that is conducted in a respectable manner, I think AusGAF is totally mature and capable of rising above the usual bucket of vile that brings down these discussions in the OT
With bony hands I hold my partner
with soulless feet we cross the floor
the music stops as if to answer
an empty knocking at the door
It seems her skin was sweet as mango
when last I held her to my breast
But now we dance this Grim Fandango
And will four years before we rest.