Anyone else feel likle crying?

[Dunnadd]

Mental. Didn't know they had a similar bit in the Old Testament. I suspect a lot of Christian Fundamentalists don't know either.

EDIT - wikipedia entry says it only applies to graven images used as idols of worship and that the Israelite's temples had carvings of cherubs and animals and flowers on them - which is strange, because it sounds like an outright religious ban on any making images of anything

[toxicpixie]

Given that the Bible is directly contradictory of itself and full of lunatic gibberish about beards and shellfish, I'm not sure I'd trust it for moral or legal guidance. I mean for Ghu's sake it mentions feeding the hungry and redistributing wealth in some bits!

Crazy talk.

[Dunnadd]

Given that the Bible is directly contradictory of itself and full of lunatic gibberish about beards and shellfish, I'm not sure I'd trust it for moral or legal guidance. I mean for Ghu's sake it mentions feeding the hungry and redistributing wealth in some bits!

Crazy talk.

I could back those last two bits. I'm not religious but i've no problem with religious people as long as they're not fundamentalists who want to ban other religions or atheism/agnosticism, or force everyone to adopt theirs. Just don't understand how anyone could believe in both the Old and New Testaments at once. "Turn the other cheek" and "send a bear to tear up children for laughing at bald men" just don't work together

[Ithoriel]

Speech from "The Midterms" Episode of "The West Wing"
Written by: Aaron Sorkin

A talk show host defends calling homosexuality an "abomination" by saying that that is what the Bible says in Leviticus 18:22

This annoys President Bartlet who proceeds to ask a few pointed questions about just what one should accept from the Bible.

"I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?"

"My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?"

"Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

"Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

"Think about those questions, would you?"

[Orcs]

I would like to point out their is a huge difference between Religion and Faith.  Just because some members of a religion are evil B*st*rds it does not mean that the faith itself is evil

Ok for my sins (and they are many  ) I am a lapsed Christian, however I was taught to question what I read in bible or got taught  before applying to my faith. I understand that this is something that the Jewish faith also does to an almost obsessive point. If there are any Jewish members of the forum please feel free to correct me.  I do not know if this ist he case for Islam

So I would like to qualify  a couple of things.

1 Faith and being religious are almost two seperate things.  I say almost because although they are closely linked they are seperate.

Faith is the belief in something that you cannot see or prove . Ie. the existance  or non -existance of God .People of faith will apply a way of living to thier life  

Religion is more about belief in a set of instructions.

So you can have faith in a deity and apply the principles of those beliefs to your life but not actually be religious in the true sense of the word

The problem comes where the set of instructions actually becomes more important than the faith and its application to life.
eg
Islam as a faith says you must pray to Allah 5 times a day.  IS have taken this and added a rule that unless you pray in a certain way its completely wrong.  
Christianity as a faith says you should be baptised.  The various denominations have added thier own rules on how it should be done again saying any other way than thier particular version is wrong.

In both cases the rules have corrupted the faith, and divided the followers.

2 Many of the Religious beliefs have a qualifier that has been ignored

Here I can only talk about Christianity as i have not studied other religions as well.

A real contentious issue is the bit in a wedding where wives agree to obey thier husbands.  It completely ignores all the qualifiers elsewhere in the bible.

I won't bore you with all the references etc.  but the qualifier is this

1  The Husband must be:- sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome

assuming he meets the criteria above he may then consider telling his household what to do.

2  When  making a decision and telling his wife or any other household member what to do, he MUST PUT THIER BEST
   INTERESTS BEFORE HIS OWN, even to the point of his own death.

So suddenly the role of being in charge is not much fun.  Only after putting everyone else first can you consider yourself.  

Then add in the fact that the word husband and wife can probably be swapped ( the bible written by men assumed a male god ) it gives you a pretty good idea of how a married couple should actually behave to one another.

I know that this is long winded, but I just wanted to demonstrate how I believe religion has corrupted faith.

[FierceKitty]

Even with those qualifiers, the automatic phallocratic assumptions are an insult to women.

[Luddite]

I believe religion has corrupted faith.

That's a very interesting point JafO.

[FierceKitty]

Faith is a slippery word. If it means belief against or without reason ("An old man with a beard and an attitude problem objects to a steak cooked in butter."), it's a psychosis. If it means the kind of belief that is significant because of the existence of that belief ("It's a good idea to help old ladies across the road."), it's the foundation of any respectable behaviour.

The first includes "God wants me to smite the unbeliever and burn his family alive" and "There are superior intelligences that long for us to love each other." The second includes "I will give my life to save someone from a burning building", but also "We don't want your kind in town, prowling around and trying to contaminate our women; got the rope ready, boys?".

[Orcs]

Even with those qualifiers, the automatic phallocratic assumptions are an insult to women.

As I said the words husband and wife can probably swapped you also get the following

1  The wife must be:- sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome

2  When  making a decision and telling her husband any other household member what to do, she MUST PUT THIER BEST
    INTERESTS BEFORE HIS OWN, even to the point of her own death

In which case it is surely stating that you must have mutual respect for each other and put each others interests to the fore,thats is hardly phallocratic

[Dunnadd]

I know there are religious people who are genuinely good people. And there are multiple interpretations of every religion, different enough that e.g a member of Islamic State and a much more moderate Sunni Muslim effectively have different religions, even though both claim to be Sunni Muslims.

And every religion and every ideology and every theory gets changed over time and becomes something very different from what it was originally - often even the opposite of what it was originally. And many of the people following the revised version don't even know what its tenets were originally. That can work positively as well as negatively though.

[FierceKitty]

As my old Italian teacher used to say, every -ism ends up as cretinismo.

[Steeleye]

"I would like to point out their is a huge difference between Religion and Faith".

I agree, while religion tends to be made up of a collection of weird stories made up by goat herders in the Bronze Age and has little to do with the modern world...Faith is a really hot chick with superpowers!

[Hertsblue]

"Faith is not wanting to know what is true" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

[FierceKitty]

Good one.

[Techno]

As far as making images is concerned.....Can someone tell me if I'm a heretic, or not !
Cheers - Phil.