Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Marcov on June 07, 2011, 02:38:30 am
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WARNING: Brace yourself for this; I have selected several memorable quotes from internet writer David J. Stewart, which may be outright disturbing for some. So unless you can endure the extremities of what I'll be posting here, I think it'd be best for you to...stay away.
Firstly, here are the articles from which I posted the quotes:
Don't listen to rock music because it's bad! (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/devils_music.htm)
Do you know Spiderman's hand sign when he shoots webs? Heresy! Heresy! Heresy!!! (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Wicca%20&%20Witchcraft/signs_of_satan.htm)
Michael Jackson sucks. Friend, he is of the devil. (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Rock-n-Roll/michael_jackson.htm)
Led Zeppelin is bad, of course. Isn't it? (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/CCM/promoting_satan.htm)
You're a Catholic? So you worship Mary. You suck! (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Roman%20Catholicism/roman_catholicism_exposed.htm)
Islam sucks, friend. (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Islamic%20Muslim/same_god.htm)
It's so easy to say that Hinduism is bad because Hindus worship many gods. Alright, Hindus are good, peaceful people, yadda yadda, but they're not worshipping Jesus! **** THEM!!! (http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Hinduism/hindu_gods.htm)
...the quotes:
I don't condemn anyone, for the Bible condemns all of us as guilty, dirty, rotten, hell-deserving sinners. My salvation solely rests in Christ's righteousness, because of the precious blood that He gave for our sins. My intention is not to be unkind; but rather, to contend for the Christian faith.
God is not a higher energy. Biblically, God is a Person, Who manifested Himself to the world through His Son Jesus Christ (1st Timothy 3:16: John 1:1-3,14).
I do not write articles like this to be unkind, but out of necessity to expose those who masquerade as Christians.
Music is one of the most powerful mediums through which Satan works. John Denver said, "Music is more powerful than Christianity." The sinful flesh loves Devilish music... music which has a Rock 'N' Roll beat and worldly lyrics. Rock music is highly addictive.
Michael Jackson lived for the Devil, using his God-given talent to glorify sinful living, which he indulged in himself until it killed him.
Catholicism is a lie of the Devil. There is not a more damnable doctrine in Roman Catholicism than the teachings of Our Lady of Fatima.
Blasphemy!!! You cannot show me even one Scripture from the Word of God where we are told to trust in Mary, by reciting the Rosary to be saved. In fact, the word "Rosary" is NOT a Bible term. The Rosary is straight out of the pits of Hell. Jesus condemned vain repetition in Matthew 6:7. According to Our Lady of Fatima (whose teachings are officially sanctioned by the Vatican), a person can obtain eternal life through Mary by reciting the Rosary. In sharp contrast, Jesus Christ proclaimed in John 14:6... "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." How could Catholics be so arrogant, so blind, and so apostate as to believe that salvation is found in Mary? I tell you, Catholicism is of the Devil.'
Muslims outright deny the Sonship of Jesus Christ; therefore, Islam is of the Devil. Islam is a damnable organization, who denies Jesus Christ. Don't believe the lie, not for one second--that Muslims and Christians worship the SAME God. No, we don't! The Koran clearly states in, The Women 4.171, that God has NO Son.
It doesn't take a lengthy article to expose the Hindu religion, because they worship all sorts of false gods. The more difficult religions to expose are the one's who claim to be "Christian" and mimic the Christian faith, such as Seventh-Day Adventism (SDA's). SDA's are of the Devil, because the teach works salvation, although the deny it. The Catholics are guilty of the same double-talk, worshipping Mary while verbally denying it. Hinduism is easy to expose, if you believe that the Bible is God's Word.
Hinduism speaks of enlightenment and peace; but the Bible is abundantly clear in Romans 5:1 that peace can only be obtained through Jesus Christ... "Therefore being justified by faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Satan is a liar, and wants you to believe that you can find peace and understanding through occultism and meditation. There is NO understanding apart from the Word of God... "Man's goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way" (Proverb 20:24). You need God my friend. Hinduism will take you to Hell. The truth is that you are a sinner, and you need a Savior. Jesus Christ paid the price for your sins, and mine, because He loves us. Christ shed His precious blood for our sins (1st Peter 1:18,19).
Most false religions don't address the issue of sin. Karma is "cause and effect" much like Buddha taught in Buddhism. It is the idea that everything one does will affect him in a later life. Karma is a lie. Most Hindus live morally upright lives, and are honest and hardworking people; thus, they think that their "Karma" is going to gain them peace and bliss in the afterlife. Wrong! 2nd Thessalonians 1:8,9 expose such a damnable notion... "In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." It doesn't matter how high you think your Karma may be, you WILL be punished in the tormentuous flames of Hellfire if you refuse to obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ and die in your sins. The bottom line is that you are a sinner (Romans 3:10,19-23). We are all sinners, GUILTY under God's Law, and justly deserving of Hellfire. Thus, every man needs a Savior. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again triumphant. He shed His blood and applied that blood to the Mercyseat in Heaven to take away our sins. If you do go to Hell, you will
have no one to blame except yourself. Ye Must Be Born Again!
Wow. Even by Bible-thumper standards this is just...hilarious...
...tell us what you think...
DEKKER EDIT- FIXED THE FRAKKIN LINKS :mad:
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Why should I even comment on this?
Proper response to trolls and flamebaits is to ignore them, not to respond - or, worse still, paste a huge amount of trollish flamebait material on some board and ask for people to respond.
Nothing good can come from this. Leave David J. Stewart to stew in his own verbal excrement.
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Great topic. Interesting, humorous, informative.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/Athiesism/1307428423179.gif)
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There is already a comprehensive source of this material for educational purposes. (http://www.fstdt.com/)
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he fails as a hater 'cause his rants are too long, I suffered from tl;dr about a third of the way down.
he succeeds as a hater because his blood was obviously still boiling as he bloged.
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Some people just can't take it easy, can they? :rolleyes:
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At least on the quoted part, except where he says Catholicism is of the devil, on a quick look I can agree with him. I don't agree with the worship of Mary, but I can find something I dis-agree with in every denomination.
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You agree? How?
He doesn't only disagree, he finds it utterly damnable. What struck me most was how he says "some people are good, but since they don't believe in the Bible, they suck"; how he brings up something reasonable and then annihilates it completely with a thumping "it's J-E-S-U-S or be destroyed" statement. :wtf:
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Has anyone seen that GIF before or am I late on the uptake again?
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Yeah, so the guy is mental, and religion didn't help him at all. Figures.
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Why should I even comment on this?
Proper response to trolls and flamebaits is to ignore them, not to respond - or, worse still, paste a huge amount of trollish flamebait material on some board and ask for people to respond.
Nothing good can come from this. Leave David J. Stewart to stew in his own verbal excrement.
Seriously. This. Please stop posting flamebait spam on HLP: I like to pretend we have higher standards than this sort of crap.
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he fails as a hater 'cause his rants are too long
Amen.
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My reaction to the whole thread can be summarised by this gif:
(http://cdn.theurbandaily.com/files/2010/09/michael-jackson-eating-popcorn.gif)
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*WHEEEEEE I'M SPINNING .gif*
I want to try that now.
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You agree? How?
He doesn't only disagree, he finds it utterly damnable. What struck me most was how he says "some people are good, but since they don't believe in the Bible, they suck"; how he brings up something reasonable and then annihilates it completely with a thumping "it's J-E-S-U-S or be destroyed" statement. :wtf:
Well to be totally honest, that is basically what the Bible says. I haven't read enough of his words to see if he does go too far, but of what you posted(besides some of the Catholic parts) is inline with the Bible.
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Actually, it is only when Jesus the meek and mild arrives in the bible, that we learn that there's a problem in not believing in the religion after you are dead, and Jesus makes it perfectly clear that it either is his way, or the hellway. I constantly hear a lot of times that you know, jesus wasn't a god or anything, but he was pretty okay as a dude, nice chap and all. And no, no he wasn't. He was petty, egomaniac and utterly self-righteous, damning everyone who didn't believe him to the everlasting fire.
I'm not, obviously, talking about the "real" Jesus, but about the Jesus as portrayed in the Babble.
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Second thread in two days where I'm just going to advise a lock, here and now. This is going nowhere good.
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Ah but it started badly, so there :lol: .
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This didn't start, it miraculously transubstantiated!
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Please stop with the cannibalistic references!
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Why? We've got people pretending Marian Heresy is a legitimate criticism. :P
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It isn't? Prove it ain't so! If you can't it means its true, so THERE.
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Well to be totally honest, that is basically what the Bible says. I haven't read enough of his words to see if he does go too far, but of what you posted(besides some of the Catholic parts) is inline with the Bible.
Only if you take it literally, forgetting about the time it was written and thus overlook the real meaning, which means completely missing the entire point.
In fact, if taken literally, Bible might seem like a piece of really fantastical fiction, with some historical elements put in. What makes it special is the methaphorical meaning, which is much deeper than many people think. Unfortunately, only the intelligent people understand that, unintelligent ones either dismiss Bible as lies or belive the literal meaning, like most creationists or mr. Stewart. Literal meaning could have been good for unintelligent people when the Bible was written, though (For example, lack of tolerance for other religions could be explained by the fact Israelites were surrounded by cults which had beliefs that could be dangerous, e.g. human sacrifice (just an example, I'm not sure if any of these tribes actually did that). It was then important to make sure they won't convert to one of these primitive religions). Times had changed, so people who don't see the methaphorical meaning (which is valid no matter the time) are trying to follow a 2000 years old guidelines, some of which are no longer valid.
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I don't think that people who don't take the Bible seriously argue with your contextualized, historical viewpoint of the bible, Dragon. But you just assume that its metaphorical meaning is something that is above criticism, and of course I don't agree with that at all. Specifically, it is true that Jesus damnes everyone that doesn't follow him to hell. Literally or metaphorically, I can't see any way to read this and call it "Good". OTOH, if you call everything a metaphor, then we wonder what is the book good for, if one is always allowed to interpret it in any possible way.
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All that matters in terms of the evaluation of religion are the empirical outcomes. The holy text is relevant only inasmuch as it impacts behavior. If the believers don't interpret it literally that's fine.
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I don't think that people who don't take the Bible seriously argue with your contextualized, historical viewpoint of the bible, Dragon.
The people who take the Bible the most seriously, those who make a life of its study, most likely do. It is difficult or impossible to be truly scholarly in regards to something simply by memorizing its text, and you should beware of claiming those who have done so are scholars of it.
Also amusingly, I've rarely encountered people more ready to criticize the Bible as a literary work than Catholic priests.
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All that matters in terms of the evaluation of religion are the empirical outcomes. The holy text is relevant only inasmuch as it impacts behavior. If the believers don't interpret it literally that's fine.
Yeah, I'm okay with that too, despite the sheer irrationality and nihilism lurking underneath your idea... no wait that's actually pretty bad.
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All that matters in terms of the evaluation of religion are the empirical outcomes. The holy text is relevant only inasmuch as it impacts behavior. If the believers don't interpret it literally that's fine.
Yeah, I'm okay with that too, despite the sheer irrationality and nihilism lurking underneath your idea... no wait that's actually pretty bad.
You seriously think there's some importance to the holy text beyond the impact it has on people's behavior?
Like, you think there's actually divine merit to the words or something?
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You assume that the words are meaningless chinese room drivel, so we shouldn't take them seriously. But the problem is, if we don't take words seriously, then everything we ever write or read is equally meaningless chinese room drivel. And there's a word for this attitude: Nihilism.
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You assume that the words are meaningless chinese room drivel, so we shouldn't take them seriously. But the problem is, if we don't take words seriously, then everything we ever write or read is equally meaningless chinese room drivel. And there's a word for this attitude: Nihilism.
False dichotomy. Battuta believes we should take the words as serious as their impact on reality. This does not constitute nihilism; if something lifted your spirits by reading them, and you behaved in a different fashion because of it, then it should be taken seriously.
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You assume that the words are meaningless chinese room drivel, so we shouldn't take them seriously. But the problem is, if we don't take words seriously, then everything we ever write or read is equally meaningless chinese room drivel. And there's a word for this attitude: Nihilism.
Uh no. What NGTM1R said is correct, I think words are meaningful inasmuch as they encode ideas which can alter behavior.
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It's a nihilistic attitude regarding what the words mean in our language.
Forget what the bible says and focus on what people do about it. Okay, let's agree for a moment. Most people, specially usual christians, don't ever take the bible seriously and rather focus on their own moral and social instincts. So we can conclude that this means that the bible is irrelevant, except as a placeholder. A placeholder that no one reads, but which everyone is convinced that is full of moral eternal truths and amazing transcendent lessons, and by working as a placeholder, it has an observable effect in people's behavior.
I get that part very well. That was, I think, the major reason why people still think the bible should stick to being written in latin, to obscure it even further.
But then we are favouring and condoning obscurantism. Which is anathema to the Enlightenment project. I can't condone that ****.
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Uh okay
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A placeholder that no one reads
Ahahahhaha.
Hahahhahahaha.
Hahaha
aaaaahhhhhh.
Well, that explains some of your previous arguments, if you think that.
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I was discussing Battuta's idea that the words "don't matter", not what I actually think on the matter, so don't get cocky.
And it was a conceptual idea, an abstraction, to get my point through.
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Which is anathema to the Enlightenment project.
It's right about at this point, I think, that I was spontaneously compelled to envision you as Gendo Ikari.
Or in simpler terms: run that by me again in different language? I'm not sure if there's a disconnect between us or if that genuinely made little sense.
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Or in simpler terms: run that by me again in different language? I'm not sure if there's a disconnect between us or if that genuinely made little sense.
That was actually the only sentence that did make sense. The Enlightenment "Project" (has Luis been reading philosophy lately, because this term is common to Foucault's writing) was about the proliferation of knowledge. Condoning and favoring obscurity of information could be considered an anathema to it.
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I meant everything, however that was good moment to point out that he'd apparently lost the plot.
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I was trying to say that obscurantism, that is, the "practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known" (wiki to the rescue), that is present in the attitude that deliberately ignores what is actually written in the bible, runs counter to what is generally known as the "Enlightenment", an 18th century attitude that values empiricism, reductionism, knowledge and rationality.
EDIT: what MP said.
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EDIT: what MP said.
Which is, as I said to him, not what I meant. I get your premise. I don't get how anything you said aside from that relates to your premise or supports it.
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Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".
So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.
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[EDITED]
OK, I'm sorry, but I can't resist. Nothing personal Luis:
The GenDisc Drinking Game: every for every instance of a word with the "ism," "ist," or "ional" ending in one of Luis's posts, take a shot. If the word is italicized, take two shots. If there are quotes around it too, finish the bottle. If Luis's post is immediately followed by MP-Ryan or General Battuta who use the same "ism, ist, or ional"-ended word, switch to a different alcohol and begin again. ;7
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Please don't do that. You'll run out of bottles pretty fast!!!
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Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".
So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.
hahahaha what the ****
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Yeah, I'm with Batts on this one. I don't see how that follows.
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Ok, let me try giving an example. Let's admit that the bible has the following passage:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
I naively say, this is an immoral passage.
Now someone comes along and says this:
"heeey don't say anything bad about that passage, because it's all metaphorical you see, and your literal eyes can't see anything intelligent, KTHNKSBYE"
Another dude comes along and says this:
"Ease up, dude. You can't really criticize that because that passage doesn't really matter. What matters is the behavior of the believers"
And I say, what the ffuuuuuuuuuu????
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Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".
So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.
What's the difference between believing in evidence and believing in a flying fried chicken bucket?
Belief is limited by human experience, but you imply that belief itself is a separate entity. Except that we believe, and all are believers until we can ascend to a Transhuman state to escape our human confines, or else the Combine shoves a bunch of mechanical doohickeys into our skulls and achieve Transhuman ineptitude to be killed by an angry headcrab and explosive barrels.
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Ok, let me try giving an example. Let's admit that the bible has the following passage:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
I naively say, this is an immoral passage.
Now someone comes along and says this:
"heeey don't say anything bad about that passage, because it's all metaphorical you see, and your literal eyes can't see anything intelligent, KTHNKSBYE"
Another dude comes along and says this:
"Ease up, dude. You can't really criticize that because that passage doesn't really matter. What matters is the behavior of the believers"
And I say, what the ffuuuuuuuuuu????
All that example does is establish that you say what the ffffuuuuuuuuuu. It doesn't make any argument.
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Ok, Battuta, so please enlighten me. Is that passage immoral or not? Or do you render yourself unable to morally judge the passage?
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Well I don't know, does it cause violence, hatred, or any sort of transgression of the rights of others in those who read it?
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Ok, so you say that you are unable of making a prima facie judgement. Let's imagine another line:
The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.
You are saying that you can't really decide upon the morality of this sentence without seeing history playing through?
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Of course not. If Jews did not exist as a real group, if they were instead fictional, if there was no history of prejudice and attempted genocide, the line would have no moral meaning aside from the general sanction we hold against describing even fictional groups as 'evil incarnate' - a sanction which in turn arises from our experience with the consequences of making generalizations about groups.
It is impossible to make a moral judgment without empirical context, because all morality derives from history. Hell, you could even tweak that line by replacing 'Jew' with 'white man' and I bet you'd find get people nodding in sympathy because it's now an anti-colonial statement sympathetic to the oppressed.
I don't subscribe to religious notions of morality as some kind of objective thingaling. All moral systems are methods of proscribing behavior.
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You are saying that you can't really decide upon the morality of this sentence without seeing history playing through?
You appear to be assuming that the influence of any particular thing is unchanging. The influence of the book as a whole has clearly changed throughout history, the assumption that its components have unvarying influence is weak at best.
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I don't subscribe to religious notions of morality as some kind of objective thingaling. All moral systems are methods of proscribing behavior.
Hear, hear!
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The personification of Sauron as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the orc.
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All of what you said is not an argument against what I said. I didn't say that your moral judgement wouldn't come from your empirical knoweldge about the world at large, nor did I say that morality was objective, a thing in itself (man **** you should know better by now than throwing that dust into my eyes) nor did I say that morals don't change over time.
I asked another very specific and yet important question, which I'll rephrase:
Do you agree that we can have moral judgements on those prescriptions I quoted?
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Absolutely I agree, and they should be based on whether the quotes cause violence, hatred, or any sort of transgression of the rights of others in those who read them.
The very question I asked when you presented the quote, and the very reason scripture is irrelevant except in how it impacts the behavior of its followers.
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The personification of Sauron as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the orc.
This is tautological, Battuta. Don't play that silly game. Orcs and Sauron are defined by the narrative to be evil incarnate, so what you are making here is a description of a fairy tale, not a prescription of what to do in our world.
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So Luis, why is your belief in scientific evidence any different than a belief in a god/goddesses/houseplant?
And does that make the form of meta-reference in the human experience any different to confirm belief in evidence or a talking puppet?
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Absolutely I agree, and they should be based on whether the quotes cause violence, hatred, or any sort of transgression of the rights of others in those who read them.
But you are rendering yourself more incompetent than what you really are.
Imagine that someone says something preposterously bigoted, yet entirely novel. You sit there, incapable of saying "hey dude, that's not cool at all", until that sentence creates something evil out of it? And how the hell will you even detect its effect? You won't.
So basically, if this is your only tool to decide, you are saying you are incapable of making moral judgements about something novel.
But we have more than this. We can infer, based on similar sentences, bringing up the kind of behavior that the "type" of prescription one is hearing and its usual consequences. We can say, with those tools, that both of those quotes are morally bankrupt.
The very question I asked when you presented the quote, and the very reason scripture is irrelevant except in how it impacts the behavior of its followers.
How do you detect its impact in a way that will assure you?
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But you are rendering yourself more incompetent than what you really are.
Imagine that someone says something preposterously bigoted, yet entirely novel. You sit there, incapable of saying "hey dude, that's not cool at all", until that sentence creates something evil out of it? And how the hell will you even detect its effect? You won't.
I've already answered this - read back and see if you can spot it.
How do you detect its impact in a way that will assure you?
Once you've completed MP-Ryan's course in experimental design I think we can begin to discuss this!
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So Luis, why is your belief in scientific evidence any different than a belief in a god/goddesses/houseplant?
Who says I "believe" in scientific evidence? I don't "believe it". I accept most of it, depending on the strenght of it.
Do you "believe" that the sun comes up tomorrow or you just accept it as the most likely outcome of it given your past experience?
The difference lies upon that, for instance, I have some evidence for the existence of things called "atoms" and zero, zilch, none, nada, going for Zeus or Apollo. That's the difference.
And does that make the form of meta-reference in the human experience any different to confirm belief in evidence or a talking puppet?
I would say that experience teaches us that whenever people stop looking at evidence and start to blindingly trust anyone's babble instead, degeneration ensues. And this is demonstrably true everywhere I look.
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Yeah, Battuta, as I said, you are rendering yourself incapable of moral judgement of any kind except the ones that you already pressupose are true. Because I don't know of any scientific study that will try to detect the deterministic effects of the utterance of a moral prescription, nor do I know of any kind of attempts at doing so (if such attempts exist, either the scientists are ****ing geniuses or utter fools).
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Yeah, Battuta, as I said, you are rendering yourself incapable of moral judgement of any kind except the ones that you already pressupose are true.
Brother if you think this is true you sure don't get reasoning.
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Or you are lousy at explaining your moral compass, how you reach your conclusions.
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I've presented the criteria for evaluating the scripture you posted already: does it cause believing readers to engage in acts that transgress the rights of others? Do readers of the text take the passage as a literal instruction, and do they obey its orders?
Those are pretty concrete questions.
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How can you ever know about those things?
Imagine if you will, that there's a text comprised of a hundred of these lines. Some good some bad. But you can't tell, you see, because your criteria is just that awesome. Now, how can you *ever* even dream of ever making any single judgement upon any particular line or groups of lines of that text?
Specially considering that the people who read these texts may even be reading thousands more that are influencing their brain, but which are outside of this "sacred" hundred-lines-text.
As I said, you are rendering yourself incompetent when I don't think you should.
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He asks you questions, to which you respond with a question asking how he can never know.
Also, I love how you say that some lines are good and some bad and then go on to try and refute that you can call them good or bad.
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You were the one who presented the single line test in the first place -you're now demolishing your own argument. (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-smug.gif)
The test is, of course, meaningless - people read entire texts. They come away with not just the message of the text, if it can be said to have a single message, but also with the filtering provided by those who teach them the text, as well as their pre-existing beliefs and dispositions.
That's what determines what they behave. Picking out single lines is meaningless.
As I always argue - behavior is complicated, epiphenomenal. The fact that a given holy text contains a line or ten or a hundred of eyebrow-raisingly archaic hate speaks very little to its moral qualities. What matters are the behaviors of people who read those texts.
ed:
He asks you questions, to which you respond with a question asking how he can never know.
Also, I love how you say that some lines are good and some bad and then go on to try and refute that you can call them good or bad.
Yeah I thought that was pretty good. GIANT YELLOW SMUGFACE
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Really, it's like talking to a wall people for ****s sake. Where the **** did I say that I agree with Battuta's absolutely insane criteria?
I'm saying that with his criteria, he's rendered himself a completely incompetent person to judge anything morally.
I didn't say that I'm incompetent, because, surprise surprise, I don't ****ing use his criteria!!
Do you understand now, or do you need a ****ing map?
****, and I'm the one that is poor on reasoning, ffs.
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So your argument is that my criteria don't work because they don't allow you to draw a moral conclusion about a person using a single line from a religious text they've read?
I'm pretty glad I don't meet those criteria thanks, and frankly that kinda puts the capstone on the towering phallic edifice of my entire argument: judging people based on a single line in a holy text they read is really dumb.
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*paaaaafffffff* facepalm.
Yeah, sure pride away at your incompetence.
judging people based on a single line in a holy text they read is really dumb.
Now, unlike you, I'm actually capable of judging this sentence as complete gibberish, since I've stated none of this.
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Huh I seem to recall something like
Ok, let me try giving an example. Let's admit that the bible has the following passage:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
I naively say, this is an immoral passage.
Now someone comes along and says this:
"heeey don't say anything bad about that passage, because it's all metaphorical you see, and your literal eyes can't see anything intelligent, KTHNKSBYE"
Another dude comes along and says this:
"Ease up, dude. You can't really criticize that because that passage doesn't really matter. What matters is the behavior of the believers"
And I say, what the ffuuuuuuuuuu????
must've been someone else
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Relephant (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHaVUjjH3EI).
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Yeah people take notice: by "passage" one does not mean a sentence, but an actual person!! :lol:
(Do I REALLY need to put sarcasm quotes in that sentence above? Am I seriously overjudging your intelligence here?)
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Yeah people take notice: by "passage" one does not mean a sentence, but an actual person!! :lol:
I just quoted you reacting with rage to the opinions of two people. Backpedal out of that please, it needs backpedaling out of.
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Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed every religion thread seems to do this.
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What? Did someone ate your brains while I went out to eat dinner or something?
You said this:
So your argument is that my criteria don't work because they don't allow you to draw a moral conclusion about a person using a single line from a religious text they've read?
But you will fail to see anywhere I said this. You are, again just like forever, making **** up.
So I said:
Now, unlike you, I'm actually capable of judging this sentence as complete gibberish, since I've stated none of this
In reply, you quoted another comment of mine, with this snarky comment:
must've been someone else
To which I obviously assume you are meaning to counter what I said, namely, that I never said that we could or should judge a *person* for a sentence he or she may have read or believed.
What can I reply but:
Yeah people take notice: by "passage" one does not mean a sentence, but an actual person!!
And now you are saying that I wrote that thing out of rage and I was somehow backpedalling from something??!?
Get your grip, you stopped making any sense an hour ago.
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Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed every religion thread seems to do this.
Yep, which is why Marcov posted the flamebait, knowing perfectly well that it would lead to another Luis/Battuta trainwreck of a thread.
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Pull your argument together. You've conceded that evaluating individual lines of scripture is irrelevant to assessing the behavior of readers, giving up the line of attack you began in what I quoted.
That leaves this statement:
Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".
So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.
totally unsupported and again completely confusing.
Do you have any other way to try to make it make sense, or are you conceding it as well?
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Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed every religion thread seems to do this.
Yep, which is why Marcov posted the flamebait, knowing perfectly well that it would lead to another Luis/Battuta trainwreck of a thread.
You must admit, it's kind of entertaining when you're not a participant.
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As a reminder to Luis Dias what we're waiting on is
All that matters in terms of the evaluation of religion are the empirical outcomes. The holy text is relevant only inasmuch as it impacts behavior. If the believers don't interpret it literally that's fine.
Yeah, I'm okay with that too, despite the sheer irrationality and nihilism lurking underneath your idea... no wait that's actually pretty bad.
anything to back this up.
You need to make a religious/philosophical argument that can somehow match my empirical take on things. (good luck)
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I can't really understand what the entire dispute ended up being about.
What I'm sure of is that you certainly cannot judge a passage out of context, by taking a single line from the bible without context you can "justify" and "prove" almost everything.
This had been done before, not only with the Bible, and rarely ended well.
For instance, people criticized Harry Potter by quoting a few lines spoken by Voldemort, of all people, and saying it's a demonstration of values the book is trying to propagate, which is a laughable claim for anybody who actually read it.
Using similar methods, you can have just about any idea, then look throught the entire bible to find lines which could sound like they confirm you're right and voila, your idea is now backed by word of God. There's a lot of words in bible, and if you look hard enough, you'll be able to justify everything from high taxes to slavery.
To truly understand text in bible, you not only need to know the whole text, but also realia of the age it was written in, as well as some things about translation, provided you're not reading it in original language. I've found how important the latter is after reading that recently, translators found that the whole idea of Mary's virginity might have come from translation, since the word translated to "virgin" could also mean "woman" in Hebrew. Of course, most people don't really need such comeplete understanding, but I'd recommend to read a whole book (as in, "bible chapter", not nessesarly entire bible) poassage in question is in and do some reaserch about times described in it before making any statements about it.
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Pull your argument together. You've conceded that evaluating individual lines of scripture is irrelevant to assessing the behavior of readers, giving up the line of attack you began in what I quoted.
If you let go of your Brick Wall alter-ego, perhaps we have a chance at an understanding here. Not otherwise.
So let's try again, first by ripping apart that silly sentence of yours. I don't concede things that I never stated. So if your case is a strawman, then argue with it, not me.
I said that we are able to judge the book itself. Not the people. No, rather the book as a moral guidance.
I said, words matter and deserve judgement.
You said, no, they don't matter until you see their effects. As if we aren't already embebbed with this experience of a lifetime. As if we are disussing something in a lab.
I said this:
Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".
I'll try again.
We can judge these words in as much as we can judge people around us. We can say that there are awful things in the bible, without collapsing in any inconsistency at all.
We can also say that the metaphoricality or literality of these words have little impact upon their awfulness.
You OTOH, say this is impossible until we scientifically trace all the actual impacts of these sentences upon some historical truth. You ask, have these appalling sentences actually make any harm?
I could reply "YES, yes they did", but I obviously would be lying. Of course I cannot trace these things, they are untraceable. This does not render myself incompetent, it means that the method is another. You analyse the language. You analyse what kinds of concepts are inherent in the sentence. What does it teach? What kind of relationship to the universe it tries to convince you of? What kind of pressure is it trying to put yourself into?
These are not difficult things to do, you know, we do it all the frigging time, every single day, **** every second. We are EXCEPCIONALLY GOOD at this.
So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.
totally unsupported and again completely confusing.
Not true. You are saying that we cannot judge a sentence by its merits, without observing from the outside how a believer will react to it.
As if you cannot say by yourself by reading it yourself! As if you are a completely different species than the believer, as if you are from some kind of an alternative universe! As if "English" (or any other human language) was somehow a transcendent language that you couldn't access, but at the same time, the believer "accesses" it and *that* you can study!
... bah I'm probably wasting my english but what the helll..... ok Battuta, what is it this time that you failed to understand?
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Well to be totally honest, that is basically what the Bible says. I haven't read enough of his words to see if he does go too far, but of what you posted(besides some of the Catholic parts) is inline with the Bible.
Only if you take it literally, forgetting about the time it was written and thus overlook the real meaning, which means completely missing the entire point.
In fact, if taken literally, Bible might seem like a piece of really fantastical fiction, with some historical elements put in. What makes it special is the methaphorical meaning, which is much deeper than many people think. Unfortunately, only the intelligent people understand that, unintelligent ones either dismiss Bible as lies or belive the literal meaning, like most creationists or mr. Stewart. Literal meaning could have been good for unintelligent people when the Bible was written, though (For example, lack of tolerance for other religions could be explained by the fact Israelites were surrounded by cults which had beliefs that could be dangerous, e.g. human sacrifice (just an example, I'm not sure if any of these tribes actually did that). It was then important to make sure they won't convert to one of these primitive religions). Times had changed, so people who don't see the methaphorical meaning (which is valid no matter the time) are trying to follow a 2000 years old guidelines, some of which are no longer valid.
Personally I do take the Bible literally, and that was the way I worded my post. Of course if someone does not, then you are correct. However, I was basically saying why I agreed with what I read of Mr. Stewart, and that what he believes if neither radical or extreme in the views of Christianity.
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As a reminder to Luis Dias what we're waiting on is
All that matters in terms of the evaluation of religion are the empirical outcomes. The holy text is relevant only inasmuch as it impacts behavior. If the believers don't interpret it literally that's fine.
Yeah, I'm okay with that too, despite the sheer irrationality and nihilism lurking underneath your idea... no wait that's actually pretty bad.
anything to back this up.
You need to make a religious/philosophical argument that can somehow match my empirical take on things. (good luck)
That's a more subtle point, to which I am pretty pessimistic at your... ahhh.... acceptance of it.
It boils down to this simple logic. If you state that the words in the bible cannot be read by "us" and judged by the reader directly, but rather they ought to be judged by the behavior resulting in the actions of the believer by reading them (and accepting them), then it follows that:
- Either the reader of the bible is more intelligent than you, or you are both incapable to understand what kinds of actions a certain sentence compells you to do;
- If both of you are incapable to understand what kind of behavior a certain passage compells you to do, then we are left with two options. Either the sentence is fundamentally meaningless, since there is no behavior that can result from a non-understanding (obvious), or the sentence has "mysterious powers", lurking in the mental background, as some kind of voodoo magic, compelling the believer to act in a X or Y or Z way, without having to understand it at all.
Now, if this is the only (good) option you got left, you have to choose it. But by doing so, you are effectively stating that biblical words have some kind of a "power" that ordinary words "don't have". But since the words in the bible are quite ordinary (and suffer from multiple translations, etc.), we must conclude that all the words have this "characteristic".
And thus you are effectively stating that we can't have any opinion on any kind of word, sentence or paragraph for that matter. That the only way to do so is to have a "holistic approach", seeing every action that such word, sentence, paragraph, book causes.
This means that *everything* we ever write should be classified as "meaningless drivel".
Now, I'm not (at least here) suggesting that you shouldn't reach this conclusion. Perhaps you do, perhaps it's what you believe.
But this is, in a nutshell, Nihilism. Congratulations, you just reached the point where Nietzsche predicted you'd arrive at if you weren't careful, 200 years ago.
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Personally I do take the Bible literally, and that was the way I worded my post.
No you don't. I do not believe for one second that you obey the literal scripture of the Bible.
Of course if someone does not, then you are correct. However, I was basically saying why I agreed with what I read of Mr. Stewart, and that what he believes if neither radical or extreme in the views of Christianity.
I'm not defending that kind of silliness for one second.
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I can't really understand what the entire dispute ended up being about.
What I'm sure of is that you certainly cannot judge a passage out of context, by taking a single line from the bible without context you can "justify" and "prove" almost everything.
Yeah this is a fair criticism, one which I defended many times in the past, until someone asked me the obvious question. "OK, so now tell me, in what ****ing context does that sentence get any better?"
So I'll redirect that question to you, since I was unable to produce a defense for that.
This had been done before, not only with the Bible, and rarely ended well.
For instance, people criticized Harry Potter by quoting a few lines spoken by Voldemort, of all people, and saying it's a demonstration of values the book is trying to propagate, which is a laughable claim for anybody who actually read it.
Yeah, but unless you are saying that Jesus is the devil and shouldn't be quoted for stating immoralities, there's really no good analogy here.
Using similar methods, you can have just about any idea, then look throught the entire bible to find lines which could sound like they confirm you're right and voila, your idea is now backed by word of God. There's a lot of words in bible, and if you look hard enough, you'll be able to justify everything from high taxes to slavery.
.... which were not only condoned but actually advised as being a good practice, not by a Voldemort character, but as a direct moral code.
If the writer of Harry Potter remembered in the middle of the book to write herself to the reader directly and advise him/her that magic does really exist and that they should just quit school and figure out how can they fly, surely you wouldn't dismiss it as "uncontextualized".
To truly understand text in bible, you not only need to know the whole text, but also realia of the age it was written in, as well as some things about translation, provided you're not reading it in original language.
This is called biblical scholarship. And when you learn how the bible was created, transformed, written by multiple writers, edited, censored, added, etc.,etc., you will end up with an astonishing web that smells of nothing but human tinkering.
I've found how important the latter is after reading that recently, translators found that the whole idea of Mary's virginity might have come from translation, since the word translated to "virgin" could also mean "woman" in Hebrew. Of course, most people don't really need such comeplete understanding, but I'd recommend to read a whole book (as in, "bible chapter", not nessesarly entire bible) poassage in question is in and do some reaserch about times described in it before making any statements about it.
Yes, the translation error is widely known by now. This asks other set of questions, like, what if this mistranslation never happened? Would St Mary be even a saint? Would she have been said to born without sin? Would the sexual prescriptions of the church be the same?
There's a whole theological building sitting on top of a mistranslation. But this is yet another problem. I have no trouble in saying that for the purposes of dealing with specific sentences within the bible, I don't care about these things, because we know that the christians don't get the "original" (if it ever was one) bible, they get their own King James (most likely) version, and so that's the one I was discussing here.
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Personally I do take the Bible literally, and that was the way I worded my post.
No you don't. I do not believe for one second that you obey the literal scripture of the Bible.
Of course if someone does not, then you are correct. However, I was basically saying why I agreed with what I read of Mr. Stewart, and that what he believes if neither radical or extreme in the views of Christianity.
I'm not defending that kind of silliness for one second.
Do I obey all the law? I'd be lying if I said I did. Do I obey all that is stated for Christians to obey in the New Testament? I'm sure trying.
Also who said I need to be defended? It is what it is.
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Well that's a lot less silly, at least.
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I can't really understand what the entire dispute ended up being about.
What I'm sure of is that you certainly cannot judge a passage out of context, by taking a single line from the bible without context you can "justify" and "prove" almost everything.
Yeah this is a fair criticism, one which I defended many times in the past, until someone asked me the obvious question. "OK, so now tell me, in what ****ing context does that sentence get any better?"
So I'll redirect that question to you, since I was unable to produce a defense for that.
Could you provide the number and book in which the line you quoted was in?
I have to work with a Polish version of bible, so this makes looking for it difficult. I have to know what context it appears in, because there are many possiblities.
This had been done before, not only with the Bible, and rarely ended well.
For instance, people criticized Harry Potter by quoting a few lines spoken by Voldemort, of all people, and saying it's a demonstration of values the book is trying to propagate, which is a laughable claim for anybody who actually read it.
Yeah, but unless you are saying that Jesus is the devil and shouldn't be quoted for stating immoralities, there's really no good analogy here.
I agree that the line indeed seems immoral, but as I said, I need to know where it is to know exactly what he was talking about. It is very difficult to talk about a single line in the bible, especially without knowing it's location.
Also, note. Talking about general sense and how bible should be understood is one thing, but when we'll be talking about specific lines, language differences may come into play. I only know a handfull of quotes from the bible in english, so if you have the King's James Bible and I have the Millenium Bible (Polish translation from what was considered "original language" about 60 years ago), the text may noticably differ. Don't be suprised if the wording used in Millenium Bible will lead to a somewhat different conclusion that the one in King's James Bible.
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Ok, let me try giving an example. Let's admit that the bible has the following passage:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
It isn't Jesus who said that, he was describing a King who got angry at his servant.
Battuta says that the Bible doesn't do anything else then affect people's behavior because he's atheist and doesn't see anything beyond what seems logical as far as we know.
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Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed every religion thread seems to do this.
Yep, which is why Marcov posted the flamebait, knowing perfectly well that it would lead to another Luis/Battuta trainwreck of a thread.
No I didn't. I just wanted to reveal this site, this heck of a site.
From what I've heard Luis Dias and Battuta seem to be archenemies in debates, but above that, I have no knowledge of.
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It isn't Jesus who said that, he was describing a King who got angry at his servant.
He was making a parable of his own kingdom, so it does matter. I could produce a lot of damning quotes all day, but you see, there are a lot of pages out there in the netz that already do this, so that would be a pointless exercise.
From what I've heard Luis Dias and Battuta seem to be archenemies in debates, but above that, I have no knowledge of.
At least until Battuta starts to misrepresent me, cry about how backpedalling I am (when I am not...), then simply quit the conversation. That's the usual pattern.
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He was making a parable of his own kingdom, so it does matter. I could produce a lot of damning quotes all day, but you see, there are a lot of pages out there in the netz that already do this, so that would be a pointless exercise.
Er, no, it was a king. Just a "master", whether or not the king is good or not doesn't matter; what he was trying to point out was "make as many as you can or what few you have will be taken" sort of thing. The thing about the king putting to death those who oppose him doesn't mean that all who are non-Christian should be killed.
Actually, sure, Jesus speaks of hell, those who aren't good go to it (speaking literally), but I don't think he ever means or implies anything that obviously bad. He stated bluntly that "whoever lives by the sword dies by the sword", so this should give you an idea that he isn't a cruel guy at all.
P.S. actually yeah, I kind of agree with Dragon as I'm the sort of person who believes in what seems morally correct and not utter fundamentalistic ignorance.
Though admittedly, I still struggle with my own faith currently, so cornering me to a debate where I will be forced to say that the Bible is full of thumper crap isn't a productive idea.
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So you are really arguing that in christianity, whomever doesn't follow Christ will not go to hell?
Let's make this clear, are you really arguing this falsehood?
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Take it easy, kid.
Firstly, no. I wasn't saying that. You seemed to be saying "hey, look at this?! How could such a good guy say these things?!!!". However, again, Jesus never likes killing, or theft, or greed etc. He just isn't into that, the Bible in its entirety makes it clear.
However, this has nothing to do with going to hell or not; it's "your choice" to be good or bad.
What I see here is that you accept two things; accept that everything in the Bible should be treated as a dictionary or be atheist. Sadly, as Dragon has explained numerous times, this is not the case.
The Bible is an epic, large, old book, written by thousands of writers and evangelists. Much evidence of the Church tampering with it too.
Plus the fact that as Dragon said, language before isn't exactly like language is now. So you CAN NEVER BE SURE that what the Bible says is bluntly what it means.
You will try to make an excuse saying "well, if you say all those things, then the Bible is just full of inconsistent crap". Now now, I'm no Bible scholar, but what I can say is, maybe a little research can make things clearer.
As I said, cornering me to a debate forcing me to concede is never a good idea. You go ahead and try it. Nothing happens. Better yet, argue with Dragon.
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So you are really arguing that in christianity, whomever doesn't follow Christ will not go to hell?
I'd actually like to see you produce a quotation that says precisely that. Considering the Old and New Testaments outright contradict each other in places, and translations vary wildly, and Bible versions also have a fair bit of variance, I think you may be hard pressed to do so.
I know it's a common interpretation in some branches of Christianity, but I'm fairly certain it's not a direct Biblical passage.
IIRC (and not being a Christian, I can't claim to have paid a lot of attention to the inner workings of the text) most Biblical versions refer to eternal salvation as a consequence of following Christ's teachings, and leave the consequences of failure to do so up to the reader. Christians, care to comment on that?
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You can find just about everything burn-witches in David Stewart's site.
I mean it. Wanna find a quote saying that whoever doesn't follow Jesus goes to hell? Consult the Stewart site.
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What I see here is that you accept two things; accept that everything in the Bible should be treated as a dictionary or be atheist. Sadly, as Dragon has explained numerous times, this is not the case.
Not at all, my point was much more limited and minimal, that is, that the bible possesses evil passages that we can judge, something that ran counter to someone here's point. Battuta sillily argued (and failed) that we cannot judge any passage by the bible without scientifically attest to the effects of it in the believers. The whole argument was about that particular point.
I never said that the bible should be "treated as a dictionary or else". I do think that you can read the bible in multiple ways, whatever fits your interests better. But if you are trying to prevent me from stating what I regard as evident, I won't have it.
As I said, cornering me to a debate forcing me to concede is never a good idea. You go ahead and try it. Nothing happens. Better yet, argue with Dragon.
Don't take it personally, I don't like it either when people reply to my questions with another set of questions as if it is an argument. It's just that I'm sick and tired of hearing people say that the Bible and Jesus are so great and we can't dare to propose otherwise that it nauseates me.
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So you are really arguing that in christianity, whomever doesn't follow Christ will not go to hell?
I'd actually like to see you produce a quotation that says precisely that. Considering the Old and New Testaments outright contradict each other in places, and translations vary wildly, and Bible versions also have a fair bit of variance, I think you may be hard pressed to do so.
Yeaaaah, it's soooo very hard to do.... wait the ****ing minute, no no it isn't. You just need half a minute in Google to get it. Hey, here is one that is very clear on the subject:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:16-18)
I know it's a common interpretation in some branches of Christianity, but I'm fairly certain it's not a direct Biblical passage.
Embarrassment is the usual consequence of that kind of lazyness.... but I can't joke on you too much, I've committed similar faux pas myself in the past. ;)
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Luis, you should really read the parameters of what you're being asked to back up. The quote you've selected refers to salvation and condemnation; nowhere does it discuss "hell" as a concept or otherwise. Condemnation implies lack of eternal salvation; it doesn't refer to a consequence. You specifically talked about failure to follow Christ = go directly to Hell. The quotation you've selected does not say that. I expect you might try harder this time around instead of being so glib.
Also, kindly indicate which Biblical version you're pulling from. Translations vary.
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The line you quoted seems to look like that in my version too. Taken literally, Jesus does say that everybody who doesn't belive will be condemned.
Note that, before Jesus, hell was the place everybody went after death. Even Jesus went there, then he returned.
Jesus was offering salvation to mankind. What he said, in my understanding, meant that people who won't belive in his teachings refuse salvation, chosing hatred and egoism over love and thus ending up being morally lower than those who follow him. I don't think what you exactly belive in matters here, as long as this belief leads to love and not to hatred.
Of course, this is far from a word by word analysis my Polish teacher would be happy with, but I don't have time to read the entire evangelion and write an essay about it.
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Luis, you should really read the parameters of what you're being asked to back up. The quote you've selected refers to salvation and condemnation; nowhere does it discuss "hell" as a concept or otherwise. Condemnation implies lack of eternal salvation; it doesn't refer to a consequence.
Ok, if you are getting all sophistry on me, I'll just stop replying to you, mkay?
I can do that silly game too, you know? For instance, where the **** did you make the inference that "Condemnation" implies merely the lack of salvation? The word is not a statement of a "lack" of good things. You don't "condemn" people to not get good stuff. You "condemn" people to jail. So given this obviosity, where the hell did you read in the bible that "condemnation" only implies you don't go to heaven?
And btw, if you don't go to heaven nor hell, where else are you supposed to go within christian mythology? There is no Limbo anymore, you know? The pope has decreed its inexistence! :lol:
You specifically talked about failure to follow Christ = go directly to Hell. The quotation you've selected does not say that. I expect you might try harder this time around instead of being so glib.
You show that you are not here to actually exchange knowledge, merely to stupidify the discussion, so whatever.
Also, kindly indicate which Biblical version you're pulling from. Translations vary.
King James. I guess that would take you an extra 2 seconds to confirm in google, so you made me waste 10 in writing this sentence. That's the kind of respect you show here.
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The line you quoted seems to look like that in my version too. Taken literally, Jesus does say that everybody who doesn't belive will be condemned.
Note that, before Jesus, hell was the place everybody went after death. Even Jesus went there, then he returned.
Hell as a place of torment is an invention of the New Testament. Sheol in the Old Testament is just the place where we go when we die, i.e., beneath the surface when people bury you.
So when Jesus meek and mild talked about the everlasting fire and stuff, he was not only "saving" some hundreds of thousands of people... he was condemning all the rest of the human race to a place of torment. But that's cool I guess.
Jesus was offering salvation to mankind. What he said, in my understanding, meant that people who won't belive in his teachings refuse salvation, chosing hatred and egoism over love and thus ending up being morally lower than those who follow him. I don't think what you exactly belive in matters here, as long as this belief leads to love and not to hatred.
Let's agree for a moment that we can "interpret" the bible in that way, and not by the way that most Christian denominations in the world actually interpret it. And this would be cool if you actually agreed with everything Jesus says and teaches. What happens when you do not? What happens when you realise that morals aren't absolute and this guy wasn't exactly the final word at it, much to the contrary?
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Your insulting nonsense stops now, Luis. That's not an acceptable form of debate, and the fact that you haven't been called on your thinly-veiled belligerence and contempt earlier is starting to become a problem.
If you make an assertion, you back it up. You said that Christianity says that people who do not follow Jesus go to hell. When asked, quite benignly, to provide a quote to back yourself up, you not only failed to do so, but you decided to give some attitude (not uncommon in your posts as of late, I might add). The word "condemn" in your quote has no associated destination or meaning with it. Thus, it doesn't provide a reference for what you were asked to provide. Also, in debate, it is up to the person providing a reference to source it. My job isn't to go around Googling references for whatever you decide to throw out in your posts - that's your job. You spend a lot of time (in all threads) saying that information is "all over the netz" or "everywhere on the web" but I have yet to see you actually source a single bit of your belligerent statements directly. Mixing in profanity just makes it more insulting and less worth reading to boot.
Either learn the rules of acceptable debate, or I have no doubt you will find yourself meeting the same fate as Liberator and Trashman both.
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Wow, Luis. That post was, for a good 80% of it, geniunely retarded.
Instead of addressing MP-Ryan's post in a meaningful fashion, you instead declare a refusal to participate in civil discussion, immediately turn around and do the same thing you got all pissed about, and then to top it all off, broadly generalize all Christians to jumping at the Pope's beck and call.
And then a hilariously ironic dismissal of any want to make intelligent discussion in this thread.
And finally, an indication that you think your time (and by extension yourself) is more important than anyone else's here. Yes, that's going to get you a lot of respect.
EDIT: Also, what Ryan said.
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I provided the most clear quote you will find
Your insulting nonsense stops now, Luis. That's not an acceptable form of debate, and the fact that you haven't been called on your thinly-veiled belligerence and contempt earlier is starting to become a problem.
I only show contempt when I feel that I am object of similar contempt of just plain sophistry. I've been abused in this manner frequently, not only on this thread.
When I produced a blatantly clear quotation that is as clear and transparent as glass, you know decide that because it isn't worded precisely as I put it, it's not true. That kind of attitude is what really puts me off.
I'm not a native english speaker, but "Condemn" is not exactly a difficult word to understand. So let's see what the dictionaries tell us:
1.to express an unfavorable or adverse judgment on; indicate strong disapproval of; censure.
2.to pronounce to be guilty; sentence to punishment: to condemn a murderer to life imprisonment.
3.to give grounds or reason for convicting or censuring: His acts condemn him.
So to where will this allmighty God may condemn you to? What do you think?
I mean, and if you think I'm still being insulting and whatever, I just don't know how to put it more gently. You are denying word meanings, for christ's sake! Just to get a point!
The word "condemn" in your quote has no associated destination or meaning with it.
Let's be gratious and accept this giganormous cop out. If you aside with Battuta's criteria that the words only matter insofar at the attitude that people take when they read a sentence, let's question this. Is it or is it not the case that most christian denominations read this passage in the same exact manner as I do? Yes, yes it is. So there's your answer.
My job isn't to go around Googling references for whatever you decide to throw out in your posts - that's your job.
Yeah well I felt you were just nitpicking everything I said just in spite.
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You said Christianity says that a failure to follow Jesus means you're going to Hell. You were asked to provide a reference. The reference you have provided refers to condemnation and does not discuss hell as a place or a concept. As the definition of condemnation you posted says, the word does not carry implicit meaning of being sent somewhere (specifically a physical, psychological, or spiritual destination).
I'm not tangentially heading off to the semantics of the word condemnation. You were asked for a Biblical reference to substantiate your point, and the one you've provided doesn't. I'd suggest you may want to continue looking rather than attempting to argue semantics and defeating your own original point by saying this is the best quotation available. If this as common a teaching throughout Christianity as you claim, then one would expect you can find Biblical reference to it.
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I have trouble reading condemnation in any other way, since in christian doctrine, there are only two metaphysical places where you eventually end up in. If you are "condemned", I don't see how it can be a condemnation if you're sent to heaven.
Ok, here's another one for your semantical criticisms:
"The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile...the idolaters and all liars - their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulpher. This is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)
By unbelieving, we can, as you undoubtedly will, ask "in what?". Well, in the christian doctrine, surely. In God. And Christ is god in the christian doctrine. This is obvious for any christian, and the meaning of that phrase as well. But if you press enough, we can also agree that it may be read in a more ambiguous way.
Ok. I'll accept that. It still calls for atheists to be burnt in hell.
Now we have two sentences that you may not believe (but most christians do, so...) in the meaning I'm attributing to them, but they are still both immoral, even if you don't buy into this interpretation, and just accept that in the first God condemns people for not being gullible to his son, while the second condemns atheists to the "fiery lake of burning sulpher".
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No it doesn't. Nothing in that passage you quoted suggests people will burn in hell. You're bringing in outside beliefs.
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Yes, that is logically true. I'm not going to be facetious here, look, I believe that the meaning of the words are what they seem to be, in english.
This assumes a belief that the meaning of these words have a deep similarity with the definitions of them in the dictionary.
This is not facetious - every single sentence ever proclaimed cannot sit by its own, it always, always depends upon the assumptions made.
The only thing we have to be careful about is if whether these meanings are sufficiently shared among the people here.
You say, "well I don't think it means what you say it means". Ok, so what's your take in that passage?
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It looks pretty transparent to me: the souls of the unbelieving, vile, idolaters and liars will be cast into a lake of fire, where they will die for a second time and fail to receive eternal life in Heaven.
Doesn't sound too bad.
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Who mentioned anything about souls?
And if souls exist, I really don't see how casting them unto a fiery lake of fire is supposed to be a good thing, but I'll take it that you'll offer an explanation of that...
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He never said good, he said "doesn't sound too bad." The two are not the same.
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The Bible describes everyone as being resurrected for judgment, so I suppose souls is a bit of a misnomer - but yeah, you're judged, if you don't deserve immortal life you go into the lake of fire and are extinguished. No eternal torment, no eternal life, it just ends. Exactly what the atheist expects anyway!
Souls don't exist, bro. We're discussing the mythology of a religion here, which is only important to us (the atheists) in how it impacts the behavior of the believers.
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Christians believe a lot of stuff that isn't in the bible. Why are you getting so hung up on eternal damnation?
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The Bible describes everyone as being resurrected for judgment, so I suppose souls is a bit of a misnomer - but yeah, you're judged, if you don't deserve immortal life you go into the lake of fire and are extinguished. No eternal torment, no eternal life, it just ends. Exactly what the atheist expects anyway!
This is just wrong. The "Second death" is explained just a chapter or two before this passage. Here, for your entertainment:
Rev 19:20
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Rev 20:1
1And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
10And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Mind the last passages of that. It's patently clear what it means to have "the second death". As I said, in christian mythology, there are only two metaphysical end places: heaven or hell.
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Christians believe a lot of stuff that isn't in the bible. Why are you getting so hung up on eternal damnation?
Because I'm not discussing christians, I was discussing the bible.
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There's nothing in the passages you've quoted to suggest eternal torment. This seems to be your own idiosyncratic belief.
The devil, the beast, and the false prophet will be tormented forever and ever. The rest of them just die (again): second death.
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helpful flowchart
A. I don't like Christians
B. I will look for some reasons to not like Christians
C. Christians are terrible for these reasons I have discovered and their beliefs are morally wrong
D. Pretend this flowchart goes in reverse
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"Lake of fire" in the Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation, written some time in the last half of the first century, has five verses that mention a "lake of fire":
Revelation 19:20: And the beast[5] was taken, and with him the false prophet[6] that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Revelation 20:14-15 Then Death and Hades[7] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. [NKJV]
Revelation 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.[8]
A commonly accepted and traditional interpretation is that the "lake of fire" and the "second death" are symbolic of eternal pain, pain of loss and perhaps pain of the senses, as punishment for wickedness.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]
Jehovah's Witnesses interpret the "lake of fire" and "second death" of the Book of Revelation as referring to a complete and definitive annihilation of those cast into it.[16]
Christian Universalists interpret the "lake of fire" as an instrument of purification/refinement that will bring all people into a relationship with God. The word for "torment" in Revelation 14:10 is the Greek "basanizo" which has a primary meaning of testing with a touchstone. The lake of fire is not only for torment but for "testing": the analogy is in testing metal with a touchstone to make sure it is pure.
There is no eternal damnation in the bible. That is something that people came up with later. gb2 sunday school.
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Out of sheer morbid curiosity I pulled up Revelations courtesy of the New International Version, and while I'm seeing a lot of references to second death and being cast into a fiery lake, I'm not seeing anything describing people who don't follow Christ going to Hell. In point of fact, Revelations 21:14 seems to indicate that "hell" ends up being cast into said fiery lake too.
Herein lies the point I was making from page 5: generalizations that all of Christianity says that "Don't follow Jesus -> Go to Hell" really aren't supported by the Biblical text. Or at least, none of the text quoted thus far. It's ironic how even atheists and agnostics carry all sorts of baggage concerning the term "Hell."
EDIT: Damnit, Ninja'd by Mustang.
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You show that you are not here to actually exchange knowledge, merely to stupidify the discussion, so whatever.
(http://getdemotivated.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=10770&g2_serialNumber=1)
Now that I've got that out of my system, some actual facts:
- Christian mythology is not monolithic. Just about every point of doctrine you can think of is contested by somebody, and most of them will cite scripture to back up their point of view.
- Biblical language is often highly metaphorical, making it inherently subject to interpretation (and leading to the situation mentioned above).
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There's nothing in the passages you've quoted to suggest eternal torment. This seems to be your own idiosyncratic belief.
The devil, the beast, and the false prophet will be tormented forever and ever. The rest of them just die (again): second death.
I happen to think it is a fair inference, given that you are cast into the same lake that the devil was cast upon to be tormented forever.
But I get your point.
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Wasn't there this rich man who didn't care to feed or help the poor man named "Lazarus" who ate from the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and that rich man was cast into hell for being bad?
And that rich man was pleading the poor man to get him out of hell, but the poor man said he couldn't, because there was this "abyss" that separated them, which couldn't be crossed, so the rich man had to suffer forever?
This is from the Old Testament, and unless Jesus changed it, I think we should expect going to hell means suffering forever.
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...fairly sure Lazarus was the bloke the New Testament says Jesus raised from the dead.
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Anything from the Old Testament as an argument for hell is pretty suspect; that's all in Jewish traditions as well, and they never had the concept of eternal torment. More like a waiting room, if that.
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Somewhere in Purgatory, Beeman sighs loudly (at this thread).
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Somewhere in Purgatory, Beeman sighs loudly (at this thread).
Even Purgatory is pretty extra-Biblical.
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The Bible describes everyone as being resurrected for judgment, so I suppose souls is a bit of a misnomer - but yeah, you're judged, if you don't deserve immortal life you go into the lake of fire and are extinguished. No eternal torment, no eternal life, it just ends. Exactly what the atheist expects anyway!
Just noticed this dissonance by now. Look, even if I take your words for granted (which I don't), this means that god has created a universe where if you aren't gullible enough to believe a bronze age myth and/or a bronze age excentric preacher, you are effectively anihilated forever. And if you are, then you get eternal life.
How is this moral? This is anything but moral! Yeah, I expect anihilation, but that doesn't mean I happen to like it.
So no, even if hell wasn't the place where the mythology condemned you, this discrimination that results in an eternal consequence is always immoral and unbalanced. So someone covets their neighbour's wife. Doesn't repent it. BANG, dead forever. So someone doesn't believe in these shenanigans, it happens to be true despite being ridiculous, BANG, dead forever.
Sorry, even if this mild version of "condemnation" was the mainstream version of christian death (which it isn't), it would still be immoral.
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It's kinda entertaining to see how Luis Dias pours all his hatred on the Bible's "immorality" by summarizing it in that kind of language. :lol:
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If I don't use the language of the bible, I'll be trolled by semantical issues (no the bible doesn't say you can't look at babes, it says you shouldn't covet the neighbour's wife, you're such a fool, etc.)
And look, I don't "hate" the bible. Battuta even goes so far to say that I hate christians. What a load of bollocks. Of course he'll say this nonsense, it's his favorite tactic.
Why is it that if I say that X is "immoral", if "X" is somehow unrelated to religion, it's all fine and dandy, so he thinks it is immoral, great. But if it is related to religion, then I'm "hating" X.
No. Not at all. The bible is an incredible product of its time, and it shows. Do I hate Jefferson for having slaves? No, of course not. What I won't have, and this is an analogy okay?, is someone say that Jefferson was above everything else and should be followed absolutely for moral guidance on all affairs. No, that's nonsense. Likewise, if someone says that the bible offers them moral guidance, I'll say look out, be very careful because that book is also filled with immoral stuff. Bad stuff. It harms you. It's harmful.
If however you are aware of these caveats, go ahead. It's a good read after all.
EDIT2: What I especially won't have it said is that this book is somehow above all the rest of books, that it is "Sacred". No it isn't.
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It's just great watching you post entire essays on how things in the Bible are immoral, put things like "you're dead FOREVAH if you do this, see? That's BAD! That passage is just BADDE!!!" in an awfully hilarious kind of voice (simplifying it TVTropes-like style), and then post another several paragraphs trying to refute a member's one-phrase reaction to your previous posts.
It literally made me go "lawlz" all the way :lol:.
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I'm happy you feel entertained!
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Actually, Marcov, I thought his last post was very clear and I agree with most of the sentiments he expressed there. Your criticism certainly doesn't add anything useful to the discussion.
While I'm here, I'll say that I don't agree that you can look at a single line of text and come to a conclusion about its morality. Its the context within the rest of the book that matters, as does how people actually respond to it which if I recall correctly was Battuta's point all along.
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Actually, Marcov, I thought his last post was very clear and I agree with most of the sentiments he expressed there. Your criticism certainly doesn't add anything useful to the discussion.
Criticism? You might be mistaking me being entertained at Luis Dias' repeated irritation against the Bible's "immoral" passages as part of an agenda of mine in arguing against Luis. No.
As I clearly stated, I'm not into a debate, because I kind of have no side here.
I'm happy you feel entertained!
Yeah, and other members are probably (hopefully) entertained too as well!
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Again, I'm not really irritated at the bible quotes. More to the discussion that ensued......
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Wasn't there this rich man who didn't care to feed or help the poor man named "Lazarus" who ate from the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and that rich man was cast into hell for being bad?
And that rich man was pleading the poor man to get him out of hell, but the poor man said he couldn't, because there was this "abyss" that separated them, which couldn't be crossed, so the rich man had to suffer forever?
This is from the Old Testament, and unless Jesus changed it, I think we should expect going to hell means suffering forever.
Actually, that's a New Testament passage.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%2016:19-16:31&version=KJV
It's a different Lazarus than the one raised from the dead. It's not entirely clear (IMO, at least) whether this passage is Jesus recounting an actual event or simply a parable.
In some theologies, including my own, the purpose of Jesus' "visit to hell" between his death and resurrection was to remove the dividing gulf mentioned in the passage. I doubt this is the right thread to dive deep into that idea, though.
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I'd like to hear about it, Sushi.
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...fairly sure Lazarus was the bloke the New Testament says Jesus raised from the dead.
According to a book called The Hiram Key, when they talk about Lazarus being restored from the dead, he wasn't actually dead. Jesus Christ and his company considered everyone who did not follow their faith as dead. Its a metaphor.
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How could a guy described as died, having a funeral, being risen from the dead by taking out the mummy suit which covered him be "dead" as in unbelieving? :wtf:
Also, if that's the case, then Jesus should've described most of the world as "dead".