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Atheism to defeat religion by 2038?
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I'm not singling you out P, but since you're here
What I've always found interesting about Christians, particularly the born again folks is that they rarely quote Jesus in these things, 9 times outa 10 we get Paul. They're more Paulians than Christians.
Then again that's what the religion became. Paul tweaked a local and exotic Jewish religion for mass consumption in the Greco-Roman world. The Romans loved their exotic gods. Everywhere they conquered or traded with they brought back a god or goddess, for the craic like. He was well placed to do so, having a foot in both camps. You can see evidence of this tweaking all over the place. Christians aren't directed by dogma to go around snipping bits off babies willies, nor have they any food restrictions. Both notions that were considered barbarous by the Romans and especially the Greeks. Even today, try separating a leg of pork from an Italian and you've a fight on your hands. Damn right too. Paul removed enough of the "ahh that's a bit too exotic for our tastes" stuff from the original. The Roman church later codified such changes and added their own to make it fit better. The elevation of Mary a good example. The original texts make little mention of her. Clearly Jesus loves her as his mum, but he ignores her entreaties too. The Church organisation itself followed the Roman military and organisational model. Jesus himself doesn't seem to enamoured with your average clergy of his time. I suspect if he was dropped into the 10th century church world he'd be outside the vatican kicking in the doors. Of course the biggest irony of all is the state apparatus that killed him was the one who later bannerised him. Of course they added in a nice little piece about blaming the Jews. Ties up loose ends. *
As well as quoting Paul the more conservative snake handling nutbags tend to quote the fire and brimstone of the old testament and for your real polyester suited bible thumpers you have Revelations. Always gets them sweaty in the pews with talk of beasts and many titted whores. And fair enough. Feck all of the actual Jesus in it mind you.
It was ever thus. The Catholic church the same. Pop along to a mass and look at the liturgy. If the mass was a movie, Jesus would only make a short cameo appearance. The readings are from Paul, the rite itself has but a vague connection to the first century Jewish preacher and when he does enter the stage in the Gospel reading it's a remarkably small rotation of the same passages.
Never mind too many Christians not doing "what Jesus would do", the faith itself has little enough of him in it.
*actually the trial of Jesus is an interesting one. The Romans never released prisoners on local feast days. Pilate existed, but wouldn't have been arsed with dealing with that kind of local matter. The Romans were generally too sensible to get bogged down with that kinda thing. The choice between Jesus and Barabbas is also an interesting one. Barabbas means son of the father. His full name is given as Jesus Bar Abbas. Hmmmm indeed.
Good post. As an agnostic I often feel equally antagonized by the militant atheists that love quoting old testament scripture at you for blood sport.
Believing that they have smugly backed you into an ideological corner by citing some arcane verse ,they can get quite irritated when you point out that Christ’s teaching dismissed much of the old testament nonsense they're quoting, thus’ an eye for an eye’ became ‘turn the other cheek’.
As you say, a Christian should really pay little heed to laws designed for (and probably perfectly applicable at the time) a society 3,000 years ago and focus more an the broad message of Christ.
That is one of the strengths of Christianity, it's adaptability. Unlike Judaism and Islam which are old testament religions, the bible has a second act, and it's reformist in nature.
The Talmud is effectively old testament rabbinical law, and the Quran is literally the word of God as transcribed by Muhammad (his alleged illiteracy is often cited as a proof that he couldn’t have written it himself), and thus immutable, but there's some flexibility to the bible, even if various institutions would try their best to atrophy it.
As to whether or not Pilate would have dirtied has hands to the point of having to wash them, I saw in interesting documentary on the life of Christ that explored the political situation at the time. There was a lot of ‘peoples front of Judea’ activity at the time and nationalist agitation. Many among Christ’s followers considered him the reincarnation of Joshua son of Moses, and expected that the kingdom he promised would be on earth, retrieved from the Romans. The Romans don’t mind hokey spiritualists, but they tended to come down hard on any figure around whom an independence movement might coalesce and threaten Roman rule, and for this reason, he had to go, despite explicity stating that ‘whatever was Caesar’s should be rendered onto Caesar’. Ie. I’m not agitating against Roman rule.0 -
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Bannasidhe wrote: »Are you sure he never existed - Aladdin does feature in an ancient text which is itself a compilation of many older texts...that seems to be all the 'proof' needed for belief in his existence.....just saying.
Exactly
Read this and tell me - what is the difference between a book such as Arabian Nights and the bible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_One_Thousand_and_One_Nights
There is as much proof in that book that Aladdin exists, as there is in the bible that God exists.0 -
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dark crystal wrote: »Exactly
Read this and tell me - what is the difference between a book such as Arabian Nights and the bible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_One_Thousand_and_One_Nights
There is as much proof in that book that Aladdin exists, as there is in the bible that God exists.
Yeah but in the bible they mention real places and people which proves the resurrection. In the Arabian nights they don't mention real places like Baghdad do they......oh wait?!?!?0 -
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Bannasidhe wrote: »This book explains it quite well
I like Terry Pratchett, I have most of his books, including one of the very early editions of the colour of magic, but a fantasy novel is not evidence for atheism.0 -
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