[Mostly Harmless]

Amen.
My pop's a priest, in fact.

[pbradley]

Interesting.

[Cantankerous]

i think in a way, religion is also something of a crutch. you don't have to follow a religion to be a good person, but people have been guilted into thinking otherwise if they don't, which is a sad state to be in. i have no problem whatsoever with commandments 5-10, in fact they seem to be just common sense. don't steal, don't kill people, don't fuck your best friend's wife, respect your parents. but 1-4 are ridiculous.

[acousticrock87]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Really? Again, I come from a Catholic perspective. Down and out? The Vatican? Are you saying that protestant afflictions have more sway on the definition of Christianity?

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're asking, but I think you have a point. I just don't understand how such a strong anti-homosexuality bias can come from anything but the influence of prejudice. Even in the Catholic church. Not even Paul preached against it.

[pbradley]

I think religious faith (at the center philosophy of them all) likes to see themselves as a continuous lesson of mortal humility. Having learned the lesson, I see no more purpose of it.

[Cantankerous]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i think in a way, religion is also something of a crutch. you don't have to follow a religion to be a good person, but people have been guilted into thinking otherwise if they don't, which is a sad state to be in. i have no problem whatsoever with commandments 5-10, in fact they seem to be just common sense. don't steal, don't kill people, don't fuck your best friend's wife, respect your parents. but 1-4 are ridiculous.

furthermore, there are BAD people who claim to be christian or belong to any other religion. millions of them.

[acousticrock87]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i think in a way, religion is also something of a crutch. you don't have to follow a religion to be a good person, but people have been guilted into thinking otherwise if they don't, which is a sad state to be in. i have no problem whatsoever with commandments 5-10, in fact they seem to be just common sense. don't steal, don't kill people, don't fuck your best friend's wife, respect your parents. but 1-4 are ridiculous.

Religion is more a combination of theology and philosophy. It can become a dangerous crutch to certain people, but its purpose is simply to examine the nature of morality and God and origin and all that.

Religion in itself isn't a crutch, but the place that a lot of people take it is. The purpose of the 1-4 commandments is for a culture who decided that God exists and should be revered, but the fact that people will now take that and hold it over people's heads and "send them to hell" is what makes it a crutch.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by acousticrock87

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're asking, but I think you have a point. I just don't understand how such a strong anti-homosexuality bias can come from anything but the influence of prejudice. Even in the Catholic church. Not even Paul preached against it.

The anti-homosexual bias comes from Aristotelian philosophy, of course. That is pre-Catholic thought. Take a gander at Jewish law on homosexuality.

[Mostly Harmless]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i think in a way, religion is also something of a crutch. you don't have to follow a religion to be a good person, but people have been guilted into thinking otherwise if they don't, which is a sad state to be in. i have no problem whatsoever with commandments 5-10, in fact they seem to be just common sense. don't steal, don't kill people, don't fuck your best friend's wife, respect your parents. but 1-4 are ridiculous.

If by ridiculous you mean Commandments you wouldn't follow because you're neither a Jew, a Christian, nor a Moslem, just a human being with no particular religious affliation then yes, they are pointless to follow. But not to the Jews who had recently gone through all that shit with their God.

[Mostly Harmless]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

furthermore, there are BAD people who claim to be christian or belong to any other religion. millions of them.

I am a bad person, and I am a Christian. The two are inseparable. A person cannot claim to be a good person and a Christian.
The roots of Christianity, even before the belief in Jesus Christ, is that humanity is diseased into being immoral, and that our lives are great struggle to become a good person. But while we're all human, we still suffer our hunger for immorality.
A struggling Christian is by nature a bad person.

[Cantankerous]

Originally Posted by Mostly Harmless

If by ridiculous you mean Commandments you wouldn't follow because you're neither a Jew, a Christian, nor a Moslem, just a human being with no particular religious affliation then yes, they are pointless to follow. But not to the Jews who had recently gone through all that shit with their God.

it's ridiculous to think that they're applicable to everyone. not everyone believes in only one god, and not everyone even believes in god. but christians act like whatever they say is the end all be all of everything. certainly it's very flawed. i don't understand how someone could be happy, trapped within the confines of words in a book and doing what other people say.

[MellySingsDoom]

Originally Posted by Mostly Harmless

The roots of Christianity, even before the belief in Jesus Christ, is that humanity is diseased into being immoral, and that our lives are great struggle to become a good person. But while we're all human, we still suffer our hunger for immorality.

Hence the whole guilt trip thing with Christianity: You will go to "hell" unless you do what we say.
Once again, religion blows. "Immorality?" Pfft. Both Christianity and Islam can kiss my shiny metal butt.

[nicfit]

that would be "bite my shiny metal ass".

*runs out of the religion-talk-filled thread*

[acousticrock87]

Come back here! You haven't told us what you think about th- Oh, he's fast...

[MellySingsDoom]

*runs after nicfit*
*falls in a heap on wall, decides to have a smoke instead*

Yep, shiny metal ass it should be.

[Mostly Harmless]

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

it's ridiculous to think that they're applicable to everyone. not everyone believes in only one god, and not everyone even believes in god. but christians act like whatever they say is the end all be all of everything. certainly it's very flawed. i don't understand how someone could be happy, trapped within the confines of words in a book and doing what other people say.

If it helps: I promise you, Cantankerous, that I don't believe I understand the End All Be All.
I'm really not trying to say those more precise commandments are applicable to everyone, and I understand that not everyone believes in one God. But what's ridiculous to you wasn't ridiculous to those Jews who were, supposedly, conferring almost directly with their God at the time.
The non-religious/not nessacerily religious sometimes treat the Bible like one big list of what will send you to hell. But hell's part in the Bible is blown out of proportion to the whole message by many denominations (mostly Catholics), historically to scare ignorant peasants into submission by guilt-tripping them (Not as if you don't already know that).
But when I, centuries later being proudly literate and educated, read the Bible, I don't find the rulebook of some pissy God that wants nothing more than to limit the enjoyment and freedom I have on Earth and find every little loophole to fuck me over after I pass from it-
I find a God who sees and understands on my level that ofcourse the world around me is full of hate and misunderstanding and I find a God who would help me become a better person in myself, and in so doing would allow me to possibly help this fucked-up world.

Originally Posted by Mostly Harmless

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love on another, even as I have loved you...." John 13:34
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." Matt 5:44
"Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."
John 8:7
The entire Beatitudes, already listed by Rob Instigator.

"Doing what other people say" in this case means being nice to people even when they're being assholes to you, and showing love towards all human beings, no matter how hard that is. That's not guilt-tripping, that's a very noble quest.

If you're not familiar with that John 8:7 verse, it's referring to when some Pharisees brought out a woman accused of adultery and asked Jesus if they should stone her, which the old Law set down by Moses required.
And Jesus shows perfect, downright gutsy mercy and compassion on behalf of humanity, on behalf of man who is imperfect and prone to mistakes.
And that is my God. No matter what becomes of me, I have that badass on my side.
It's illogical to me to think that when people actually read the New Testament, they still act as if the Bible is God's big book of judgement condemning the little bothersome ants he calls Humanity. I don't think this would happen if people really jumped into reading the Gospels without any preconceived notion of what Christianity means.
In short:
I am not trapped in the confines of words-
I am freed with the life-giving revelation, the knowledge that imperfect as I am, no matter how much I happen to fuck up my life there is a God who understands, accepts, and loves me more than I could possibly conceive. And is willing, to his own death, to help me become the best human being I can be.

I hope that kind of explains where I'm a coming from.
I'm sorry if it got a bit grandiose with the wording there, but I get passionate about these things, especially when I haven't really slept.

[Mostly Harmless]

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

Hence the whole guilt trip thing with Christianity: You will go to "hell" unless you do what we say.
Once again, religion blows. "Immorality?" Pfft. Both Christianity and Islam can kiss my shiny metal butt.

All Christianity's saying is that it's probably harder for a person to understand life and love (synonymous with "to become a good person") if he's say, a sex addict, boozehound, liar, murderer, etc. That's not an extreme or irrational statement- it's a pretty sound observation. That being said, it does say, many, many times in the Bible (again, what Catholics are widely accused to ignore) that people aren't saved by their actions (which is understood to be impossible), but by their faith in an all-loving God.* Which means, effectively, that God doesn't reject the boozehound-slut-killer who happens to be a chronic liar. Only human logic would condemn that man to hell, and God doesn't give a damn about that.
Once again, no matter what some Christians in ignorance may say, the bottom line is that the Bible isn't trying curtail their actions by threatening the imperfect with hellfire.
I hope this better explains where I'm coming from.

*"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." Romans 3:28
"... nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified." Galations 2:16
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

[MellySingsDoom]

^^^Ultimately, if there is a "God", it lies within every one of us - it's our own spirit, our soul. A presence that can be used for compassion or destruction, and presence that requires us to be responsible/caring/nuturing to our own "God".

Mostly Harmless - you own personal "theology" is admirable; however, I would argue that what you feel runs counter to what you decide to believe - these are two different things for me. Christianity, from the 6th Century (with the imposition of the Holy Roman and Orthodox empires), has been deliberately and consistenly dogmatic (there's plenty of evidence now to suggest that much of the original collection of Bible "stories" were tampered with even at it's inception...), and the reading of the Bible has been (whether Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, Evangelical etc) by and large very controlled and restricted. This is one of my issues with Christianity in general - it's a political theology (compare with Buddhism, for example), always has been, and whatever good insights that can be gleaned from it are far outweighed by the overall message: BELIEVE. (An imperative command, no "may" or "could" here. I honestly can't see how an fundamentally individual interpretation of the Bible is possible without also facing the risk of being excommunicated from the Christianity branch that you may belong to...

[Mostly Harmless]

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

^^^Ultimately, if there is a "God", it lies within every one of us - it's our own spirit, our soul. A presence that can be used for compassion or destruction, and presence that requires us to be responsible/caring/nuturing to our own "God".

Mostly Harmless - you own personal "theology" is admirable; however, I would argue that what you feel runs counter to what you decide to believe - these are two different things for me. Christianity, from the 6th Century (with the imposition of the Holy Roman and Orthodox empires), has been deliberately and consistenly dogmatic (there's plenty of evidence now to suggest that much of the original collection of Bible "stories" were tampered with even at it's inception...), and the reading of the Bible has been (whether Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, Evangelical etc) by and large very controlled and restricted. This is one of my issues with Christianity in general - it's a political theology (compare with Buddhism, for example), always has been, and whatever good insights that can be gleaned from it are far outweighed by the overall message: BELIEVE. (An imperative command, no "may" or "could" here. I honestly can't see how an fundamentally individual interpretation of the Bible is possible without also facing the risk of being excommunicated from the Christianity branch that you may belong to...

1. It's true that where there are people in mass, there are politics. And I don't think you can avoid it when an organisation becomes as big as Christianity, but the Orthodox haven't gone through the many, many schisms and the weird "antipope" struggles for power and indoctrinating things that might be "useful" We're a much less political denomination than similar faiths.

2. Melly, I'll concede completely that the Catholic faith has time and again restricted use of the Bible to the common public in very weird, perverse ways. And indeed, it is a very weird, very polictically charged denomination of Christianity, in which the pope has all but directly pronounced himself God. Petty internal politics aside, I don't consider Orthodoxy to be polictical religion. I might've considered a case for it back Byzantium's time or most recently in Tsar Nicholas's reign, but in modern day our Patriarchs don't hold major political sway on the rest of the world, nor do they seek it, keeping in line with "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's" in the end, they're still monks, and humility is priority #1.
In the best of my knowledge, they aren't involved in external polictics at all. The Catholics for many years were plagued with that bullshit (Protestant Schisms, the French Antipope crisis, CounterReformation, or mudslinging among heirarchs such outrageous slanders like "antichrist", etc.)

3. I can individually interpret the Bible without fear of being caught in some belief contrary to my interpretation because my branch makes it a point not to indoctrinate things that do not hold the entire faith together.* In other words: if it's not a pillar we can't live without, we leave it up to the individual's speculation, which makes reading the opinions of various elders really rewarding. There's no right or wrong answer to whether dogs go to Heaven in my faith, some believe it and others don't. But whether dogs go to heaven or not sure as hell doesn't make or break our fundamental beliefs, so we don't indoctrinate them (make them a "right or wrong" issue)
This again is the completely opposite mentality of the Catholics, who must reach a logical conclusion on great mysteries whenever a question pops up. I won't lie: I don't read Catholic theology, partly because I don't consider it legitimate, and partly because I've heard the gist of many Catholic beliefs without the pain of looking up actual documents. But from reading ex-Catholics it's a lot like reading a handbook of various, inflexible laws. Which makes for lame reading.

4. Man, I totally respect Bhuddism. You can truly gain a lot from it as a Christian.

I realize this post might read like a bunch of Catholic mudslinging, and I don't mean it to be- it just provides a good juxtaposition to better explain Orthodoxy.

*Which still means that somethings in the Bible are indoctrinated. But honestly, whenever I read what a past authority wrote was crucial on the subject, it leaves me pretty convinced. St. John Chyrostom's reasoning always kicks the shit out of anything I thought. That isn't to say I haven't had serious problems before that I didn't agree with that I'd read, but I just take it up with a priest and he helps me iron it out.

Melly, you made a solid argument that I can't completely disprove, and I admire you for it. And thanks for reading all this bullshit.
I slept about four hours the night before, and I pulled an allnighter today,
so I think I'm going to sleep for at least a little while.

[MellySingsDoom]

^^^Thanks for replying, and v interesting answers. Have repped you for it