Burger King Jesus (bible, Biblical)

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

Yeah... God's ideas win out over man's any day of the week. This is why I became a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

I understand where you're coming from, but 2 millenia of Christians holding up the Bible as justification for war says to me that your interpretation is not the only one.

I agree with the implication of the passage from Acts you cited; however, your interpretation contradicts other passages, such as this one from Romans:

Rom 13:1-2:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

While I can't reconcile participation in war with certain parts of the Bible, I also can't reconcile refusing to fight in a war with passages like this one.

I think this leads back to the OP; to a certain extent, I don't think it's physically possible to accept and follow every teaching of the Bible: it's impossible to do your good deeds in secret while being the light of the world; you can't refrain from passing judgement on disputable matters while rejecting "sexual immorality"; you can't reconcile deference to God-appointed authority with rejection of that authority when you disagree with it.

While some say otherwise, the Bible does contain contradictions. These contradictions have to be resolved somehow... I think that often, people will accept the side that they already agree with. However, this doesn't mean that followers of the Bible who decide differently than someone else might are necessarily "Burger King" Christians - they're all just people with varied experiences and judgements, trying to sort out a book that's often vague and conflicting as best they can.

[Scuba Pete]

It's pretty obvious to me. You submit to the authorities until they tell you to do something that runs contrary to your understanding of God's will. IOW, I still pay taxes and try to obey the speed limit, but if they tell me to go kill someone, I say "NO WAY!" I established being a CO during the Vietnam war as I could never hurt another human being in that manner.

As for my "interpretation" of what the Bible says about war, the Quakers as well as a few other denominations will agree with at least that aspect of it.

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

I understand where you're coming from, but 2 millenia of Christians holding up the Bible as justification for war says to me that your interpretation is not the only one.

[SaveMeJebus]

Originally Posted by Dunemeister

There are lots of common threads among the four canonical gospels, but there are wide differences of emphasis. So even among biblically faithful folks, there are some disagreements. As a result, you have guys like me who believe Jesus is fully God and fully man at the same time. Uss_bigd disagrees, although he claims to also be following the biblical Jesus. At issue isn't really the bible but the place of tradition in the interpretation of the bible. Uss_bigd and others who deny the divinity of Jesus tend to view Church tradition with a very skeptical eye. Others who accept the divinity of Jesus either know about and accept Church tradition or they are ignorant of it yet accept it anyway because that's how they've been taught to read the bible.

That said, I think there's such a thing as better and worse interpretations of scripture. My point is only that how one understands Jesus tends to be a function of the tradition to which they fall heir.

if you have different bibles who will go to heaven there is after all as you say one god and you have four different bibles, in the christian faith alone, and still choose to believe the bible, i have to thank this website, everytime i open my eyes to the concept of a God the christians give me a reason not to, thanks dunemeister foe renewing my faith in atheism!!

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

As for my "interpretation" of what the Bible says about war, the Quakers as well as a few other denominations will agree with at least that aspect of it.

And I agree with it as well, however, I also recognize there are other interpretations, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of Christian denominations and individual believers through virtually all of the religion's history have considered war to be justified under certain circumstances.

Edit: I think the Gospels are fairly clearly anti-war. I think the rest of the New Testament has some aspects that favour a pro-war interpretation, and other aspects that speak against war. And I think it's fairly obvious that the Old Testament resoundingly endorses war for a righteous cause. I don't think it's possible to combine all these parts into a single position on war without choosing which contradictory parts to accept... "having it your way", as the OP put it.