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Christian Warfare

ppp

Well-Known Member
While the temple may have made the rules, the authors of the gospels showed that they were violating the spirit of the worship, taking that which is sacred and turning it into a money-making affair. Exploiting the sacred for profit, in other words. That is clearly the author's intent here. Do you disagree with that?
Is there anything in the historical record that is extra biblical that corroborates the author's opinion?
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Is there anything in the historical record that is extra biblical that corroborates the author's opinion?
Does it matter? Even if it is a wholly fabricated account, it's the message of the story itself that seems the actual point. Think of it in terms of the story of the Good Samaritan. Does it matter if there actually was a real historical Samaritan individual that actually existed and actually did those things Jesus told in his story, in order for the story to communicate a truth?

Of course, the Good Samaritan character was made up. But the story tells a great truth, nonetheless, despite being fictional, doesn't it? This seems something that literalists just can't grasp. They somehow feel it has to have actually happened, in order to speak truth. They don't understand parable and metaphor, or symbolism.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Does it matter? Even if it is a wholly fabricated account, it's the message of the story itself that seems the actual point. Think of it in terms of the story of the Good Samaritan. Does it matter if there actually was a real historical Samaritan individual that actually existed and actually did those things Jesus told in his story, in order for the story to communicate a truth?
Well, yeah. If you are going to tell a story that provides fuel for centuries of caricatures and persecution of Jews by Christians, I would say it matters. More than a little.

Of course, the Good Samaritan character was made up. But the story tells a great truth, nonetheless, despite being fictional, doesn't it? This seems something that literalists just can't grasp. They somehow feel it has to have actually happened, in order to speak truth. They don't understand parable and metaphor, or symbolism.
It seems like demagoguery to me.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Well, yeah. If you are going to tell a story that provides fuel for centuries of caricatures and persecution of Jews by Christians, I would say it matters. More than a little.
The story of the money changers tables is an anti-Semitic slur? I've never heard that before. There are other parts of some of the gospels that can be understood that way, but bashing the religious elite for corrupting religion? Isn't that something you yourself take some pleasure in? Does that make you anti-Semitic?

Reality check, the way the Pharisees are portrayed as "whitewashed sepulchres", honestly fits the modern evangelical hypocrite, almost to a T. So the principle is the same, regardless of one's ethnicity. It's about polluting religion for power. That's what the story is really about. It applies to anyone in any religion for that matter, regardless of their ethnicity. It's universal in nature.

It seems like demagoguery to me.
The story of the Good Samaritan is an example of demagoguery? You'll have to explain that one to me.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
The story of the money changers tables is an anti-Semitic slur? I've never heard that before. There are other parts of some of the gospels that can be understood that way, but bashing the religious elite for corrupting religion? Isn't that something you yourself take some pleasure in? Does that make you anti-Semitic?
But I don't bash the religious elite for corrupting religion. What strange ideas you create.

Reality check, the way the Pharisees are portrayed as "whitewashed sepulchres"
The way the Pharisees are portrayed is inaccurate. In the real world they were much more in line with Jesus' thinking. The Sadducees we're more like the portrayal of the Pharisees..
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
But I don't bash the religious elite for corrupting religion. What strange ideas you create.
Why shouldn't you? You think religious hypocrisy is no big deal? You've never once criticized some religious leader for hypocrisy? That's one the main reasons why I left religion and became an atheist. I know it is for many atheists, and I hear them attack hypocrisy as well. Perhaps you are more forgiving and compassionate the rest of us? ;)

The way the Pharisees are portrayed is inaccurate. In the real world they were much more in line with Jesus' thinking. The Sadducees we're more like the portrayal of the Pharisees..
Be that as it may historically (we're not debating the Bible is historically accurate here), the point remains the same. The "characters" real or fictitious, are being portrayed showing religious hypocrisy. And religious hypocrisy itself is very real, very human, and the same today as it was then. In other words, through the "fiction" truth is taught.

The message of the story is still "true" then, isn't it? Or does it need to have historical accuracy in all its details to communicate truth? Does the Bible have to be flawless and inerrant, to speak human truths? If you think that, can you explain why?
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Why shouldn't you?
I don't bash the religious elite for corrupting religion because religions are inherently corrupt. At least, the top down religions are. Or maybe I should say that top-down religions are inherently corrupting.

Be that as it may historically (we're not debating the Bible is historically accurate here), the point remains the same. The "characters" real or fictitious, are being portrayed showing religious hypocrisy. And religious hypocrisy itself is very real, very human, and the same today as it was then. In other words, through the "fiction" truth is taught.
You might not be, but I see the history and the mythology as inextricably entwined. Just as what is actually going on in the united states, and how things are spun by Fox News. Political propaganda.

The message of the story is still "true" then, isn't it? Or does it need to have historical accuracy in all its details to communicate truth? Does the Bible have to be flawless and inerrant, to speak human truths? If you think that, can you explain why?
It does not have to be flawless and inerrant to speak human truths. But I don't filter out the portions I don't agree with and only spotlight the parts that appeal.

If the scene is someone feeding a hungry child, and the greater scene is that they are feeding their child with the arm of their slave, I am not going to focus only on touching childcare. :tearsofjoy:
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I don't bash the religious elite for corrupting religion because religions are inherently corrupt. At least, the top down religions are. Or maybe I should say that top-down religions are inherently corrupting.
I think the difference for others, like Jesus for instance, is he was not willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You just, admittedly here, are bashing all of it as inherently corrupt, as opposed to just calling out the corrupters. That's a more cynical approach, going nuclear on it as opposed to surgical strikes.

As a point of perspective, any organization is inherently corruptible, because in any group dynamics situation you have those who wish to seek power over others and control them. While any group may start out with good intentions, just due to the fact of human nature in group dynamics, you'll see power struggles occur, unless that group can establish and protect the group through a system of rules and checks and balances, such as a democracy. But even those, are susceptible to corruption and exploitation, as we can clearly see in the current lethal threat to American democracy posed by the current extremist faction of the GOP.

So saying religion is inherently corrupting, really is no more true than saying government is, or any group which has positions of power to be exploited by the unscrupulous. I personally like it that Jesus called out the corrupters, because there is in fact a baby in that bathwater. Not all who participate in that system are corrupt. Only the few who clamor their ways to positions of power over others.

You might not be, but I see the history and the mythology as inextricably entwined. Just as what is actually going on in the united states, and how things are spun by Fox News. Political propaganda.
I don't see any comparison to be made between telling lies by Faux "news", and the creation of religious mythologies. This is an apples to orangutans comparison. They are distorting "facts". They are not creating elevated, transcendent themes of spirituality. They are just plain out lying for the sake of corrupting seats of power.

I do not believe that at all describes the creations of the gospels, nor the early Christian movement and communities. Those much later became corrupted, of course, but the source materials were nothing whatsoever comparable to ****er Carlson and Faux "news".

It does not have to be flawless and inerrant to speak human truths. But I don't filter out the portions I don't agree with and only spotlight the parts that appeal.
Nor do I. The Bible has quite a lot of cultural artifacts which are far less than spiritually inspiring. It's not "cherry picking" to recognize those and set them as aside as such. It's just discernment.

Cherry pickers deny they exist, or try to rationalize or explain them away. They would never admit they should be left in the dustbins of the past, such as "women keep silent in church" passages.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
@WindwalkerI notice that at no point did you ask why I think that religion is inherently corrupting. You just ran with your imagination. So, I will ignore that and tell you. Top down religions are inherently corrupting because
  • they start with an unevidenced assertion that things are a certain way, and supposed to be a certain way, and then attempt to force all thinking to to conform to that assertion. Usually with real social penalties, and imagined post-life penalties for disagreement. (i.e. doctrine and tenets)
  • they have no mechanism for wither revision of their core assumptions, nor of their doctrines outside of schism or revolution.
  • they inculcate the notion that their doctrines and tenets are synonymous with morality. That any outrages or travesties resulting from following those doctrines is the fault of a misguided adherent of the religion, or of the victims themselves. Never the doctrine.
  • the quality of the idea presented is tightly bound to their assessment of the quality of the person saying them.
  • detractors of the religion are literal or metaphorical demons.

That is the lion's share of the bathwater.

I don't see any comparison to be made between telling lies by Faux "news", and the creation of religious mythologies. .
The Bible is a curated collection of stories designed to support a narrative of rightful position, hierarchy, behavior, allegiance, and obligation. That is what it is, whether there is a god behind it or not. People tell stories to organize and reinforce their sense of who they are. For both good and for ill. That is what the Bible does. What FOX news does. What music does. What Star Trek does. What Leni Riefenstahl did.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Keep your religion on the DL, signed Jesus
Gospel writer Luke wrote at Acts of the Apostles 5:29 when man's laws conflict with God's laws then God's law is superior to man's law. Man is in a relative position to God's absolute position. Jesus did Not disagree with that.

Before Pres. Johnson was president he said who ever has the ultimate position has the ultimate power.
That was a reason for the Space Race. In other words, whoever controls outer space controls Earth.
From Heaven, God has the ultimate power and God has the ultimate position and the final say on matters.
People obeying God's Golden Rule is what will bring Peace on Earth. God will stop war forever - Psalms 46:9
 

Kelly of the Phoenix

Well-Known Member
While the temple may have made the rules, the authors of the gospels showed that they were violating the spirit of the worship, taking that which is sacred and turning it into a money-making affair. Exploiting the sacred for profit, in other words. That is clearly the author's intent here. Do you disagree with that?
All religious facilities tend to be money traps. Nature of the beast. I don’t agree with how they work, but I don’t believe in attacking people over it. Don’t go to the temple if it offends you. Petition the authorities. Jesus had this weird thing where he constantly does everything except the stuff that would fix the supposed problem.
 
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Kelly of the Phoenix

Well-Known Member
While the temple may have made the rules, the authors of the gospels showed that they were violating the spirit of the worship, taking that which is sacred and turning it into a money-making affair. Exploiting the sacred for profit, in other words. That is clearly the author's intent here. Do you disagree with that?


I've never heard this particular scene being anachronistic. Do you have a source you can cite that can show that it is? Even so, that's the not really an issue. As recording accurate history is not really the author's intent. Fundamentalists may think so, but I don't, nor do most modern scholars.


What makes me "feel better" is understanding the Bible outside of a fundamentalist/literalist mindset. :)
Spider-Man No Way Home is a much better story about redemption.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
All religious facilities tend to be money traps. Nature of the beast. I don’t agree with how they work, but I don’t believe in attacking people over it. Don’t go to the temple if it offends you. Petition the authorities. Jesus had this weird thing where he constantly does everything except the stuff that would fix the supposed problem.
You can have authentic places of worship which, while they may deal with taking in money for support, are not what can be described as a "den of thieves", as it portrayed in the story. It's not the nature of the beast, unless you have corruption going on. That's not uncommon of course, but it's considered corruption, not the norm.

Again, I think you are missing the point of reading the story. You appear to be reading it as a neutral historical account of factual happenings, and trying to give your take on the events recorded, as if watching a film real on the nightly news.

The story itself is not about history. It's teaching about polluting the sacred, and how that is wrong. That's the point of the story. It was crafted to show how they were out of line, and how Jesus was right to rebuke them. If you read as suggesting Jesus was out of line, that is not in the story as the author crafted it. It's not there.

It is not a documentary, some dispassionate account where you disagree with the how the author understood it. The events were crafted by the author, not to say Jesus was excessive, but to say Jesus was correcting error.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Spider-Man No Way Home is a much better story about redemption.
I wouldn't know. I haven't see it yet. But whether you give it a 4 star or a 5 star rating on IMDB, that doesn't change it that is is a story of redemption in both cases, right? Personal taste is a subjective thing, you know.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
@WindwalkerI notice that at no point did you ask why I think that religion is inherently corrupting. You just ran with your imagination. So, I will ignore that and tell you.
You shouldn't ignore what I said as it is true and it applies to any discussion about the corruption of religion. Group dynamics cannot be ignored.

Top down religions are inherently corrupting because
  • they start with an unevidenced assertion that things are a certain way, and supposed to be a certain way, and then attempt to force all thinking to to conform to that assertion. Usually with real social penalties, and imagined post-life penalties for disagreement. (i.e. doctrine and tenets)
  • they have no mechanism for wither revision of their core assumptions, nor of their doctrines outside of schism or revolution.
  • they inculcate the notion that their doctrines and tenets are synonymous with morality. That any outrages or travesties resulting from following those doctrines is the fault of a misguided adherent of the religion, or of the victims themselves. Never the doctrine.
  • the quality of the idea presented is tightly bound to their assessment of the quality of the person saying them.
  • detractors of the religion are literal or metaphorical demons.
Everything you have just described is a corruption of religion. It's all bad-faith religion. It's something Jesus would have pulled out the whip and flipped the tables over about. :)

What you are describing is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is inherently corrupt. I agree with that. But unlike you, I don't cynically treat all religion as defined by fundamentalists. I like the quote in my signature line. "Religion is like a swimming pool. All the noise comes from the shallow end". Everything you describe above is all coming from the shallow end.

That is the lion's share of the bathwater.
As a fair question, can you describe any baby in that bathwater? Or is is all bathwater? I tend to think you say it's all bathwater, since you have already cast it as inherently corrupt from the top down.

The Bible is a curated collection of stories designed to support a narrative of rightful position, hierarchy, behavior, allegiance, and obligation. That is what it is, whether there is a god behind it or not. People tell stories to organize and reinforce their sense of who they are. For both good and for ill. That is what the Bible does. What FOX news does. What music does. What Star Trek does. What Leni Riefenstahl did.
Again, this is only reinforcing what I said about a cynical position. I prefer a "fair and balanced" approach. I don't see cynicism as any better that what Fox news does. I prefer to look at both the bad and the good together and understand each. Can you cite some good to balance out your negative views, like I try to do myself?
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
You shouldn't ignore what I said as it is true and it applies to any discussion about the corruption of religion. Group dynamics cannot be ignored.
You were trying to assign opinions and attitudes to me that had nothing to do with my actual position. So, I absolutely should dismiss your misrepresentation of me.

Everything you have just described is a corruption of religion. It's all bad-faith religion. It's something Jesus would have pulled out the whip and flipped the tables over about. :)
Everything I described is the core nature of the Abrahamic religions. Jesus would be the poster child for that formulation of religion.

What you are describing is fundamentalism.
What I am describing is almost every form of Christianity.

As a fair question, can you describe any baby in that bathwater? Or is is all bathwater? I tend to think you say it's all bathwater, since you have already cast it as inherently corrupt from the top down.
Sure. Banning murder and theft are good things. Structuring a generally productive society. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is not ideal, but it is a step in the right direction. Helping the poor is a good idea, but it needs some better practical implementation. Respecting one another would probably have more practical value than loving one another, but again, not too bad.

Most corrupt people still love their kids.

Again, this is only reinforcing what I said about a cynical position. I prefer a "fair and balanced" approach. I don't see cynicism as any better that what Fox news does. I prefer to look at both the bad and the good together and understand each. Can you cite some good to balance out your negative views, like I try to do myself?

I completely reject that through line. I don't have to find the good to balance out the bad, or find the bad to balance out the good. That is such stuff. Things are what they are. Somethings are good, some things are bad, and most things are a mix of the two in unequal and unbalanced measure. If you see that as cynical, that is your problem. I don't mind seeing things as they are. The clearer I see the world, the better chance I have of understand what how to determine right action from wrong.

Religions are a product of humans. Religions represent our attempts to get better, our attempts to understand, and our attempts to exert dominion over one another. Religions are entirely human institutions. Their value can only be understood by recognizing that fact, by seeing them as they actually are, and treating their claims accordingly.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Does it matter? Even if it is a wholly fabricated account, it's the message of the story itself that seems the actual point. Think of it in terms of the story of the Good Samaritan. Does it matter if there actually was a real historical Samaritan individual that actually existed and actually did those things Jesus told in his story, in order for the story to communicate a truth?
Of course, the Good Samaritan character was made up. But the story tells a great truth, nonetheless, despite being fictional, doesn't it? This seems something that literalists just can't grasp. They somehow feel it has to have actually happened, in order to speak truth. They don't understand parable and metaphor, or symbolism.

In the Bible I find Jesus only spoke to the crowds by using illustrations / parable stories.- Matthew 13:34;Mark 4:33-34
The neighborly Good Samaritan is a good example of how a person should broaden out or widen out in showing practical love on a one-on-one basis for someone in their time of distress.
So, yes, agree the message of the illustrated story makes a good actual point.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
In the Bible I find Jesus only spoke to the crowds by using illustrations / parable stories.- Matthew 13:34;Mark 4:33-34
The neighborly Good Samaritan is a good example of how a person should broaden out or widen out in showing practical love on a one-on-one basis for someone in their time of distress.
So, yes, agree the message of the illustrated story makes a good actual point.
Would you agree then that the point of the gospels, like the story of the good Samaritan, is about a message the story tells, and not primarily concerned with stating historical facts and details? Then even if those particulars didn't actually happen as told, that those aren't the real point, and shouldn't matter if they are perfectly factual in every detail? The message doesn't have to have factual history supporting it to still be a true message, right?
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Would you agree then that the point of the gospels, like the story of the good Samaritan, is about a message the story tells, and not primarily concerned with stating historical facts and details? Then even if those particulars didn't actually happen as told, that those aren't the real point, and shouldn't matter if they are perfectly factual in every detail? The message doesn't have to have factual history supporting it to still be a true message, right?
I would agree the point of Jesus' illustrations / parables is not about real persons, etc.
However, the 4 gospel accounts 'about Jesus' life' does deal with real persons places and things. - Luke 3

I find false clergy often ignore Jesus' true message of Matthew 24:14; Acts of the Apostles 1:8.
They place God's kingdom as just dealing with Heaven and ignore Earth - Daniel 2:44,
They stress Heaven and ignore that Jesus taught humble meek people will inherit Earth - Matthew 5:5; Psalms 37:9-11.
To me then the ' true message ' is also found in Jesus' illustration about the figurative sheep and goats found at Matthew 25:31-33,37
Although it is an illustration it connects to real people alive on Earth at Jesus' coming Glory Time.
The figurative 'sheep' (real people) can remain alive on Earth and be here to see calendar Day One of Jesus' coming 1,000 year reign over Earth.
 
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