Christianity and arrogance

[ppp]

yes... but did you make note? Even when Virginia was the highest percentage of slave ownership, it still represent only 25% of free people owning slaves.

Let's put that into perspective. Slavery and rape are about on the same tier of immoral behavior. Saying only 25% of free Christians owning slaves is like saying only 25% of Christians have sex with their kids. And 75% of their neighbors knew all about it, invited them to dinner, let their own kids go over to the incestuous houses, went to church with them, and did business with them. Hell, they even fought a war just so that 25% could keep having sex with their kids.

What exactly is it that I am supposed to take note of?

And we did... it was called the Civil War.

Which does not change the fact that legally permitting slavery is immoral. That makes those verses in the bible immoral. And if the Biblical god existed, he would be immoral for making such laws..

I think if you take it in context, there is a lot of wisdom in that position.

If, indeed, He did wipe out all people except those in the Ark because the very thoughts of mankind was evil, what other alternative did He have?

No wisdom there. JesusGod does not measure up my minimum moral standards.

Though shalt not own people as property as the first commandment. Duh.

If, indeed, He did wipe out all people except those in the Ark because the very thoughts of mankind was evil, what other alternative did He have?

He could have done better work. Please don't plead for the helplessness of a being that is supposed to be omnipotent. It will just make me laugh.

Again, I would take exception to the phrase "comprise the fabric that is Christianity" because it gives the illusion that there is no good in Christianity.

Since I said the items of both your list and mine comprise the threads to Christianity, I can only assume that you are not reading for content. Or do you think that the items on your list (rescuing sex-slave children, helping drug addicts, feeding the hungry all over the world, helping the homeless...) are evil?

For an example you said, "They deny their children blood transfusions, antibiotics, and other life saving treatments." - Without saying "The Jehovah Witnesses have interpreted the Bible as saying".... you would think it was the norm, which it isn't.

I am egalitarian. I gave examples from all over the spectrum of Christianity.

Or, "Promote "Abstinence-only" sex education resulting in 5 times the average STI rate and teen pregnancies. Not to mention promoting the spread of AIDS in Africa." as if the teaching was at fault. Hard pressed to prove it was the teaching.

Not hard at all. You look at the populations (multiple) of people who teach abstinence-only over a decade, and compare it to the rates found in the general population. Compare the rates.

I taught my children about the purpose of sex which included, "save yourself for the one you love". All three have healthy marriages, no STI, no teen pregnancies, and my son marriage someone who had previously had sex.

I have no reason to believe that is not true for your particular case. But I am going to go with the accumulated data for populations over time, rather than a single report.

 

[Kenny]

Let's put that into perspective. Slavery and rape are about on the same tier of immoral behavior. Saying only 25% of free Christians owning slaves is like saying only 25% of Christians have sex with their kids. And 75% of their neighbors knew all about it, invited them to dinner, let their own kids go over to the incestuous houses, went to church with them, and did business with them. Hell, they even fought a war just so that 25% could keep having sex with their kids.

What exactly is it that I am supposed to take note of?

WHOA there horsey

You said "majority" which i proved it wasn't. I wasn't condoning what is wrong

Which does not change the fact that legally permitting slavery is immoral. That makes those verses in the bible immoral. And if the Biblical god existed, he would be immoral for making such laws..

Man permitted it. God works through it until all people are free again. Big difference. We aren't robots.

No wisdom there. JesusGod does not measure up my minimum moral standards.

Though shalt not own people as property as the first commandment. Duh.

Thou shalt not commit murder.... does that stop people? You could get a life sentence or go to death row... does that stop people? So in the midst of hard-hearted people, God is trying to make changes in their lives within free will - not a puppet on a string mentality.

He could have done better work. Please don't plead for the helplessness of a being that is supposed to be omnipotent. It will just make me laugh.

That is only within your paradigm of thought. Omnipotent also includes letting you have a free will.

Since I said the items of both your list and mine comprise the threads to Christianity, I can only assume that you are not reading for content. Or do you think that the items on your list (rescuing sex-slave children, helping drug addicts, feeding the hungry all over the world, helping the homeless...) are evil?

honestly, don't follow what you are trying to say within what I said.

I am egalitarian. I gave examples from all over the spectrum of Christianity.

That is in line with God's thinking. Great job!

Not hard at all. You look at the populations (multiple) of people who teach abstinence-only over a decade, and compare it to the rates found in the general population. Compare the rates.

If that is the only factor, yes. But it isn't the only factor, right? I can say "don't do this", with love or I can do it with a belt. If all we say is "Don't do this" and don't add "with love" or "with the belt" are we going to have the same results? Obviously not. You also can't say "They taught abstinence" and think that is the only factor.

I have no reason to believe that is not true for your particular case. But I am going to go with the accumulated data for populations over time, rather than a single report.

There are studies that support both sides of the equation. Who is right?

Depends on all factors. We don't live in a biosphere.

 

[ppp]

WHOA there horsey

You said "majority" which i proved it wasn't. I wasn't condoning what is wrong

Ah. I see the confusion. What I said was that "Never the less Christians, in the majority, practiced, depended up on and profited from slavery for more than 1,800 years of their 2,000 year history." I should have said "and/or profited on." The majority of Christians did depend upon and profit from the practices of slavery for the bulk of the existence of Christianity.

Man permitted it. God works through it until all people are free again. Big difference. We aren't robots.

That man permitted it is irrelevant. If you claim that the Bible, specifically Mosaic law, is the word of God, then God permitted and endorsed it. Because all of Mosaic law is supposed to be what God permitted, forbade, and endorsed.

That is only within your paradigm of thought. Omnipotent also includes letting you have a free will.

There are a lot of thing that you cannot physically and mentally do, and yet you still have free will. Or at least you think you do. Being incapable of wanting to enslave someone is no more of an impediment to free will than being incapable of calculating the log of 123.44i in your head. Omnipotence.

honestly, don't follow what you are trying to say within what I said.

You said that my thread in cloth analogy implied that Christianity was all bad. Yet it included the your list of things that we both think are good about Christianity. So how does my cloth analogy imply that Christianity is all bad?

That is in line with God's thinking. Great job!

According to the Bible he had a chosen people. He set men above women, He told his followers to kill gays. God isn't egalitarian. But I am.

If that is the only factor, yes. But it isn't the only factor, right? I can say "don't do this", with love or I can do it with a belt. If all we say is "Don't do this" and don't add "with love" or "with the belt" are we going to have the same results? Obviously not. You also can't say "They taught abstinence" and think that is the only factor.

I don't know what you are trying to get to. Are you claiming that abstinence-only education has no substantive effect on the lives of the children in the communities who teach it?

There are studies that support both sides of the equation. Who is right?

People tell me that. And then when I ask them to provide the peer reviewed studies they tend to become evasive.

 

[ppp]

We don't live in a biosphere.

Wait. Yes we do! What do you mean?

 

[Kenny]

Ah. I see the confusion. What I said was that "Never the less Christians, in the majority, practiced, depended up on and profited from slavery for more than 1,800 years of their 2,000 year history." I should have said "and/or profited on." The majority of Christians did depend upon and profit from the practices of slavery for the bulk of the existence of Christianity.

That man permitted it is irrelevant. If you claim that the Bible, specifically Mosaic law, is the word of God, then God permitted and endorsed it. Because all of Mosaic law is supposed to be what God permitted, forbade, and endorsed.

Understand your point. I don't think that it is that simple and part of the problem is we associate US slavery and impose that on what Jewish people understood.

Have you ever asked a Jewish person as to what it was in context of custom, time and situation?

There are a lot of thing that you cannot physically and mentally do, and yet you still have free will. Or at least you think you do. Being incapable of wanting to enslave someone is no more of an impediment to free will than being incapable of calculating the log of 123.44i in your head. Omnipotence

Unless I misunderstand, you are capable to go at 70mph on the freeway but 80% go 75+ - free will. Unless you want God to make us puppets on a string, He omnipotently, and scripturally, basically gave the dominion of the earth to man who has a free will. Omnipotence.

You said that my thread in cloth analogy implied that Christianity was all bad. Yet it included the your list of things that we both think are good about Christianity. So how does my cloth analogy imply that Christianity is all bad?

LOL maybe I made a mountain out of a mole hill

However, there seems to be a reason:

What's So Wrong with Mixing Wool & Linen? - Our Rabbi Jesus

According to the Bible he had a chosen people. He set men above women, He told his followers to kill gays. God isn't egalitarian. But I am.

I don't see it that way but understand your point. I am not under the Mosaic Covenant - I am under the Abrahamic Covenant.

I see "chosen" differently. Some people are "chosen" to be doctors, some people are "chosen" to be administrators - but everyone is necessary. The Jewish people were "chosen" to hole the scriptures until Jesus. Now, after Jesus, we all are "chosen" - Egalitarian.

Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither malenor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. - Egalitarian.

I don't know what you are trying to get to. Are you claiming that abstinence-only education has no substantive effect on the lives of the children in the communities who teach it?

People tell me that. And then when I ask them to provide the peer reviewed studies they tend to become evasive.

Abstinence Education Works, Condoms Don’t: New Teen Pregnancy Data - C-Fam

Abstinence-Only Education Works According To New Study

 

[Kenny]

Wait. Yes we do! What do you mean?

A place where all mitigating circumstances are complete controlled. No viruses, climate is controlled, precipitation is controlled..

Biosphere 2 | scientific research facility

 

[ppp]

Understand your point. I don't think that it is that simple and part of the problem is we associate US slavery and impose that on what Jewish people understood.

Have you ever asked a Jewish person as to what it was in context of custom, time and situation?

Owning people as property is fundamentally immoral. The given cultural implementation is irrelevant. A culture cannot make slavery non-evil. They can, at best, keep from making it more evil. God of the Bible, the perfect and unchanging absolute moral authority of the universe, says that owning people as property is okay. Which means that if I believed that God existed, I would be forced to believe that he was Satan, the great deceiver.

I have spoken to several Jews about this. But no Rabbis.. One was unaware of any of the verses in Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Exodus. One did not understand why the Torah says such things and found it disgusting. The rest have all been atheists and chalk it up to callow bronze age cultures who made up gods to reflect their own level of morality..

Unless I misunderstand, you are capable to go at 70mph on the freeway but 80% go 75+ - free will. Unless you want God to make us puppets on a string, He omnipotently, and scripturally, basically gave the dominion of the earth to man who has a free will. Omnipotence.

If I want to go 80 and my car will only do 60, have I lost my free will? If I am locked in a closet, have I lost my free will? Feel free to expand as you wish, but I would appreciate a straight yes or no on those questions?

LOL maybe I made a mountain out of a mole hill
However, there seems to be a reason:
What's So Wrong with Mixing Wool & Linen? - Our Rabbi Jesus

No sweat. And that's interesting. I was told that they shrink at different rates and that the cloth won't be wearable the first time it gets wet.

Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither malenor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. - Egalitarian.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing. 1 Timothy 2:11-15

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Ephesians 5:22-24

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. 1 Corinthians 14:34-36

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. Number 31:17-18

Misogynist.

 

[ppp]

Abstinence Education Works, Condoms Don’t: New Teen Pregnancy Data - C-Fam

Abstinence-Only Education Works According To New Study

I will read those.
Did you disparage condoms to your kids?

 

[ppp]

A place where all mitigating circumstances are complete controlled. No viruses, climate is controlled, precipitation is controlled..

Biosphere 2 | scientific research facility

Ah. Primary definition is the worldwide collection of all ecospheres. But I got you.

 

[sojourner]

I'm not clear what your intellectual basis for rejecting Christianity is. Nor have you shown why it is arrogant for cowboy ministries to hold cowboy church services at rodeos, or to invite people along. You may be missing an opportunity to discover things you don't know about. Obviously if you had hard evidence of hypocrisy or something, it would be different. No harm in going along, as far as I can see.

Charges of arrogance are frequently used in my own experience by people who feel threatened and pretend to positions they cannot maintain by rational argument. If you only feel threatened by Christianity, it is not a reason to allege arrogance.

Ignorance of Christianity is not a plausible platform on which to accuse Christian ministries of being arrogant. I am sure some of them are arrogant when the facts are known, particularly when it comes to the techniques used to enjoin paying to attend church services, but that's another matter and is going to be down to the individual paster etc.

But in respect of the charge of arrogance against evangelization in general, the charge must be accompanied by something more that "I don't like your attitude." If Christianity is true, then it has a right to assert itself, even if you don't like its attitude. It's got no obligation to hide itself under a bush, just to mollify your feelings.

The arrogance comes in when my stepson, who is Episcopalian, was cornered on the playground and bullied by a group of kids who went to the local “Six Flags Over Jesus” because he didn’t go there too. They learn that from the adults.

 

[sojourner]

This is the definition of arrogance:
ADJECTIVE

1. having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.
   "he's arrogant and opinionated" ·
   haughty · conceited · hubristic · self-important · opinionated · egotistic · full of oneself · superior · overbearing · pompous · hig

There are times when popular churches in my community make a point to witness to the public or witness at my Moms AA meeting and automatically expect me to jump on the band wagon because they think they ever so important.

They're church is so important and popular and me with my obesity I am so unpopular they arrogantly expect me to jump at the chance to go to their church and then act like their hairs shocked off their heads when I say no.

The Rodeo church did that to me last year,they explained to me that they had the rodeo and country music at their church and everyone in the group was attending and I needed to get a ride and go so I could go tot heir rodeo.

I just thought what the "0000" I hate the rodeo why would I do that? But I told them I am not Christian not interested. They acted like they were gonna faint dead, went into shock. They just way way way over estimated the popularity of their church and looked down their noses at me, thought poor little obese me, I should be friendless but I'm not.

I don't care how popular your church is. They just automatically, like said we expect you'll want to go, just automatically no question in it. They think everyone in Texas is dying to see the rodeo too.

Cowboy church. Pfft.

Window dressing that (in my experience) lends credence to poor theology.

 

[sojourner]

Love is an emotion

Love is a relationship.

 

[sojourner]

Which does not change the fact that legally permitting slavery is immoral. That makes those verses in the bible immoral. And if the Biblical god existed, he would be immoral for making such laws..

First of all, slavery is immoral. But let’s be clear: just because there are verses dealing with slavery in the Bible doesn’t mean that “God is immoral.” It means a few things. First, it means that slavery in the Bible isn’t the same thing as slavery as we have known it. Second, people wrote the Bible — not God. Third, just because Christians in the past practiced slavery doesn’t mean that slavery is a core belief of the religion.

He could have done better work. Please don't plead for the helplessness of a being that is supposed to be omnipotent. It will just make me laugh.

You realize that this is a metaphor — not an ontological statement about God?

 

[ppp]

Love is a relationship.

No. It's not. Relationships can be built on love, but love is not an emotion.
Person A can love Person B, while Person B is indifferent to person A. Person A stil experiences love, but there is no relationship.

 

[ppp]

First of all, slavery is immoral.

Cool. We are in agreement.

But let’s be clear: just because there are verses dealing with slavery in the Bible doesn’t mean that “God is immoral.” I

Do you believe that Mosaic law is God's word?

First, it means that slavery in the Bible isn’t the same thing as slavery as we have known it.

As I said before, the forms (plural, dammit!) that Hebrew slavery took in the Bible are irrelevant. Owning people as property is fundamentally immoral. The given cultural implementation does not matter
A culture cannot make slavery non-evil. They can, at best, keep from making it more evil.

Second, people wrote the Bible — not God.

Interesting. Then it has no more or less value than does the Iliad, Bayajidda, or Kalevala? Not worth paying attention to than any other bit of old literature.

Third, just because Christians in the past practiced slavery doesn’t mean that slavery is a core belief of the religion.

Premise 1: The Bible depicts God as permitting the ownership of persons as property
Premise 2: Permitting the ownership of persons as property is immoral.
Conclusion: God as depicted in the Bible is immoral.

 

[sojourner]

No. It's not. Relationships can be built on love, but love is not an emotion.
Person A can love Person B, while Person B is indifferent to person A. Person A stil experiences love, but there is no relationship.

I disagree. Even indifference is a form of relationship.

 

[sojourner]

Do you believe that Mosaic law is God's word?

No.

As I said before, the forms (plural, dammit!) that Hebrew slavery took in the Bible are irrelevant. Owning people as property is fundamentally immoral. The given cultural implementation does not matter
A culture cannot make slavery non-evil. They can, at best, keep from making it more evil

True.

Interesting. Then it has no more or less value than does the Iliad, Bayajidda, or Kalevala? Not worth paying attention to than any other bit of old literature

Depends on what one values.

Premise 1: The Bible depicts God as permitting the ownership of persons as property
Premise 2: Permitting the ownership of persons as property is immoral.
Conclusion: God as depicted in the Bible is immoral

To us — but not to the culture that produced the texts.

 

[ppp]

To us — but not to the culture that produced the texts.

I am not sure what your point is there. You seem to be saying that a culture values what it values. Which would be trivial. And a tautology.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

What does the rodeo have to do with church.. How do they combine those two things

 

[sojourner]

I am not sure what your point is there. You seem to be saying that a culture values what it values. Which would be trivial. And a tautology.

My point is that you seem to be of the opinion that the Bible was written with immoral motives. It wasn’t. One can’t judge an ancient culture against modern standards. It’s like saying that an ancient culture practiced barbarism just because they didn’t employ modern sterile techniques in surgical procedures.