Sex & Money, part 3

By Fred Clark, June 11, 2010 4:17 pm

I worked myself into a bind on the question of usury and interest because I was reading the Bible wrong. I was approaching it wrong, asking the wrong questions and therefore coming away with the wrong answers.

"What does the rulebook say about this?" I asked. And then, having asked that question in that way, I found that the rulebook offered a set of rules. Those rules seemed clear and strict, and they seemed to forbid the very good work that I thought God was calling me to do.

There was the Berean Savings and Loan extending credit to the Baptist Deliverance Tabernacle so that it could expand its Bethany Housing initiative. A storefront thrift enabling a storefront church to make affordable, decent housing available to more of its elderly members. That is good and righteous and holy, but by treating the Bible as a rulebook, all I could see was usury upon usury, an abomination.

I didn't like that conclusion, but I couldn't see any way of escaping it. The trap I had set for myself was partly semantic, as that word "escaping" implies. Trying to escape or evade or explain away what I believed to be the rules mandated by holy scripture couldn't be permitted. Viewing my dilemma that way simply invoked the same familiar accusatory evangelical phrases still being repeated ad nauseum by the Guardians of the Authority of Scripture in their e-mails castigating me these days for challenging their condemnation of homosexuality. Escaping the rules is against the rules.

My conundrum was not unique — not to me and not to the question of usury. The same dilemma arises whenever we treat the Bible as a rulebook. That's an approach that guarantees — that manufactures — conflicts between text and reason, text and experience, text and reality, text and context.

And such conflicts always produce perverse choices. In my case it was the perverse choice between, on the one hand, the evident goodness of the work being done by South Shore and Grameen and a hundred real-world incarnations of the Bailey Bros. Building & Loan and, on the other hand, the biblical prohibition against usury. In someone else's case it might involve the perverse choice between some devotion to a list of rules gleaned from Paul's epistles and the near constant warning in those same epistles against compiling such lists of rules.*

I've been describing this as an evangelical Christian dilemma because that's who I am and where I'm coming from. But this is a human failing, not a peculiarly evangelical one. We all have this tendency and temptation to approach whatever we regard as holy writ as though we were paralegals, compiling citations and precedents for a moral indictment of other people. Every religion or ethical framework ever known has had some variation of the Golden Rule, and the adherents of every such system have at some point been tempted to regard that imperative as insufficient and inadequate, seeking and finding additional rules until those rules eventually come to conflict with and supersede that central principle.

"Love is the fulfillment of the law," the Bible says. When love is perceived as a violation of the law, something has gone horribly amiss. When the rulebook is telling you that more affordable, decent housing for seniors is wrong, then something is wrong with the way you're reading the rulebook.

Starting, probably, with the fact that it's not supposed to be a rulebook.

Reading the Bible as a rulebook can be as ethically misleading an approach as reading the Bible as a scientific textbook is a scientifically misleading one. Both readings — both mis-readings — create conflicts between text and context and between the map of the text and the terrain of the world.

American evangelicalism today is distorted by the growing chasm between its reading of the map and the reality of the terrain. Having invested its identity in the notion that the map is "infallible," it is forced to side with that map in every such imagined conflict with the terrain.** Thus we have things like young-earth creationism and "ex-gay" ministries, both of which are based on the denial of stubbornly actual actuality. These reality-denying positions have come to dominate evangelical Christianity because reality tends to reassert itself rather vigorously until it is acknowledged. You can't just deny reality once and then move on, you have to do it constantly.

"Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows," someone once said. And it was that harsh refusal-to-go-away-when-inconvenient aspect of reality that helped save me from my self-induced biblical quandary over interest. I didn't decide to dismiss or disregard the biblical rules, but chose, rather, to pay them the respect of reading them better — of reading them in such away that they did not conflict with love as the fulfillment of the law, that did not suggest that there was some commandment greater than this, that did not imply that the fruit of the spirit was against the rules.

I chose, in other words, to stop looking for ways in which I could concoct conflicts between the map of the text and the terrain of the world, and instead chose to look for ways in which the map could guide me through that terrain.

What does all that ancient teaching about interest and usury have to teach me in this world of market economies, electronic currency and credit scores? The terrain is vastly changed, but the old maps drawn by Moses and Nehemiah (and, for that matter, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas) still provide direction. The old rules embodied principles that still apply. Those principles tell me that money can and ought to be put to work to empower and liberate the poor, never to exploit or entrap them. When interest works to do the former, it is a Good Thing — a righteous thing, the fulfillment of the law and a sweet-smelling incense in the nostrils of God. When it works to do the latter, it is evil — not because it contradicts the rules of my proof-texts, but because it exploits and entraps and enslaves.

I first used this map/terrain analogy in an earlier post on the very same subjects we're discussing here. Three years later, I'm not sure I can improve on what I wrote then, so allow me to quote from that earlier post:

The charging of interest, when properly harnessed, can be a powerful engine for growth and prosperity, creating incentives for investment that makes possible many good things which would otherwise be impossible. The recognition of this fact, over the centuries, led to an evolution of our interpretation of the prohibition against usury. It ceased to mean the charging of any interest … and came to mean, instead, the charging of "excessive" interest. We began to reinterpret the evident meaning of the text in an effort to reconcile it with what we were learning about the world and how it works. The prohibition against usury remains in recognition of the principle contained in the text, a principle we continue to honor despite the sometimes laughably elastic application of that weasel-word excessive.

This argument can be challenged as mere "rationalization," in the psychological sense, an after-the-fact attempt at self-justification by a religious tradition whose adherents had become wealthy and worldly. But I would counter that in the non-psychological sense, rationalization is, well, rational. The application of reason is reasonable and necessary, and I find the reinterpretation of the prohibition against interest to be a reasonable step.

This reasonable step is regarded as noncontroversial when the matter involved is our own money. When the matter involved is someone else's sexuality, however, such a reasonable step is regarded as
extremely controversial.

And that controversial step is what I am advocating here. I want to rationalize American evangelicals' understanding of what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. By that I mean I want to spare them from irrational readings of the map that cannot be reconciled with the terrain of reality. If your reading of the Bible leads you to assert that homosexuality is a choice when it is not, then you're reading it wrong. If your reading of the Bible leads you to claim that "ex-gay ministries" are effective, rather than delusional and abusive, then you're reading it wrong. If your reading of the Bible leads you to claim that the happiness of a loving, committed same-sex relationship is an intrinsically, irredeemably abhorrent thing, then you're reading it wrong. And if your reading of the Bible leads you to tell someone else that their desire for that kind of relationship means that they are dirty and wicked and evil, then … well, then you're just being a jerk, really.

I'm not asking you to throw away the map. I'm asking you to read it in such a way that it doesn't force you to pretend the terrain is something it is not and never will be. Pretending will not make it so.

But the biggest problem with this evangelical reading of the map is not the ways in which it creates supposed conflicts with the terrain. The biggest problem with this way of reading the map is that it forces the map to contradict itself. It forces them to read the text as though it did not say "God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean." It requires a reading of the text that, like my own misreading of the rules on usury, leads to a place where love becomes a violation of the law. And that's not a good place.

The response, I'm sure, is that I'm engaging in wishful thinking.*** The GAS chamber will tell me that I'm engaging in that other kind of rationalizing — the psychological kind in which I'm trying to create justifications after the fact for my preferred position. Trying to justify my preference for ignoring clear rules through the pretext of some love-ethic trump card. But I'm not doing that. I'm not going to attempt any such justification any more than Jesus did, inviting — then commanding — his disciples to follow him.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets," Jesus said. "I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished."

That's in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, a long discussion on how those thorny rules are even thornier than the most devout rule-follower has ever imagined. And as soon as he finished that sermon, Jesus went right back to obliterating rules left and right, violating way more than just jots and tittles.

The law was very clear, the rules were unambiguous: Some people are clean and others are unclean. And the clean people must have nothing to do with the unclean ones.

So what did Jesus do? Jesus sought out and embraced unclean people like that list of rules was a scavenger hunt. Women? Check. Gentiles? Check. Gentile women? Double check. Samaritans, menstrual women, lepers, madmen, the lame, the blind, the dead? Checkity check check check.

Ah, the GAS cloud says, but when Jesus touched the unclean lepers it was only to heal them — to make the unclean clean. So if we are to reach out to unclean homosexuals, it must therefore only be to make them heterosexual and therefore healed and clean.

True enough for lepers, I suppose. But how exactly does that apply to women and to gentiles? Jesus met the woman at the well and she went away just as Samaritan and female as she was before. When Peter finally, belatedly, learned this lesson — "God has shown me that I should not call any person profane or unclean" — he never suggested that Cornelius needed to stop being a Roman centurion. The lesson was not that unclean Cornelius could be made clean, but rather that gentile Cornelius was not unclean.

Paul was also rather rudely adamant on this point and the GAS company might want to read what he had to say about it. (When an apostle's response to your argument is to say, "Yeah? Well why don't you just go cut your dick off, OK?" then you might want to rethink your point.)

The main GAS-eous justification for Jesus' enthusiastically flagrant rule-breaking involves an elaborate distinction between two different kinds of law. See, there's the ceremonial law, which is just, you know, ceremonial. Stuff like all those rules about clean and unclean, and eating kosher, and sacrifices and circumcision and all that. And then there's the real law, the law that's still the law.

This is an interesting response and I don't think it's entirely wrong, but it presents several difficulties for the noble GASes. First it raises the question as to whether their view of homosexuals as intrinsically unclean due to their gender might not be regarded as much more likely to fall in the nonbinding ceremonial category (in which case, checkmate). More troubling is that Jesus himself never cited such a distinction as an explanation for his rule-breaking — "Woman, thy touching the fringe of my garment — a ceremonial zizith I weareth for no apparent reason — hath rendered me unclean, but this counteth not for it is merely ceremonial." Never said that. Nor did he limit himself to only breaking little "ceremonial" rules. He also broke some big ones — like keeping the sabbath, which is in the Top 10.

That one got him in trouble, and his explanation for it got him in even more trouble: "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath."

And that right there is your rule for rules. The rules were made for humankind, and not humankind for the rules. That's a rule that both helps us navigate the terrain of the world, and helps us navigate the map itself. That's the lodestone that helps us make sure we're reading it correctly. First rule of map-reading: Which way is north?

And reading it correctly doesn't mean tossing it aside. I'm not talking about the anarchically antinomian straw-man imagined by the GAS pumps. A sabbath made for humankind is still a sabbath.

Our economics and our sexuality must be guided by ethics, but it has to be an ethics that makes sense — an ethics that can guide us through the terrain of this world. We can find such an ethics in the map of the Bible, but not if we turn to it as a rulebook and especially not if we turn to it as a rulebook for other people. That approach will yield only a list of rules we don't fully understand, rules that require us to pretend the terrain of the world is something other than what it really is.

Earlier I compared the dominant evangelical approach to ethics to the miserably shameful evangelical approach to science. I think our ethics — particularly when it comes to money and sex — has followed the same pattern as our reaction to 20th-century science. Confusion, perceived conflict, denial, retreat.

As a result evangelicals don't really have an ethic for sexuality — only a list of rules based primarily on legal contexts and categories. Like my proof-texts forbidding usury, those rules don't provide much useful guidance through the terrain of this world. So let's use the brains God gave us: What are the principles embodied in those rules and the reasons for them? What direction do those principles provide and in what direction do they lead? What does it mean that sexual ethics are made for humankind and not humankind for sexual ethics?

And above all, can we answer all those quest
ions in a way that doesn't lead us to contradict the Golden Rule and to
ignore the more excellent way?

- – - – - – - – - – - -

* Paul's catalogues of Do's and Don'ts are always always always embedded in a larger argument about the freedom and salvation that comes from grace, rather than from such rules. Such lists are not provided to clarify the rules against gossips or gays or kitten-burners, but to clarify the argument against the pre-eminence of rules.

Those lists are the flip-side to Paul's other rhetorical approach to the same point — his "boasting" passages. "Rules? You want to talk about rules?" Paul says in boasting-mode. "I followed more rules than you ever imagined, buddy. You can't compete with me when it comes to rules — I was a frickin' Pharisee, I know from rules. But it's not about that …"

Conversations with those who are upset with me for not condemning homosexuality invariably come down to the claim that Paul's epistles give strict rules on the subject. "Rules, rules, rules," Paul says in response. "When I was a child, I thought as a child. But you know what? I grew up. Let me show you a more excellent way …"

** The early 20th-century fundamentalists who first proposed this principle of "infallibility" did not, to their credit, make the same mistake their descendants have made of pretending that all perceived conflicts between the map and the terrain must be due to a flaw in one or the other. They recognized the presence and the agency of third actor in the equation — the most variable and fallible one — the reader. Thus they taught that if science clearly demonstrates something that contradicts your reading of the Bible, then your reading of the Bible must be wrong.

That possibility seems to have been forgotten by the modern-day Guardians of the Authority of Scripture who are always gassing on about the "infallibility" of the text in a way that arrogates to themselves this same infallibility as readers of that text. They can't seem to imagine that the supposed conflict may not be the fault of either the map or the terrain, but that the problem might be they're holding the darned thing upside-down.

*** I've been told exactly that in those exact words — "wishful thinking." That word "wishful" is revealing, I think. Explore that. Why is it wishful — a thing to be wished for, a desirable, desirous, praiseworthy thing? Quench not that spirit of wishfulness.

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  • http://pcandproud.wordpress.com helen_s

    Now this is the kind of thing that makes me remember that not all evangelicals are tossers.
    Great one. Thanks :)

  • Roadstergal

    They can’t seem to imagine that the supposed conflict may not be the fault of either the map or the terrain, but that the problem might be they’re holding the darned thing upside-down.
    I am storing this for future use. Brilliant post.

  • http://apocalypsereview.wordpress.com/ Pius Thicknesse

    A very excellent post. I liked this. :)

  • http://www.processedworld.com Thomas Daulton

    What Helen S. said. This is a superb series of posts and obviously Fred spent a lot of time working on them. Much applause and thanks.

  • Tonio

    Yes. Morality isn’t about rules but about principles and ethics. Simply presenting someone with a list of Dos and Don’ts doesn’t teach him or her anything about morality, even if there are sound principles behind the rules. And there are many moral dilemmas where no rule can fit, where two people can follow the same moral principle but come up with different possible solutions to the dilemma.

  • F

    Is it possible — do you think — that there are those who ask the questions ‘What are the principles embodied in those rules and the reasons for them? What direction do those principles provide and in what direction do they lead? What does it mean that sexual ethics are made for humankind and not humankind for sexual ethics?’ and still come up with a position with which you disagree, because they disagree with you on what those principles are (for example, they they might think that the principles so embodied are to do with the two sexes becoming one flesh as a reflection of God’s own nature which encompasses both male and female, and that this aspect of creation is more fundamental than a relationship being simply about two adults fulfilling their own emotional needs — a very modern idea?).

  • http://www.sheilawrites.com Sheila

    They can’t seem to imagine that the supposed conflict may not be the fault of either the map or the terrain, but that the problem might be they’re holding the darned thing upside-down.
    I am likewise keeping this one for future reference. Brilliant.

  • Simon C.

    This post wasn’t just thoughtful and intelligent, but funny as well — you could say it was a real GAS.

  • Shay Guy

    Then there’s the matter of Judaism, which has developed a great deal in the past 2000 years and still regards the Torah with its laws as one of the most important things God gave to humanity. And one of the most critical developments in the evolution of the Pharisees into Rabbinic Judaism was the addition of EVEN MORE LAW in the form of the Talmud. It’s had to deal with the issues of modernization in its own way.

  • Deggjr

    Galatians 5:12, great reference.

  • http://lightupmy.wordpress.com Jessica

    Nicely done. I just had a conversation at work today with a colleague about being gay and a Christian. I’m going to work some of these points in the next time we talk.

  • Lee Ratner

    Shay Guy: I think that Judaism and Islam have saved itself from some of the traps that Fred describes Christianity in general and Evangelical Christianity in particular by maintaining law-based salvation and developing parallel works that expand on the law in the primary religious text, the Talmud for the Jews and the Hadith for the Muslims. From my understanding of Fred’s posts, Evangelical Christians are in a frequent debate on what is allowed and not allowed according to their understanding of the Bible because they believe that the Bible is to be taken literally but at the same time believe that Jesus abolished a lot of the Law. Are Christians only to follow the teachings of the Hebrew Bible if they also appear somewhere in the NT or are they to obey all the parts of the Hebrew Bible accept that which were explicitly abolished in the NT like the kosher laws? When you keep the Law and elaborate on the Law than you get around the Law by finding loopholes or creating legal devices around the Law and it creates in its own way a less doubt-inducing and kinder system. Thats IMO, others may vary.
    Unrelated but can anybody please explain to me what a Real True Christian is specifically? I have something of an understanding that its particular type of Evangelical Christian only more so but I’m not quite sure on the exact meaning yet. Where does the term Real True Christian come from?

  • hapax

    @Lee — I am hardly any sort of expert on either Jewish or Islamic legal interpretation, but as I understand them, both of them permit reasoning – by – analogy and reasoning – by – example, which allows a great deal more flexibility in applying the map to the terrain, to steal the excellent metaphor.
    The sort of “literal” application of rules (as used by RTCs, as opposed to most other Christian ethicists for two thousand years) would not allow for such “interpretation”.
    (Except, of course, when convenient…) I have in fact known a few Real Live People who actually keep tallies of the number of apologies their children offer, in order to not exceed the “forgive them seven times seventy” injunction.

  • Raka

    Lee, I think the way we use “RTC” here is basically as a recognition of implicit or explicit self-identification. All you need to do to be an RTC is to demonstrate in word or deed that you don’t think anyone not exactly like you can be a real, true Christian.

  • Caravelle

    Hah, and me thinking “Wow why is everyone posting on the “Sex and money, part 2″ thread all of a sudden ? And why does the thread seem to feature a lot fewer new comments than the sidebar would suggest ?”

  • LL

    Just an atheist throwing it out there, not meaning to be rude, but just to suggest: or you could not read a book written by mostly ignorant men over a thousand years as a rulebook or guidebook at all. You could appreciate it as literature and/or a kind of wisdom, but that’s it.
    I suggest there should be no rulebooks. That most human behavior is covered by “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “Judge not lest ye be judged” and that’s about it. In general. Obviously, we need laws to govern things like murder, theft, etc. But secular law (like ours, for example) is very different (and usually, ironically) more just and merciful than religious law. At least in the 21st century. I guess secular law hundreds of years ago wasn’t so great, but then, it was influenced significantly more by religion than it is today.

  • http://www.crochetgeek.net Jack Bishop

    Hmm. Orthodox Judaism is still very much rule-based, or at least ostensibly. In practice they work around the rules which are an astonishing pain in the ass (which, note, is orthogonal to the extent they serve social justice), but there is a distinct community undercurrent of “The Book of the Law, as written, is the most important thing in the universe, and we are extra-special for being called on to keep it, so we don’t get to pick and choose.” Interpetation is permitted, but it’d be a hard-sell in observant communities to suggest that (for instance) the many individual specific injunctions to provide for the underprotected (the many agricultural permissions granted to the poor, the levirite marriage, the loan securities laws) could be coalesced into a single “be decent to the poor and give to charity” concept. Even though that’s clearly the societal function of these particular laws, the observance of each individual one is considered a mitzva in itself, which lends a certain inflexibility to the interpretation.
    I may be a bit off-base, granted. I was born a (Reform) Jew, and reading Midrashic and Talmudic commentaries feels like an exercise in cognitive dissonance: they’re simultaneously willing to make astonishing conceptual leaps in connotation and inflexible on anything appearing in the actual text. (This may be why the Midrash is derisively referred to as “Torah fanfic”; many fanfic writers have the same peculiar blend of limitless extrapolation and dogmatic adherence to the literal text)

  • mb

    “So let’s use the brains God gave us:…”
    Probably should’ve started using your brains a bit earlier in this post. It might have inspired you to avoid the Bible in the first place which would have greatly simplified your search for a coherent and practical moral code. The fact that it doesn’t matter what we do on Saturday really didn’t need Jesus’s OK to make it so.

  • http://lightupmy.wordpress.com Jessica

    Lee–
    The phrase “Real, True Christian” was something coined here, AFAIK. If my memory serves, it came into being during the discussion of the original Left Behind novel when LaHaye revealed that not all Christians would be raptured. Only the “real and true” believers, those who confessed Jesus as their Lord and Savior, would die get the one way trip to to heaven. The label has evolved as a way to distinguish people who consider themselves the “real” Christians and would question the orthodoxy of other adherents.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a5ea6499970b Michael Rinschler

    I’ve been told exactly that in those exact words — “wishful thinking.” That word “wishful” is revealing, I think. Explore that. Why is it wishful — a thing to be wished for, a desirable, desirous, praiseworthy thing? Quench not that spirit of wishfulness.

    Forget anything about holding the map upside down. This is what I’m storing for later use. This is what gets my “Amen!”. This is that great virtue of hope. One must wonder what places those who try and make “wishful thinking” a bad thing are trying to keep people from, and why…

  • Rachel

    This is the kind of sermon it’s worth getting out of bed on Sunday for. Nice series.

  • http://lightupmy.wordpress.com Jessica

    is it just me or has atheism-related trolliness increased since I’ve been gone?

  • F

    That something is wished for has no bearing on whether it is true, of course.

  • F

    The idea of the invisible church is an old one, of course.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/fearlessson FearlessSon

    A wonderful conclusion to your mini-series. Hell, if more ministers in the Evangelical world would sermonize like you do, I get the feeling that a lot of them would be a lot happier, and there would be a lot more harmony both within that religious sub-culture and between that sub-culture and other sub-cultures.
    I need to share this one.

  • LoneWolf

    “Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows,”
    That’s from The Great Divorce.
    Read the book multiple times.
    Why yes, I am a big Lewis fan.
    @mb; You seem to forget how screwed up humanity can get with its ethics. Take…well, any period of history that you please. Sometimes humans get so tangled up that it takes God Himself to knock some sense into them. The fact that Jesus only had to say it instead of getting Old Testament over the issue is evidence that humanity is slowly learning.

  • Will Wildman

    Delicious and quotable and as full of truth as an orange is of juice. A wonderful conclusion, Fred.
    —

    is it just me or has atheism-related trolliness increased since I’ve been gone?

    Trolliness in general has been a bit high lately – lots of drive-by atheists, and a few nominally Christian ones who seem to put more effort into it (probably since, as Fred specifically stated, the Sex & Money trilogy was designed to make RTCs angry). I have yet to comprehend in any way a person who can actually read what Fred writes and say “Well, I’m not dumb enough to believe in God, so I’m already smarter and better than you.” It makes me want to convert to something.

  • ako

    I’ve been told exactly that in those exact words — “wishful thinking.” That word “wishful” is revealing, I think. Explore that. Why is it wishful — a thing to be wished for, a desirable, desirous, praiseworthy thing? Quench not that spirit of wishfulness.
    I think that, for some people, there’s a deep aversion to thinking that what they wish for can also be good when there’s any conflict over it. Like they’re so afraid that they’re only believing it because they want to, that they go for a sort of knee-jerk opposition to it. Trying entirely too hard to stamp out wishful thinking, and ending up with the opposite; something that isn’t any more rational, or any more accurate, but dismal enough that people who assume unpleasantness=virtue can feel like they’re doing the right thing.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    Is it just me or has atheism-related trolliness increased since I’ve been gone?

    If I parse this question correctly, you are implying that you increased since you were gone and are asking if atheism-related trolliness has increased also.

  • Ben Standeven

    ‘…it’d be a hard-sell in observant communities to suggest that (for instance) the many individual specific injunctions to provide for the underprotected (the many agricultural permissions granted to the poor, the levirite marriage, the loan securities laws) could be coalesced into a single “be decent to the poor and give to charity” concept’

    Of course. That’s because it’s not true. Giving to charity is laudable, and a good addition to Torah law if it isn’t there already, but not sufficient by itself. And “Be decent to the poor” isn’t really workable as a law, since decency is a matter of opinion.

  • Jotain

    So, the real principle behind the ban on taking usury is “don’t oppress the poor”. Fair enough. What exactly, then, is the principle behind “God thinks gay stuff is totally icky”?
    Oh, and first time poster, long-time lurker.

  • http://raisinghellions.wordpress.com/ Lou Doench

    Not all of us atheists here are Trolls, some of us are Goblins!
    OTOH, whilst being trollish and rude, mb does pretty much sum up a lot of atheist thought. That being said, if more evengelicals were like our Fred, as opposed to Fred Phelps and his ilk, we atheists would give you much less crap.

  • ako

    So, the real principle behind the ban on taking usury is “don’t oppress the poor”. Fair enough. What exactly, then, is the principle behind “God thinks gay stuff is totally icky”?
    As I understand it, the main interpretation is that a lot of stuff that’s currently read as saying “God thinks gay stuff is totally icky” is actually talking about something else. For instance, on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the sinfulness behind it, Fred is fond of this quote “Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”
    Now you can get a complicated argument going on this (particularly when it comes to questions of translation and interpretation, which of the various seemingly contradictory texts are more important, and what the key principle is), and I haven’t seen anything that’s definitively convinced me either way – then again, I’m an atheist, so I haven’t been looking that hard. I think people here can point you to good sources if you’re interested in really digging into the theological debate on this.

  • MercuryBlue

    Far’s I’m concerned, the principle behind anything sex-related is “fully informed consent”.

  • Brandi

    Probably should’ve started using your brains a bit earlier in this post. It might have inspired you to avoid the Bible in the first place which would have greatly simplified your search for a coherent and practical moral code.
    Wipe yourself off and zip up your fly already.

  • LL

    RE Will Wildman:
    “Trolliness in general has been a bit high lately – lots of drive-by atheists, and a few nominally Christian ones who seem to put more effort into it (probably since, as Fred specifically stated, the Sex & Money trilogy was designed to make RTCs angry).”
    I don’t know if this refers to me also (maybe not), but I’m not a drive-by, I just don’t visit as often as I’d like because work’s kinda busy. That’s usually when I surf the Intertubes.
    And yes, mb sounds awfully trollish to me, even as an atheist. Some atheists are jerks.

  • Ben Standeven

    What exactly, then, is the principle behind “God thinks gay stuff is totally icky”?

    In Leviticus, “Don’t act like a Canaanite”. In the New Testament, “Don’t practice idolatry”. At least, that’s what the text says on the matter.

  • Mary Kaye

    There’s a quote from Tolkien–I don’t know the source, I saw it second-hand in Lewis–where he asks “What kind of people would you expect to be most hostile to, and most concerned with, thoughts of escape?” and answers “Jailers.”
    I think “wishful thinking” can be in the same category. A lot of Christians are bitterly unhappy people, and if allowed to think about what they wish for, may realize that blessed children of the Most High shouldn’t be bitterly unhappy people–something is *wrong*. This is a subversive thought, and their leaders and authorities don’t like it. It’s what unravelled my own Christianity.
    I fully acknowledge that for some, Christianity can be a way to the joy of the divine presence. For me personally that well was poisoned. (A large part of the problem is that by nature I’m a darkness-worshipper.) But I had to allow myself to see that, and an intense attack of wishfullness (and clinical depression) was the form that took.

  • F

    The principle is summed up in Matthew 19:4-6, I believe.

  • Mary Kaye

    I’d say that there’s more to sexual morality than fully informed consent. From the Great Commandments you can work out that “Care for your partner’s wellbeing as much as for your own” is in there.
    From my pagan perspective, respecting the other person’s personhood is important; keeping your promises and fulfilling your obligations is important; doing what leads to your own and your partner’s health and growth, and not what tends to stunt or sicken, is important; not being the means by which someone else is abused is important. That last one comes up in cases of adultery a lot. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be a tool for revenge or spite. Nor should you make love, which is sacred, as a means to your own revenge or spite, even if it’s consensual.
    Consent is necessary for good expression of sexuality, but I’d say it’s far from sufficient.

  • Jotain

    @ako
    I’m aware of such attempts, but I don’t think that’s what Fred’s going for. He starts by introducing the usury issue, where the letter of the law, while perfectly rational back in the day, is today in opposition to its spirit. If the Gay Thing is a similar case, as he implies, I’d be very interested in knowing what is the spirit of the law that can result in something like Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27 while leaving the door open to a positive view of homosexuality today?

  • Leum

    @Mary Kaye (on sexual ethics): Thank you and exactly. One of my problems with feminist (and LGB) discourse is a tendency, and an understandable one, to say, “The sexual rule is Two(+) Consenting Adults.” Obviously this stems from attempts by sexists, homophobes, and other groups fair and foul to say, “Consent? Bah!”, “Plus, X, Y, Z.”, etc. But I think it shifts our own discussions about sex away from other important topics in that sphere.
    For some time, I was rather worked up over the fact that I felt my ex-boyfriend had had sex with me in a way I considered immoral, even though I had, at the time, consented enthusiastically. I was convinced I must have had some remnant of patriarchal or sexist attitudes towards sex since the literature on sex I was familiar with just hadn’t discussed anything about the ethics of sex beyond two(+) consenting adults. Obviously it isn’t feminism’s fault I had this reaction, isn’t even necessarily a very important topic for feminism (as a man, I’m not really qualified to say), but it is something I feel is missing from the discourse on the political left.
    Incidentally, your pagan perspective isn’t that different from that of certain Buddhist sects. A Zen priest I listened to once said that the Buddhist precept on sex is “Don’t misuse sex” and that while that was often interpreted to mean “no sex outside marriage,” he felt that was woefully incomplete. That you could have sex inside marriage, even consensually, for all sorts of wrong reasons.

  • Richard Dolder

    Now see can’t wholly agree with you here slackavist, I’m a staunch supporter of the rule of law. The laws the law, and it needs to be either obeyed or changed.
    Of course, that would be the difference between me and the RTC’s i guess, my respect and love of law are fundamentally based in laws mutability. If a law does more harm than good you change the law.

  • Mark Z.

    LL: or you could not read a book written by mostly ignorant men over a thousand years as a rulebook or guidebook at all. You could appreciate it as literature and/or a kind of wisdom, but that’s it.
    You’ve mostly failed in your intention to avoid rudeness, but I’ll assume you’re not a troll.
    Parts of this book are a rulebook. Much of the Torah, especially, is the rulebook for the society Moses established. The first step in understanding it, for those of us who care what it’s saying, is to look at it and say “What kind of text is this? It’s a code of laws and religious procedures.”
    (And most of it is not a rulebook, and insisting on reading it as a rulebook is stupid. See hapax’s example. There is not, anywhere in the Bible, a rule about the number of times to forgive someone; there’s a record of a conversation Jesus had with some guy.)
    Now, whether and how we try to follow that rulebook is a separate question which depends on how we see ourselves in relation to the community that wrote the rules. Judaism, for one, sees itself as in continuity with them, but living in different circumstances that require the rules to be adapted, hence Talmud. Christian theology mostly sees Jesus as having obviated the need for the rulebook, but we keep it around for the insights we might gain into either God’s character or the origins of the culture that Jesus came from. I expect that as an atheist you might see it as a data point in the history of law and religion, and not care much about it otherwise.
    Nobody takes the rulebook and follows it as written, because you can’t. The book assumes that there’s a tabernacle where the priests of the house of Aaron are regularly sacrificing sheep, and that if you need clarification on whether you have leprosy you can consult your local Levite, and that men routinely sell their daughters into marriage. That culture is dead.

  • Stillwater

    my respect and love of law are fundamentally based in laws mutability. If a law does more harm than good you change the law.
    But doesn’t this mean that you value the principle underlying the law more than the expression of that principle as the law?

  • Shay Guy

    More than any PARTICULAR expression. But the principle has to have some expression, and you can’t be hasty to declare that yours is better.

  • hapax

    Hell, if more ministers in the Evangelical world would sermonize like you do, I get the feeling that a lot of them would be a lot happier, and there would be a lot more harmony both within that religious sub-culture and between that sub-culture and other sub-cultures.
    “If the kirks a’owre Scotland held like social meetin’s
    Nae warning’ ye’d need from a far-tinklin’ bell
    For a true love and friendship wad draw ye thegither
    Far better than roarin’ the horrors o’ hell.”

  • Lee Ratner

    Jessica, Hapax: Thank you for your answers. I was pretty sure that RTC came from this site but I wasn’t quite sure of it. Jessica, atheist trolls have not increased during your absence but some feel necessary to post.
    Jack Bishop: Personally I think that its not an optimal strategy to lump all the specific social justice laws of the Torah together into a general injunction about being decent to the poor. The author or authors of the Torah, depending on whether you believe it was written by God, Moses, or a group of writers, intended that the laws of the Torah function as an actual legal code. This meant that the laws needed to address specific issues rather than provide general guidelines of behavior. Thats why you have laws about laws about giving the poor gathering rights to fields or on loan securities, etc. The Torah is supposed to be a Constitution/Law Code for the Jewish people and the Talmud and latter writing can be seen as subsequent case law clarifying the meaning of the Constitution/Law Code.

  • http://christinebumgardner.wordpress.com christine (formerly) could not think of a cool name

    I’ve been told exactly that in those exact words — “wishful thinking.” That word “wishful” is revealing, I think. Explore that. Why is it wishful — a thing to be wished for, a desirable, desirous, praiseworthy thing? Quench not that spirit of wishfulness.
    I think wishful thinking is exactly what the world needs more of-
    Thank you for a beautiful post

  • Lori

    @Jotain: Welcome.

    .

    is it just me or has atheism-related trolliness increased since I’ve been gone?

    I think it’s been more of a sporadic thing than a general increase.

  • http://www.punkassblog.com Antigone

    @ Mary Kay and others:
    I think the 2 (+) consenting adults when it comes to liberal/ feminist thinking is more of a general, bullet-point statement AND legal expectation. In plenty of the feminist blogs I’ve read they talk about “pressuring” people into sex and how it shouldn’t just be the absence of a no, but the presence of a “HELL YES”.
    But when it comes to sexual sacredness I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of progressive scholarship on the subject. I mean, I think the left tends to think of expressions of the divine as a highly personal thing. I personally do- I’ve had sex that’s transcendent. I’ve also had sex that was fun and giggly. I’ve also had sex as a major stress relief. I don’t think that sex itself is in-and-of-itself holy (though, I hesitate to use words like that as an Agnostic Atheist in the first place). As a poly person, I think that having sex for revenge or for cheating isn’t bad because you’re having multiple partners, or as any insult to sex itself, but because you are betraying yourself and your partners (if that makes any sense). It’s not JUST the action, it’s the intention behind it.

  • MercuryBlue

    From my pagan perspective, respecting the other person’s personhood is important; keeping your promises and fulfilling your obligations is important; doing what leads to your own and your partner’s health and growth, and not what tends to stunt or sicken, is important; not being the means by which someone else is abused is important. That last one comes up in cases of adultery a lot. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be a tool for revenge or spite. Nor should you make love, which is sacred, as a means to your own revenge or spite, even if it’s consensual.
    Consent is necessary for good expression of sexuality, but I’d say it’s far from sufficient.
    To my way of thinking, adultery is by definition a violation of Alice and Bob’s agreement about their sexual behavior, whether that agreement is “Alice and Bob will only have sex with each other” or “Alice is free to have sex with other women and Bob with other men but Alice and Bob will only have het sex with each other” or “Alice and Bob are free to have sex with whomever they like provided the other one is told beforehand or as soon as possible afterward” or whatever Alice and Bob have actually agreed. The fact that Alice and Bob have made such an agreement means Alice is involved in any sex Bob has and Bob is involved in any sex Alice has whether Alice and Bob are both present or even both aware that sex is happening, so both Alice and Bob need to consent to the sex or the sex is contrary to the fully-informed-consent rule.
    Similarly, if Alice is having sex with Chris for reasons that include pissing off Bob, then Chris needs to know that and consent to it, and regardless of whether Alice and Bob have any currently-extant agreement about sex, Bob’s involved and Bob’s consent is also necessary. But getting Bob’s consent to something intended to piss Bob off is doubtless a futile endeavor, so Alice really ought to not have sex with Chris.

  • http://barkingreed.blogspot.com/ josh

    It’s late, and I’m annoyed about something else so I will jump in.
    First of all, a big burning paper sack of poo on the heads of all you trolls. You need to take your frizzy, neon-colored troll-fros and go elsewhere. You’re as much a barrel of intolerant bigots as is that Fred Phelps guy and those of his ilk. For the record, tolerance means: I disagree with you, but respect your right to your opinion and consider it to be as worth a hearing as my own (even if I think you’ve got marbles-for-brains). Anybody who has an actual brain and uses it to write more than just obnoxious insults knows that these articles take a lot of time and effort to create, and when you come on here and trash the Book that Mr. Slacktivistface has made it abundantly clear he respects and tries to follow with his life you insult him, the Book, and people like me who love that Book as well. Although I may disagree with him on some interpretive points, I still try to honestly wrestle with his arguments. But You, Sirs and/or Madams, are Pig’s Bottoms.
    I’m telling you this only because I ALSO used to be an intolerant fool all the time (now I try to keep it to just late at night). I lived in contempt of the world and it wrecked my life. Abandon love, and you will most likely have to live without it. You don’t want that – so cut it out.

  • Lori

    Similarly, if Alice is having sex with Chris for reasons that include pissing off Bob, then Chris needs to know that and consent to it, and regardless of whether Alice and Bob have any currently-extant agreement about sex, Bob’s involved and Bob’s consent is also necessary. But getting Bob’s consent to something intended to piss Bob off is doubtless a futile endeavor, so Alice really ought to not have sex with Chris.

    This is more or less my take on sexual ethics. Consent isn’t enough, you need informed consent. IMO that means you need to A) do your best to have enough self-awareness to know why you want to have sex and enough self-respect to be honest with yourself about it and B) enough honesty toward your partner(s) to tell them the truth about it. It can be perfectly fine to have sex just because you’re horny but it’s not OK to tell yourself or your partner that it’s true love. It’s fine to have sex because you’ve got wicked insomnia and it’ll help you sleep—as long as your partner knows it’s not a mystical sharing of souls. Etc, etc, etc.

  • mb

    Personally, I don’t consider myself a “troll.” At least, that didn’t motivate my comment today. I am sorry to have offended so many. It’s instructive to me that the power of the Holy Spirit and the Peace the passeth all understanding doesn’t armor you sufficiently against my “trollery.” Those christian conceits never seemed real in my own life when I was an evangelical but I’ve always been nagged by the fear that maybe the problem was me.
    As to my “rude” comment: I don’t think I denigrated Fred’s brains just his failure to employ them earlier in the process. I read this blog regularly, have commented occasionally, so I’m well aware that Fred is no dummy. IMHO, using his prodigious mental power to decode the Bible in order to make it make sense and relevant to today just seems like a waste of that valuable resource.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    ‘Hokay: Izzy’s Guide to Sexual Morals, or Whatever
    My thinking is that sex should involve consenting adults, none of whom is deceiving the others or leading the others on in order to get that consent, and all partners should treat each other well during and afterward. That doesn’t mean you have to call Random One Night Stand Guy or anything, but you should make a game-day effort to make sure your partner has fun, be polite when you’re leaving, and avoid sending mixed signals as far as possible.
    Also, you should sleep with someone primarily because you find them desirable and they feel the same about you. I don’t deny that it’s added a little extra spice to sex, once or twice, to know that it will absolutely burn up Girl I Hate when she hears about it, and that doesn’t bug me, but the guys in question were all guys I’d have done anyhow: the spite was just a bonus. If I’d been sleeping with someone who I wouldn’t give a second thought to otherwise, that would’ve been wrong. I’d have been using him; I’d also have been operating under false pretenses, as I mentioned above.
    If you’re having sex with a friend? Treat them like a friend afterward. No, seriously. Someone you like and hang around with is not the same as someone you met in a bar or on Craigslist and never have to see again. Again, presumably you like them–if you’re just pretending to be friends with someone to get in their pants, you can go fuck off now–and they like you, so…act like it, even after you’ve slept together. If you don’t want a relationship, tell them that. If you’re worried that they’ll get all attached and want kids and a house…ask them. (Do not, for the love of God, assume that a woman will get attached, or will automatically assume that sex=dating, just because she’s female: it’s the twenty-first century, we’ve all seen some cable TV, we know the score.) If you do want a relationship, or want to date someone else, or aren’t sure what you’re feeling, tell your partner all of the above. But do not do the Hey, We’ve Fucked, Now You Don’t Exist thing with your friends, because it sucks.
    Conversely, don’t get pissed off at your partner for not fulfilling expectations they didn’t know about. If you want a relationship, or to be exclusive, or whatever, that’s something you need to tell them. I’m on the default-to-least-meaning side of interpreting ambiguous relationship stuff, but again, if you want to continue seeing someone and not be exclusive or not be working toward a long-term relationship, you should really tell them that too. Communication is good.
    Adultery or infidelity isn’t something I’d do, I don’t think*, but it’s also something I don’t feel comfortable getting too judge-y about as regards other people: I can certainly understand and sympathize with dumping someone for cheating and not wanting to talk to them afterward, even if I wouldn’t do it myself, but I’ve known a few people who stepped out on their SOs and they were perfectly good friends, so I don’t really love the “cheaters are scum” thing that a lot of women’s magazines advocate. (I’m *really* not a fan of blaming the third party, unless said third party actively set out to seduce someone, and even then…people have free will, the person who makes a promise is the person whose responsibility it is to uphold it, and promoting the welfare of other people’s romantic relationships is one of those superrogatory-but-not-obligatory moral things in my view.) That said: in most cases, you should probably break up rather than cheat on your partner. Seriously.
    Along similar lines: don’t date Alice when you’re really in love with Bob. No, not even if Bob’s with Chris. It’s fine to love and have crushes on many different people, and if you get over Bob because he’s with Chris and then date Alice, that’s great…but when you’re dating Alice and you’d dump her in a heartbeat if Bob asked you out, that’s not okay. Not unless you and Alice have talked about the situation and are both seriously fine with it, and that’s…rare.** If you’re dating Alice and you pretend that she doesn’t exist–or that you wish she didn’t exist–every time Bob is around, that’s really, really not okay. No, seriously. Don’t pull that shit. It *sucks* to like someone, think they like you, and then find out that you’re the Generic Brand Version of the person they actually want.
    Generally speaking? There’s a difference between Prospective Long Term Person and Hot Willing Person For Right Now; some of us are absolutely fine with the latter. However, there’s also a difference between Hot Willing Person For Right Now and Convenient Set of Warm Holes, and there are damn few occasions where it’s all right to treat someone, particularly someone you ever think will have to deal with you socially again, like the latter. Masturbate. Or post a Craigslist ad. I don’t need a guy to cherish my innermost being–ew, I just typed that–but I also don’t want to feel like I could be replaced by anyone with a pulse and a cunt. Most people don’t.
    *I don’t want to hurt my boyfriend, and I have an open relationship, so it doesn’t really come up. But I’m human and I can’t say for certain what would happen in a different situation.
    **It usually only works out in cases where Alice is also crushing on Donna and Edward, or is moving across the country in two months and thus is really only in this for fun, or whatever.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    @hapax: Ruth and Naomi were a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Not that that completely rules out a lesbian relationship, but it seems unlikely.
    David and Jonathan, on the other hand? Totally getting it on. ;>

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    mb: Personally, I don’t consider myself a “troll.”
    Not to start up the self-definition thing again, but…I don’t think that matters. Trollishness, like bigotry or assholishness, isn’t one of those things that you can really disclaim with any authority: very few people go around saying “I’m a bigot!” or “I’m an asshole!” (Okay, some people do the latter, but they are That Guy.*)If many, many people are saying you’re a troll…you’re probably being troll-y.
    At least, that didn’t motivate my comment today. I am sorry to have offended so many.
    Um, apologies are more effective if you don’t immediately return to being an asshole. Like, if you could go a whole sentence without it.
    It’s instructive to me that the power of the Holy Spirit and the Peace the passeth all understanding doesn’t armor you sufficiently against my “trollery.”
    Not a Christian, wouldn’t know. Wacky pagan lifestyle totally fails to inure me to asshats on the Internet: film at eleven.
    Those christian conceits never seemed real in my own life when I was an evangelical but I’ve always been nagged by the fear that maybe the problem was me.
    Oh, the problem is you, all right.
    Dude: if you read this blog regularly, you know that Fred is a Christian. You *know* that. You also know he’s a Christian who appears to have put some thought into his faith. Do you really think that “hur hur, if you’re so smart why do you still believe in God?” is going to be helpful to him? To you?
    Also, it’s generally not considered good manners to respond to other people’s thoughts or hobbies or whatever by telling them how they’ve wasted their time or intellect. It’s not your time or intellect, you don’t get to decide how other people spend it. (I, for the record, hate the waste-of-your-brains argument: I had it used on me about nineteen times growing up, in the context of reading fantasy, and I find it to be arrogant and presumptuous on every possible level.) Plus, you’re devoting your brains to telling people that they’re wrong on the Internet.
    *Favorite line: “What are they, going through customs? ‘Anything to declare?’ ‘Why yes, I’m an asshole.’ ‘Oh, well, thank you for letting us know. Have a lovely trip.’”

  • ako

    I’m *really* not a fan of blaming the third party, unless said third party actively set out to seduce someone, and even then…people have free will, the person who makes a promise is the person whose responsibility it is to uphold it, and promoting the welfare of other people’s romantic relationships is one of those superrogatory-but-not-obligatory moral things in my view.
    My inclination when it comes to cheating is to put most of the blame on the person involved in the relationship. If the Other Person doesn’t know they’re involved in infidelity, no blame attaches – I don’t see a moral obligation to play Relationship Detective before hooking up with someone just in case they turn out to have a partner they’re stepping out on.
    If you know the other person’s violating their commitments, and you’re willingly enabling it (which applies not only to being the third party, but to lying to cover for your cheating friend), I think that’s wrong. Not as wrong as breaking your own promises to your partner, but not right.
    Also, I’m very much in agreement that cheating involves violating the commitment made. If it’s an open relationship with a “Don’t keep secrets” rule, then having a secret relationship with another person would be cheating, but one that’s discussed wouldn’t be. And one person’s unilateral desires don’t set the standard: deciding you want to be poly doesn’t mean you’re entitled to sleep around on your partner without discussing whether they’re willing to be in a polyamorous relationship or not, and deciding you want to be monogamous doesn’t mean you get to unilaterally decide that your partner is no longer allowed to date anyone else. It has to be a mutual agreement.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/fearlessson FearlessSon

    To quote Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Laws change, but justice is justice.”

  • mb

    Izzy: Fred is fortunate to have such a defender. You clearly have strong feelings. Feelings that I have hurt. Please accept my sincerest apologies.

  • Mary Kaye

    There’s also–I’m in an open relationship with “Don’t keep secrets.” Have been for 24 years (19 of them married). I hold that it’s not wrong for a person with that set of relationship agreements to sleep around if s/he wants to. But–knowing my personality and my partner’s, it would be a bad idea if I did it, and I don’t.
    For me–I think, for a lot of us–there are plenty of things that would make bad general rules, but are darned useful as personal guidelines or even personal rules. Casual sex while still in this relationship would tie me in twenty kinds of ugly knots, and I know it. Not a good thing to do to myself or my partner.
    That’s something that Catholicism seems to keep a little bit of–you can give something up because it’s virtuous for you to give it up, and no prejudice to what others may need to do, or you yourself at a different point in your life–but not a lot, and Protestant Christianity seems to lose sight of it completely. There’s an ingrained feeling that it’s not wrong for me unless it’s wrong for everyone; and that it’s wrong for everyone if it’s wrong for me. Both are pernicious.
    I get awfully sick if I drink anything containing aspartame, so I shouldn’t. (And believe me, I don’t. Twice was enough.) No reason you shouldn’t, if you don’t share my peculiar biochemistry.
    There are grand moral laws for everyone, sure, but the practical applications can be quite different from one person to another. I think people dislike admitting that because they don’t want to give the lazy and dissolute ammunition to exempt themselves from laws, but we also lose the idea that there are things I specifically should not do even if they are not universally forbidden.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Goddamn, Izzy, I’m bookmarking your rules. I mean yeah, I’ve read them here and there, but this is perhaps the only time I’ve seen them put in quite such a down-to-earth way.

  • ako

    For me–I think, for a lot of us–there are plenty of things that would make bad general rules, but are darned useful as personal guidelines or even personal rules. Casual sex while still in this relationship would tie me in twenty kinds of ugly knots, and I know it. Not a good thing to do to myself or my partner.
    That’s a good point. I think too many people look at what does and doesn’t work for them, and assume it works the same way for everyone. This happens most often when they’re personal rules that get endorsement from mainstream religion (like “Don’t have more than one sexual partner!”), but I’ve also seen people get all “Monogamy only breeds misery! No one should be monogamous!”

  • Emcee

    Personally, I don’t consider myself a “troll.”
    If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
    I am sorry to have offended so many.
    Bull. You’re comment was obvoisly rude (notice, no quotes there), obnoxious and intending to be offensive, that if you didn’t know it, you have a greater disconnect from reality than any of the religious people you claim to be so stupid. And it strikes me as about sincere as the Barbie clone’s apology to the lesbian couple on the last episode of the most recent Amazing Race.
    It’s instructive to me that the power of the Holy Spirit and the Peace the passeth all understanding doesn’t armor you sufficiently against my “trollery.” Those christian conceits never seemed real in my own life when I was an evangelical but I’ve always been nagged by the fear that maybe the problem was me.
    Religious belief (any religious belief, though you seem inordinately focused on one very specific brand of belief) doesn’t make anyone un-human. What you said is going to piss off religious people in exactly the same way as when a religious person implies that atheists can’t be good people because all good works come from a belief in God would likely piss off you. This idea you have that the power of the Holy Spirit, etc. is supposed to keep you from feeling negative emotions, and so because you did feel them, the religion must be the problem, is sort of like saying that baseball is stupid because you can’t hit a home run every time you are at bat. Having unrealistic expectations of yourself is really something you need to deal with. (Yes, I know that some brands of religion do encourage unrealistic expectations, which is also Not Good. But I think the point is obvious.)
    As to my “rude” comment: I don’t think I denigrated Fred’s brains just his failure to employ them earlier in the process.
    oh, and yeah, that’s SO much better [/snark] (Hmmm, actually, that tag is a misnomer, cuz I ain’t done yet…)
    I read this blog regularly, have commented occasionally, so I’m well aware that Fred is no dummy. IMHO, using his prodigious mental power to decode the Bible in order to make it make sense and relevant to today just seems like a waste of that valuable resource.
    So, what exactly on the blog have you read? Just the song list posts? Because nine out of ten posts here do exactly that, either explicitly or implicitly. If you do read it regularly, you’ve apparently missed the point.
    Honestly, you seem to believe that if we could just get rid of this religion thing, everything would be fine, which is wrong on several levels, but most importantly, it isn’t realistic. Religion exists. For millions upon millions of people. To just disregard that isn’t going to convince anyone to listen to you. About anything. So the question is, do you want to be effective, or do you want to sit in an ivory tower, patting yourself on the back for being “right” while the world moves on around you? Because your attitude makes me unwilling to listen to you about much of anything, and I am an atheist. (Well, okay, I identify as Unitarian, but that doesn’t really preclude the atheist thing…)
    Okay, I see Izzy has posted while I was writing this, so I’m guessing she’s addressed this, probably a lot better and more coherently than me. But this is a hot button for me, because a lot of religious people think that atheists are a bunch of elitist snobs who think all religious people are idiots, and have to proclaim so loudly and obnoxiously at every opportunity. Then someone like you comes along to prove them right.

  • Mark Z.

    It’s instructive to me that the power of the Holy Spirit and the Peace the passeth all understanding doesn’t armor you sufficiently against my “trollery.”
    That would be a variant of How to Win an Internet Argument, #7:
    “If you can predict how someone will react, and make them react in various ways, this demonstrates your supreme skill as a puppet master of lesser mortals. The easiest way to do this is to be as deliberately inflammatory as possible, say at the beginning people will react angrily, then point this out as your only response to angry responses.”

  • Lonespark

    This is the kind of sermon it’s worth getting out of bed on Sunday for.
    Yeah. That.
    It kind of reminds me of the church of giving hookers birthday cakes at 3am, in a way.

  • Lonespark

    (This may be why the Midrash is derisively referred to as “Torah fanfic”; many fanfic writers have the same peculiar blend of limitless extrapolation and dogmatic adherence to the literal text)
    Yes, well, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And I’m not just saying it as a fic fan. I thoroughly appreciate that attitude applied to lore and sacred writings. I think it’s good for cultures and individuals as often as not.

  • Lonespark

    I have yet to comprehend in any way a person who can actually read what Fred writes and say “Well, I’m not dumb enough to believe in God, so I’m already smarter and better than you.” It makes me want to convert to something.
    Yeah. It kinda makes me want to convert (revert?) to Christianity. But I guess there aren’t any Heathen trolls, so that would prove less than nothing.

  • Pius Thicknesse

    @Izzy: I need to print a whole new book of Internets for you. ’cause seriously. That’s the best “how to be excellent to each other when wanting to be in a relationship, or just wanting to have pleasant sex” writeup I’ve seen in aaaaages.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    As far as I can tell (and, being atheist, I admit that this isn’t very far), Fred is saying that Christians should interpret the Bible in light of their secular moral and ethical beliefs. If the Bible appears to be violating these beliefs — i.e., if it appears to be telling you to hurt people — then you’re reading it wrong.
    Now, I personally agree with this statement, and applaud it. However, I happen to be convinced already. If I weren’t already convinced, Fred’s argument would sound entirely unpersuasive to me, because all Fred does is keep asserting his point, without supporting it in any way. Sure, according to his faith, the Bible’s main purpose is to spread love and compassion, and the rest is just gravy. But, according to someone else’s faith, the Bible’s main purpose is to spell out a list of rules which Christians should live by — and, furthermore, the actions that Fred considers hurtful, his opponents see as compassionate. Who are you to decide whose faith is correct ?

  • burgundy

    Fred is saying that Christians should interpret the Bible in light of their secular moral and ethical beliefs
    That’s not the impression I’ve gotten. My impression has been that Fred is grounding his interpretation in Christianity, that the underlying principles are the principles that Jesus taught. And he uses, as evidence, Jesus’s own words and actions (e.g. the hanging out with “unclean” people.) So he’s not coming from an outside framework and saying “twist the Bible to fit your ideology” but rather saying “This is how Jesus said we should be in the world. If you are interpreting the Bible in such a way that it prompts you to act in an unChristlike way, and/or if you are reading the Bible in such a way that it seems to be saying something about the world that is demonstrably factually incorrect, then you are reading the Bible wrong.”
    Of course you’ll still get people who interpret the underlying principles differently, which has already come up in the comments. People who are actually Christian and who know the NT (which I do not) can address the specifics. Any time you have two brains looking at the same thing, you’ll have two (or more) different interpretations, so the fact that something isn’t universally shared doesn’t automatically discount it.

  • Realist

    I don’t mean to speak for or in defense of “atheist trolls”, but I do think there are some interesting issues raised in Fred’s critique’s of evangelical culture as to the value of the project as a whole, which are worthy of discussion. If so many people misinterpret the Biblical text; if many, in fact, follow what Fred believes to be its genuine principles worse than non-religious people do, and if, as this post implies, the true principles of the text are universal anyways, then what is the value of the book or the religion? Why should we take it to be important? I don’t mean this in a hostile or leading way; I am genuinely curious how Fred would respond. Fred’s writing on his evangelical brethren is always enlightening, but to a large extent his audience already agrees with him on this issue, and it would be nice to know what he thinks of criticism of his position from the opposite direction.

  • MercuryBlue

    Far’s I can tell, Fred is saying to interpret the Bible in light of:
    “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
    Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

  • karpad

    I’m kind of shocked that we’ve had no reference for Gaming as of yet, and seem so hung up on “atheist trolls” (I’m atheist, but that’s hardly material.)
    A standard rule in RPGs is that where the rules interfere with the game, the rules should be modified, reinterpreted, or ignored. There is some discussion as to whether this produces lazy game design (if you end up having to ignore all the rules all the time, maybe you should have made better rules)
    “This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. If the result is not fun, you’re doing it wrong.”
    “This is the word and the law, as set by god. It is supposed to be righteous. If the result is not righteous, you’re doing it wrong.”
    same principle, really.
    So the question is, is the Jesus of the Gospel Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist?

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    And yet, karpad, there are rules lawyers even so.
    (I’m with you, though.)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    karpad asked:

    So the question is, is the Jesus of the Gospel Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist?

    Narrativist. Most definitely. “The rules were made for the players, not the players for the rules.”

  • Bryan Swartz

    “I want to spare them from irrational readings of the map that cannot be reconciled with the terrain of reality. If your reading of the Bible leads you to assert that homosexuality is a choice when it is not, then you’re reading it wrong.”
    Here’s the problem I see this — please weight in anyone who has an answer. By this logic, wouldn’t a Christian also have to throw the ressurection of Jesus Christ overboard? I mean, is there anything about someone being raised from the dead that we can verify with experience/reason/science etc?
    I find it hard to read this philosophy in a way that does not elevate man to a point of equality with the Bible, instead of the Bible sitting in judgement of man as it should be.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    My impression has been that Fred is grounding his interpretation in Christianity, that the underlying principles are the principles that Jesus taught.

    True, but what did Jesus teach ? Fred says that we should emphasize those of Jesus’s teachings that agree with our own understanding of what goodness is:

    If your reading of the Bible leads you to assert that homosexuality is a choice when it is not, then you’re reading it wrong. If your reading of the Bible leads you to claim that “ex-gay ministries” are effective, rather than delusional and abusive, then you’re reading it wrong. … I’m not asking you to throw away the map. I’m asking you to read it in such a way that it doesn’t force you to pretend the terrain is something it is not and never will be. Pretending will not make it so.

    Why are you “reading it wrong” in this case ? Fred doesn’t really say. He does say that Jesus’s teachings about love conflict with these erroneous conclusions — according to Fred’s faith. According to someone else’s faith, they do not. In addition, Fred sees the Bible (or, perhaps, merely most of it) as secondary source; he’s saying, “if the Bible seems to be saying something you know to be false — from non-Biblical sources — then you’re reading it wrong”. Again, I agree with his conclusions, but his argument still doesn’t hold water.
    Or, to put it more harshly: there is no definitive answer to the question, “what did Jesus teach ?”. There are only individual interpretations, based on faith.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Bryan Swartz said:

    I find it hard to read this philosophy in a way that does not elevate man to a point of equality with the Bible, instead of the Bible sitting in judgement of man as it should be.

    Huhwhat? This is like saying, “The law sits in judgment of people”. No it doesn’t — the court sits in judgment. You know, the court… which is composed of thinking beings. Who sometimes must decide between following the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.
    Seriously, the only thing that’s capable of “sitting in judgment” is a thinking being. Not any book of rules… even if (assuming for the sake of argument) that book of rules was composed by that selfsame judging being way way back.

  • Emcee

    Why are you “reading it wrong” in this case ? Fred doesn’t really say. He does say that Jesus’s teachings about love conflict with these erroneous conclusions — according to Fred’s faith. According to someone else’s faith, they do not.
    What Fred seems to be saying is that these erroneous conclusions conflict with fact. Therefore, if you think the Bible supports those conclusions, you are reading it wrong. For instance (to use the example that I embarrassed myself on a few threads back), if you read the story of Adam and Eve and come to the conclusion that men have one less rib than women, you are reading it wrong, because men and women have the same number of ribs, and this can be proven. If you insist on believing your interpretation instead of fact, you are doing it wrong.

  • Emcee

    Why are you “reading it wrong” in this case ? Fred doesn’t really say. He does say that Jesus’s teachings about love conflict with these erroneous conclusions — according to Fred’s faith. According to someone else’s faith, they do not.
    What Fred seems to be saying is that these erroneous conclusions conflict with fact. Therefore, if you think the Bible supports those conclusions, you are reading it wrong. For instance (to use the example that I embarrassed myself on a few threads back), if you read the story of Adam and Eve and come to the conclusion that men have one less rib than women, you are reading it wrong, because men and women have the same number of ribs, and this can be proven. If you insist on believing your interpretation instead of fact, you are doing it wrong.

  • Emcee

    Ugh, sorry for the double post. Durn TypePad…

  • Emcee

    I’m up way too late and have way too much time on my hands, so apologies to everyone whose tired of reading my comments.
    Here’s the problem I see this — please weight in anyone who has an answer. By this logic, wouldn’t a Christian also have to throw the ressurection of Jesus Christ overboard? I mean, is there anything about someone being raised from the dead that we can verify with experience/reason/science etc?
    Well, (not that I’m a Christian, but…) having not met many other Sons of God, it would be hard for me to know what would be normal for that particular entity. If I had met several, and none of them had been raised from the dead, then I suppose there might be some issue in believing that in the face of the evidence. Now, if I believed that Jesus was mortal, and since no mortals have ever been raised from the dead, I could throw out the ressurection. But since believing Jesus was mortal would kind of be a problem with being a Christian, it would be something of a moot point.
    As for the second part of the post, what ShifterCat said.

  • Bryan Swartz

    re: ShifterCat:
    “the only thing that’s capable of “sitting in judgment” is a thinking being. Not any book of rules”
    True, but I didn’t mean ‘sitting in judgement’ that technically. Obviously God is the one who sits in judgement in this case, not the Bible itself. But as God has declared the Bible perfect and a key instrument by which we measure ourselves ….
    Perhaps I can make the same point I was trying to make differently. By setting up this dichotomy between reality and a particular interpretation of the Bible, man’s opinions are made equal to those in Scripture. The Christian way of thinking is that a person should come to the Bible to learn how to live and to have their thinking changed — that’s the conflict I’m referring to.

  • Bryan Swartz

    ” if I believed that Jesus was mortal, and since no mortals have ever been raised from the dead, I could throw out the ressurection. But since believing Jesus was mortal would kind of be a problem with being a Christian, it would be something of a moot point.”
    Actually the view is that Jesus was mortal in the sense that he became fully man. He could be killed like any man(if God allowed it, and He did). So it’s just like a man being killed, take Lazarus also. How can we believe either of them were raised from the dead?
    The reason I bring up this example is that Fred clearly believes in the ressurection; indeed, the Bible’s rather repeatedly clear on the point that Christianity is a fool’s fantasy if it did not happen. But yet it runs into the same logic problem being used here to bludgeon the ‘anti-gay’.

  • Mark Temporis

    Re: The Resurrection. Easy. Determination of death has only been a really accurate science in the twentieth century. Before that, it was a game of ‘best guess’, with large numbers of people seriously worried about being buried alive.
    Best history I’ve read about this was a book called ‘Stiff’.

  • Leum

    Re: The Resurrection. Easy. Determination of death has only been a really accurate science in the twentieth century. Before that, it was a game of ‘best guess’, with large numbers of people seriously worried about being buried alive.

    I’ve always hated that sort of explanation. It allows the literal facts presented in the Gospels to be true, but it makes the themes and ideas behind them false. I’m not a Christian, so maybe I’m totally off-base, but I think a purely spiritual resurrection (as advocated by certain Gnostic sects) and the Gospel writers using a bodily resurrection as a metaphor better fits Christianity, better fits the point of writing a Gospel, than does a miscalled death. I have similar views on the parting of the Red Sea, attempts to make Genesis 1 work by changing the length of time a yom lasts, etc.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    First of all, a big burning paper sack of poo on the heads of all you trolls. You need to take your frizzy, neon-colored troll-fros and go elsewhere. You’re as much a barrel of intolerant bigots as is that Fred Phelps guy and those of his ilk. For the record, tolerance means: I disagree with you, but respect your right to your opinion and consider it to be as worth a hearing as my own (even if I think you’ve got marbles-for-brains). Anybody who has an actual brain and uses it to write more than just obnoxious insults knows that these articles take a lot of time and effort to create, and when you come on here and trash the Book that Mr. Slacktivistface has made it abundantly clear he respects and tries to follow with his life you insult him, the Book, and people like me who love that Book as well. Although I may disagree with him on some interpretive points, I still try to honestly wrestle with his arguments. But You, Sirs and/or Madams, are Pig’s Bottoms.

    It is entirely possible for all of the above to be true, and yet for the trolls to be right and the polite people to be wrong. It’s not inevitable, mind you, just possible.

  • Fraser

    Bryan: “Perhaps I can make the same point I was trying to make differently. By setting up this dichotomy between reality and a particular interpretation of the Bible, man’s opinions are made equal to those in Scripture. The Christian way of thinking is that a person should come to the Bible to learn how to live and to have their thinking changed — that’s the conflict I’m referring to. ”
    No, as Fred’s pointed out, our opinions are always involved–”the opinions in scripture” are based on our opinions of what it’s saying.
    And as a Christian I have no problem with believing that Jesus as son of God could rise again. I know plenty of people who believe that if anything in the Bible is questioned, then Jesus’ sacrifice is disproved, but I don’t see it that way.
    Mary Kay, if you’re not seeing anyone else, how is your relationship “open”? If you don’t mind my asking.
    Izzy, joining in the applause.
    Josh: ” For the record, tolerance means: I disagree with you, but respect your right to your opinion and consider it to be as worth a hearing as my own (even if I think you’ve got marbles-for-brains). ”
    Entitled to a hearing, maybe. I’ve argued with lots of people whose views are not worth hearing (did you know Christians are as oppressed in America today as jews in Nazi Germany?) but I’ll still tolerate them talking (albeit while talking back).

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Bugmaster: Believing that most concepts of God have some truth to them in the abstract–blah blah light through a lens blah blah blind men and elephant blah blah–I use the knowing-the-tree-by-the-fruit test, personally. If your interpretation of your faith makes you a better, kinder, more responsible person, that’s a strong argument for there being some validity to it. If your interpretation of your faith makes you an intolerant asshat, a Special Snowflake attention whore, or, well, Tom Cruise, your faith probably is wrong.
    Or your faith is right and God is actually a Cosmic Horror, in which case I’ll still refrain from worshiping Him until I take sufficient SAN damage, thanks.
    mb: Less a case of hurt feelings, more a case of being grouchy. But thank you for the compliment and the apology.
    Ako: I can see that point of view. Not one I subscribe to myself, entirely–been the other woman a time or two, don’t know precisely what the guy’s arrangements were, haven’t lost sleep over it in the years since–but certainly can see where you’re coming from with that. My own view tends to be that your commitments are your business and your problem, but I’m pretty isolationist from a social perspective. On the other hand, if I’m sleeping with a friend and I know he has something else going on, I do feel obligated to at least ask “…so, you sure you want to do this?” and let him know that I’ll understand if not.
    Pius and ShifterCat: Thanks! I was drawing heavily from This Tomato Nation article, though trying to make it gender-neutral. (And I don’t agree with the women-take-things-more-personally deal, but hey.) Glad it came out well!

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Also agreeing with Ako that “cheating” is violating whatever commitment you made, whether that’s “don’t sleep with other people,” “tell me about it beforehand,” or, conversely, “make damn sure I never find out”, and with Mary Kaye on things being right for some people and not for others.
    And thanks, Fraser!

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @mb-
    Probably should’ve started using your brains a bit earlier in this post. It might have inspired you to avoid the Bible in the first place which would have greatly simplified your search for a coherent and practical moral code.
    Implying that anyone who doesn’t hold your exact worldview isn’t using their brains is BEYOND insulting especially after such a thoughtful post as that one. If you really didn’t think people would find that little comment assholish, then perhaps you should work on your social skills there, Skippy.
    I am sorry to have offended so many. It’s instructive to me that the power of the Holy Spirit and the Peace the passeth all understanding doesn’t armor you sufficiently against my “trollery.”
    Following your supposed “apology” with another dig, kind of takes all of the juice out of the apology. I don’t think that the Holy Spirit’s purpose is to keep me from being offended by jerks on the internet, but hey what do I know? I obviously never use my brain. Next time you apology try not adding a second little barb after it. It might work better.
    Really the only thing you could do to be more of an asshole is maybe link to some blasphemous cartoons or use the term “sky daddy.” We theists just love it when atheists use that term. That NEVER gets old.
    Those christian conceits never seemed real in my own life when I was an evangelical but I’ve always been nagged by the fear that maybe the problem was me.
    That’s fine but not everyone is you, so stop treating the world like that’s the case.
    As to my “rude” comment: I don’t think I denigrated Fred’s brains just his failure to employ them earlier in the process.
    Implying that anyone who has religious belief must park their brain at the door. Nope, not insulting at all.
    IMHO, using his prodigious mental power to decode the Bible in order to make it make sense and relevant to today just seems like a waste of that valuable resource.
    Well, that’s YOUR opinion but obviously not his opinion or my opinion or the opinion of most people here. If you think the post is a waste of time, I suggest you not read it and go elsewhere.

  • Will Wildman

    So people keep on talking about “Why waste your time decoding the Bible?” and these sorts of things. “If it were any good, you wouldn’t have to ‘decode’ it.” To which I would first say: the entire professional body of lawyers and constitutional scholars would like a word with you.
    All law gets interpreted. You could, in theory, have no written laws and then just tell the police and the courts “Don’t let people be evil” and hope for the best, but that’s probably not going to work out for more than a single very quiet lunch hour somewhere. So we have a document, and a lot of people whose job it is to work out exactly how the current circumstances best map onto the words found in the law.
    Someone following Fred’s technique while developing US law over the centuries would look at institutionalised racial segregation, say “Oh, wait, all men are created equal contradicts and takes precedence over this; we’ve misapplied our core laws here.” Eventually they might get around to the ‘men’ bit too.
    Someone following the LOLCHRIST Protocol* would say “Racial segregation is bad, so the law is bad. I can’t believe you’re going to try to reinterpret the law based on some 200-year-old scrap of parchment. Let’s just burn down the whole union and start over with some sensible principles.”
    The Bible gets interpreted, rather than thrown out, because people believe it has proven itself to have significant value, and because it’s built into a vast and important structure. There is more good to be had from figuring out errors than in starting from scratch, especially if Fred is right and it does contain words inspired by the omnibenevolent omnipotent eternal being running the universe.
    Yet another commonality between RTCs and atheist trolls is that they seem to think if you can’t apply the Bible as an intricate, justification-free rulebook, it’s worthless.
    *Is this a better name for a rock band or a brick-sized international conspiracy thriller?

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Will, you rock.

  • jam

    Ben at 8:04 had it correct. Most (if not all) of the passages against homosexuality in both the OT and NT had more to do with not being like the Caanites or the idolators in the Greek world. God’s people are supposed to be separate (unique) from the rest of the world. Other nations might exploit the poor—God’s people should not. Other religions might encourage temple prostitution and other lewdness in tribute to their gods (think Molech and the burning of babies in large woks)—God’s people must refrain from such practices.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    Will, I live in a state that rewrote its constitution via a constitutional convention some 35 years ago. Scrapping a constitution and writing a new one is not such a far-fetched idea.

  • Brenda

    Fred,
    That was awesome. I’m glad I have some free time today. I’d like to give this some more thought.
    I wish you were my pastor…..
    Brenda

  • Will Wildman

    I live in a state that rewrote its constitution via a constitutional convention some 35 years ago. Scrapping a constitution and writing a new one is not such a far-fetched idea.

    And can be a great idea if the people think the original document has completely failed them. More info on your particular circumstance would be great:
    -What prompted the rewrite?
    -How different was the new document? Which fundamental laws were changed?
    -Has there been a noticeable change in the character or function of the populace, the government, or the judiciary since the rewrite?
    -Did anyone involved have reason to believe the original document was inspired by the divine influence of a loving god?
    (That last bit is relevant in the case of the Bible, because in spite of my atheism, it would be jerky of me to tell Christians to act on the assumption that their foundational scripture isn’t inspired by God, since that is both a premise and a conclusion relevant to their beliefs – if they’re right, then the rational conclusion is that it must contain the philosophy of living a good and right life, if you can avoid misreading it. We can drop that as a condition if you’d prefer, but it will of course make for a harder sell to anyone who tries to follow Christianity.)

  • Emcee

    *Is this a better name for a rock band or a brick-sized international conspiracy thriller?
    Posted by: Will Wildman | Jun 12, 2010 at 09:22 AM
    Will, you rock.
    Posted by: Izzy | Jun 12, 2010 at 09:40 AM
    Or brick, depending on which option you choose.
    And this would have been a lot funnier if I had come sooner after Izzy’s post…

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    Yet another commonality between RTCs and atheist trolls is that they seem to think if you can’t apply the Bible as an intricate, justification-free rulebook, it’s worthless.

    To expand on your point, I notice a great deal of overlap between RTCs and Constitutional originalists, where the latter elevate the document and the Founding Fathers to godhood. I’m not a legal scholar, so when I suggest that originalism may not have any credible basis in legal scholarship, that is simply my guesswork. My suspicion is that the trollish type of atheists are usually people who were exposed to only the RTC take on scripture while growing up, or people who tend to be very literal-minded in general, or some of both. With the former, they were likely told that Word of God must not be questioned. Either way, they’re assuming that the only two positions possible with scripture are either originalism or complete rejection. That’s the same false dichotomy practiced by the “Word of Jefferson/Madison” Constitutional originalists.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    in spite of my atheism, it would be jerky of me to tell Christians to act on the assumption that their foundational scripture isn’t inspired by God, since that is both a premise and a conclusion relevant to their beliefs – if they’re right, then the rational conclusion is that it must contain the philosophy of living a good and right life, if you can avoid misreading it.

    I agree about the first part. I’m not sure about the second part, since I wouldn’t assume that a god’s philosophy on living would necessarily be about living a good and right life. But that’s only my perspective outside of the interior logic of those Christians’ beliefs. Maybe I’m like one of those engineers who enjoys taking things apart to see how they work, whether it’s a device or a philosophy, and I’ve said before that my knowledge of philosophy is lacking.

  • JE

    Tonio: I think it’s more “what’s the point?”. If you first need to find out what’s right and then find out how the bible supports doing the right thing, why not cut that step and just go do the right thing because it’s right

  • Will Wildman

    If you first need to find out what’s right and then find out how the bible supports doing the right thing, why not cut that step and just go do the right thing because it’s right

    Do you avoid jail by memorising the entire legal code and checking all of your decisions against it? Probably not. Obviously the idea is to act on whatever the right thing is, rather than constantly referencing the book. Sometimes the right thing isn’t obvious. Sometimes there are two things that seem to be right but are in conflict, and it can help to get someone else’s thoughts (ie God) on resolving that conflict. Sometimes we need a reminder of some right things that we could do but haven’t had time for lately. Sometimes we need inspiration or advocacy, and sometimes we run into other people with a different concept of what the right thing is and we need a strong argument with which to convince them that they’ve not considered the whole situation.

  • JE

    I didn’t say I agreed, only that it’s another possibility that Tonio didn’t mention

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    -What prompted the rewrite?
    -How different was the new document? Which fundamental laws were changed?
    -Has there been a noticeable change in the character or function of the populace, the government, or the judiciary since the rewrite?
    -Did anyone involved have reason to believe the original document was inspired by the divine influence of a loving god?

    Re your first question, I believe what prompted the rewrite was there having been so many amendments to the constitution that it was getting unwieldy. BTW, this is the 11th state constitution.
    Re the other two questions, the state got rid of the Head and Master provision in its community property law, but I think that was in legislation passed after the Constitution was passed. The other stuff, I don’t know.
    Re your fourth question, this is the Preamble:

    We, the people of Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political, economic, and religious liberties we enjoy, and desiring to protect individual rights to life, liberty, and property; afford opportunity for the fullest development of the individual; assure equality of rights; promote the health, safety, education, and welfare of the people; maintain a representative and orderly government; ensure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; and secure the blessings of freedom and justice to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.

  • Lee Ratner

    JE: Why is the right thing, the right thing? Humans contemplate and think about ethics and morality because we want to know why something is right rather than just follow gut instincts and feelings, which can often lead to bad results. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    If you first need to find out what’s right and then find out how the bible supports doing the right thing, why not cut that step and just go do the right thing because it’s right

    That misses the point of Fred’s post. Will’s point could easily be translated into a secular one – one doesn’t have to hold any particular sectarian belief to appreciate some of the moral principles that Jesus espoused. Simply believing that something is right is the RTC stance, which is really authoritarianism wearing a clerical collar. My argument is about applying principles to moral questions and thinking about why something is considered right.

  • Will Wildman

    I didn’t say I agreed, only that it’s another possibility that Tonio didn’t mention

    In that case, the ‘you’ becomes a generic second-person ‘you’ (which I always try to avoid doing, but so it goes this time) and I apologise for the assumption.
    —
    Incidentally, I just read the list of That Guys that Izzy posted on the previous page, which was fantastic, and felt I was mostly clear (either sure I wasn’t a thing, or thought “Ah yes, have to remember not to do that”) except on one point that came up a couple of times: Much-Too-Late Confession Of Past Love That Only Appeared To Be Complete Boredom Guy. I’d appreciate some help here in trying to understand the circumstances, if other people have a clear idea of what they’re describing. I’ve had pretty much exactly that, with the confession-of-love (old but not past) to someone who thinks I’m rather emotionless.
    I can understand why; between a combination of autism-spectrum traits and many circumstances in life when I’ve needed to train myself not to display/react emotionally, I can come across as sort of robotic. (I’m also completely not wired to pick up on body language without heavy conscious effort, usually days later.) There are times when I can kind of break through and ‘act normal’, but it can feel awkward and abrasive, like shouting in a cathedral. I try not to expect anyone else to pick up on emotional signals that I’m not sending, and I try to be explicit and honest about my feelings when I do want them recognised – is there still something I’m not understanding about how it’s got to work before people can feel comfortable around me, or what?
    (And it if seems like I’m treating the board as my therapy group, feel free to say so and move on to something more interesting, like OMG THEY DID NOT JUST DO THAT TO RORY AND AMY.)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Bryan Swartz said:

    Obviously God is the one who sits in judgement in this case, not the Bible itself. But as God has declared the Bible perfect and a key instrument by which we measure ourselves ….

    Isn’t Christian teaching that the Bible was written by “divinely inspired” humans, not directly by God? Because any time you get a human influence in there, it can’t be “perfect”.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
    Holy crap, I hate this quote.
    I agree with the rest of your point, Lee, but I HATE this quote. The following is not directed against you, but against this quote.
    Worth is a highly subjective and relative quality. “Worth” living to whom, dammit? I’m pretty sure that most people who don’t much examine their lives find them worth living regardless, or the suicide rate would be higher. Just because old Socrates would rather give up his life than philosophy doesn’t mean anyone else is required to feel that way. It’s crap, and virtually the only time the quote is used (outside of discussions of Socrates’ trial) is to sneer at someone the quoter thinks is DOIN IT RONG. Nobody knows what goes on inside another person’s head, nobody knows whether another person has actually examined their life or in what ways.
    I hate this quote.
    is there still something I’m not understanding about how it’s got to work before people can feel comfortable around me, or what?
    I’m sorry, hon, but it’s difficult for people to be comfortable around people who don’t pick up on body language and social cues, and who don’t use the same ones they do. People who understand about your problems well enough may be patient enough to get to know you and get used to you and get comfortable that way, but most people aren’t going to do any of that. It’s a shame, but it’s the way we’re wired, and just like it takes a lot of work for you to overcome your wiring, it takes a lot of work for us to overcome ours. Most people don’t even know that it’s a possibility, or why it might be a good idea. :(

  • hf, Supreme High Lamb-y Dragon-y Person of Christians for the Antichrist

    He does say that Jesus’s teachings about love conflict with these erroneous conclusions — according to Fred’s faith. According to someone else’s faith, they do not.
    I couldn’t understand this at first but I guess you likely meant we don’t know the teachings of Jesus. As it happens, this matters not at all. We also have Paul (who definitely existed and wrote this particular doc) explicitly calling love the principle behind the whole law.
    Thus, we have no reason to spend any time considering a biblical literalist who attributes some of the law to a different principle (as another poster hypothesized). We only need deal with literalists who do not believe we should look for principles at all. In order to ignore the clear words of Paul, RTCs must assert that love cannot conflict with the rules — because the rules are perfect, and if they seem to work against their own guiding principle then look behind you, a three-headed monkey!

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a5ea6499970b Michael Rinschler

    LOLCHRIST

    I can’t help but imagine that being something like this (possible blasphemy alert?).

    Isn’t Christian teaching that the Bible was written by “divinely inspired” humans, not directly by God? Because any time you get a human influence in there, it can’t be “perfect”.

    Christian teaching is a bit scattershot on this, actually. It ranges from “God forced people to write exactly what he wanted the text to say down to the letter” (possibly or not in 16th-century English) to “people wrote down about the events God had a part in, but weren’t inspired themselves”. Those who are of the opinion that the Bible is infallable and perfect tend to lean far towards the former, naturally.

  • MaryKaye

    Fraser, my relationship is “open” in the sense that when we started it, we sat down and explicitly worked out the groundrules: and they were “Don’t take a lover without telling your partner. If you slip up and do, tell your partner *immediately*.” Every once in a (long) while we check in on those rules, and they still sound good.
    But, as it happens, they’ve never been used. I’ve thought about it a few times and always come to the same conclusion about the twenty kinds of ugly knots; and apparently he’s naturally monogamous because he doesn’t even (as far as I know from what he says) go that far.

  • Lonespark

    Off topic, but Jesus-related: slacktivites on facebook, I just shared a video of my brother in Jesus Christ Superstar a few years back. It makes me squee.

  • P J Evans

    Bryan Swartz said:
    Obviously God is the one who sits in judgement in this case, not the Bible itself. But as God has declared the Bible perfect and a key instrument by which we measure ourselves
    I think I missed the part where God made that declaration. Where is it again? (The closest I’ve seen is something like ‘I had a vision and in the vision I was told to say …’)

  • MaryKaye

    I get frustrated with people who say “If you’re allowed to interpret, the rules are useless.” If you aren’t allowed to interpret you can’t even obtain the rules! You can’t just take “Thou shalt not kill” and apply it; you *have* to figure out what “kill” means. Can you kill a microbe? Can you kill a plant? Can you kill an animal? Can you kill an enemy if you’re a soldier in wartime? Can you take a patient off life support if he asks you to do so?
    What sense does it make to call the cultural default answers to the first three (sometimes four) questions “just following the rule as written”? You had to interpret the words to get even that far. And there are certainly defensible arguments for not killing animals or foes, even though most Christians are willing to do so.
    So, maybe you go back to the Hebrew and decide the word is “murder” and not “kill.” Simpler, yes. But now you have to define “murder” and several of the questions above still apply.
    “Just follow the rules as written,” in religion as in RPGs, seems in my experience always to be a cover for “Just do what I tell you.” You never can just follow the rules as written, you always have to interpret; the person who denies this is trying to smuggle in his or her own interpretation as the correct one, without having the guts to come out and admit it.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    MaryKaye said:

    “Just follow the rules as written,” in religion as in RPGs, seems in my experience always to be a cover for “Just do what I tell you.” You never can just follow the rules as written, you always have to interpret; the person who denies this is trying to smuggle in his or her own interpretation as the correct one, without having the guts to come out and admit it.

    QFT.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “No, as Fred’s pointed out, our opinions are always involved–”the opinions in scripture” are based on our opinions of what it’s saying.
    And as a Christian I have no problem with believing that Jesus as son of God could rise again. I know plenty of people who believe that if anything in the Bible is questioned, then Jesus’ sacrifice is disproved, but I don’t see it that way.”
    Yes, our opinions are always involved with anything. But that’s not really relevant to what I was saying. When you put reason/experience etc. on the same level with the Bible(i.e., if my opinion of one of them conflicts with my opinion of the Bible, I’m reading it wrong) as Fred has done, then what you’ve done is make your reason/experience of equal validity/authority to the Bible. This is awful hard to square with Prov. 3:5-6, among others: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”
    Back to the resurrection, I’m glad you have no problem believing it but my question is why? How can anyone who follow’s Fred logic of compare the Bible to reality believe in it? Doesn’t our experience with no man ever being raised to life require us to reinterpret the Bible in a way(i.e, we’re reading it wrong) that something else happened or is meant in all those passages where someone is raised to life that doesn’t involve an actual ressurection? If we reinterpret the Bible to fit our perception of reality, isn’t this a necessary hermeneutic?
    ShifterCat and PJ Evans want an explanation of the Bible is perfect argument. II Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is inspired by God: the word translated inspired there literally means God-breathed. God used men to write the Bible, and their personal distinctives certainly come through, but if it is God-breathed, God is ultimately the author of all of it. Jesus declared in John 10:35 that ‘Scripture cannot be broken’. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.

  • Launcifer

    Prov. 3:5-6, among others: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

    That’s not entirely the same as “trust in the veracity of some people who wrote various theosophical and historical tracts a few millennia ago on the assumption that they were inspired by God”*, though, is it? I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but God didn’t write the Bible. There are moments where I doubt he even inspired the chaps who did so. He’s in there, sure, but He comes across as a bit of a bastard with occasional bouts of handwringing, throughout most of it – a bit like Malory’s Lancelot.
    I know you raise Timothy’s point here, but how much of the Bible is actually Scripture, in that sense? Okay, the whole thing is accorded that status, but I fail to see how lists of a particular king’s antecendents are particularly instructive. Ditto the Song of Solomon, for example (much as I happen to like it). It’s all well and good saying that the whole thing’s divinely inspired, but if God inspired Ezekiel, then God doesn’t half inspire some lunacy in His followers.
    Also, if it’s all divinely inspired, then God must, albeit implicitly, be okay with interpretation, given how much is allegorical, coded, or otherwise related in parable and fable form. He can’t allow for so much that requires interpretation without accepting the possibility that people are going to end up interpreting the lot through various prisms of experience and understanding. To do otherwise would be remarkably hypocritical – then again, God did kinda cheat by pilfering three sets of believers in the first place.
    Here endeth the ramble.

  • hapax

    Ruth and Naomi were a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Not that that completely rules out a lesbian relationship, but it seems unlikely.
    I agree with you, personally; but considering the fact that absolute indifference to female sexuality is pretty much the rule for the Scriptures, it’s ambiguous. The relationship as presented certainly seems to be committed and intimate in a way that most romantic couples aspire to — the lovely passage where Ruth declares her love to Naomi is often used as the basis for religious wedding vows, both among lesbians and heterosexual couples, which is why I referenced it.
    When you put reason/experience etc. on the same level with the Bible(i.e., if my opinion of one of them conflicts with my opinion of the Bible, I’m reading it wrong) as Fred has done, then what you’ve done is make your reason/experience of equal validity/authority to the Bible.
    But this isn’t what Fred is saying. He doesn’t say: “Pick out a verse. Does it conflict with reason / experience? Then the Bible is wrong.” He says, “Pick out a verse. Does your understanding of it conflict with reason / experience? Then maybe you should think about it a little more.”
    He goes into greater lengths in other posts about what “thinking about it” entails. But it isn’t anything like “imposing my outside morals upon the text.” It’s more like how the ability to understand context, narrative, themes,, etc. lets me understand that in the famous passage in HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Huck isn’t damning himself to Hell — in fact, quite the opposite.
    People don’t like this, because it’s hard mental work, and because it’s ambiguous. We want things to be easy and explicit, and get mad when two different answers seem equally “right.” But such a rulebook wouldn’t conform to reality, either, because the truth is that people are complicated, and convoluted, and contradictory, and there are no certainties in this universe.
    Not even death. Which is why I have no problem with the Resurrection.
    Jesus declared in John 10:35 that ‘Scripture cannot be broken’. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.
    Er. That’s *your* interpretation. Because in the “literal” sense (in context) that would have Jesus declaring that the Scripture endorses polytheism. Which would be a … novel interpretation of that passage.

  • MercuryBlue

    Bryan, you just said that the Bible says the Bible is authoritative and you believe the Bible is authoritative because the Bible says so. Circular arguments aren’t all that convincing.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    He doesn’t say: “Pick out a verse. Does it conflict with reason / experience? Then the Bible is wrong.” He says, “Pick out a verse. Does your understanding of it conflict with reason / experience? Then maybe you should think about it a little more.”

    I picked up on that as well. Bryan’s argument presumes that scripture is an authority, or at least is authoritative. If I read Fred’s argument correctly, he’s saying that scripture is not in itself an authority, or that it’s authoritative in a different way from Bryan’s stance.

  • KnightHawk

    Will: “(And it if seems like I’m treating the board as my therapy group, feel free to say so and move on to something more interesting, like OMG THEY DID NOT JUST DO THAT TO RORY AND AMY.)”
    Dude, have you even been around this place? People around here are sympathetic and helpful as hell pretty much all the time. As for your question….yeah, I totally didn’t get that one either. But then again, I kinda felt that while both the women in that “That Guy” conversation had a point, they both also happened to be the female versions of “That Guy”.
    And before anyone says it, I’m not new, I just haven’t posted since we had that conversation about Rick Warren and Obama’s inauguration, so there’s no danger of me killing ya’all with sheep.
    Love. Peace. Metallica.

  • hagsrus

    Well of course I had to google LOLCHRIST and this one cracked me up.
    http://tinyurl.com/2d3kl27

  • Harvey

    “The Torah is supposed to be a Constitution/Law Code for the Jewish people and the Talmud and latter writing can be seen as subsequent case law clarifying the meaning of the Constitution/Law Code.”
    When insulin first became available in the late 1920′s, any believing Jew who also was diabetic had a serious religious/ethical problem. Insulin was derived from pigs’ pancreas and was, therefore “unclean”. Since it says in the Torah/Talmud/Midrash that if one’s health or survival would be risked by fasting on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), it is not only permissable to eat, but is actually a sin not do so to protect one’s health, a panel of Rabbis decided that the same PRINCIPLE applies to the use of a life saving drug that seems otherwise to violate the LAW.
    This, I think, illustrates precisely how and why the Jewish concept of interpretation of the law (Talmud/Tanach/Midrash) to make it better fit reality and the changes therein as our history progresses from the time in which that law was first promulgated not only makes sense, but might very well be significant in our understanding of why Jesus (who was a Rabbi and would have had knowledge of Talmud and its principles) saw fit to “interpret” the laws that the Pharisees of his time held so dear.

  • Fraser

    Bryan: “Back to the resurrection, I’m glad you have no problem believing it but my question is why? How can anyone who follow’s Fred logic of compare the Bible to reality believe in it? Doesn’t our experience with no man ever being raised to life require us to reinterpret the Bible in a way(i.e, we’re reading it wrong) that something else happened or is meant in all those passages where someone is raised to life that doesn’t involve an actual ressurection? If we reinterpret the Bible to fit our perception of reality, isn’t this a necessary hermeneutic? ”
    My perception of reality is quite comfortable with the resurrection because it doesn’t rule out divine intervention per se. It does rule out Genesis because there’s hard evidence against the creation story (in fact, arguing that “well we’ve never seen a man raised from the dead” sounds a lot like “well, we’ve never seen anything evolve.”).
    MaryKaye, that makes sense. I’ve been contemplating a similar relationship for two characters in the book I’m working on (though their relationship’s changing and it probably won’t turn out like that).

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    What Fred seems to be saying is that these erroneous conclusions conflict with fact

    What is “fact”, though ? Sure, in case of ribs, the answer’s pretty simple, we can just count them. But more complex issues, such as the age of the Earth or the curability of homosexuality, cannot be as easily verified. From the point of view of a layman, it’s the Bible’s word against some scientist’s. Fred is saying that a scientist’s word is more authoritative in this case, but he doesn’t say why.

    If your interpretation of your faith makes you a better, kinder, more responsible person, that’s a strong argument for there being some validity to it.

    I think that the vast majority of theists, of any faith, do believe that their particular faith makes them “a better, kinder, more responsible person”. I find myself hard-pressed to imagine a non-fictional person who says to himself, “my faith makes me miserable and evil, and that’s the way I like it ! Ia Shub-Niggurath !”. Of course, some people believe that being a “better, kinder, more responsible person” entails campaigning against abortion and homosexuality, whereas others believe the opposite — but both sides believe that they’re doing the right thing.

  • TenorMom

    Dear Ones — re: the Books of Moses (esp. Leviticus & Deut.) as RULEbooks for the poor. All of us posting are quite articulate (relatively speaking:-}); I know that I can be. Yet when I was married to my (formerly a lawyer, now a judge) husband, he *always* got his way in any discussion/disagreement because he could out-argue me. Many (not all) “poor” people need the protection of rules because without them the one who argues the better will take over the poor folks land, sheep and family. They manage to do it well enough even with rules…
    Brilliant blog, BTW

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I couldn’t understand this at first but I guess you likely meant we don’t know the teachings of Jesus. As it happens, this matters not at all. We also have Paul (who definitely existed and wrote this particular doc) explicitly calling love the principle behind the whole law.

    As Fred has already pointed out, some people choose to focus on Paul’s lists of rules, believing that these rules must be explicitly followed by any Christian who wants to live his life as lovingly as possible.

    I get frustrated with people who say “If you’re allowed to interpret, the rules are useless.” If you aren’t allowed to interpret you can’t even obtain the rules!

    The problem with religious books specifically, though, is that they are sufficiently vague to the point where you can interpret them in a wide variety of ways, based on your pre-conceptions (or “faith”, if you prefer). I know this because, at this very moment, there exist hundreds of conflicting interpretations of the Bible (and similar books), all of which are considered to be equally authoritative by their followers.
    Contrast this situation with our present body of law, which someone mentioned previously. The vast majority of it is non-controversial, and it is written in a fairly unambiguous (though, obviously, not entirely unambiguous) way. In the vast majority of cases, it is possible to construct a legal argument regarding the interpretation of any particular passage, whose validity would be independent of any lawyers’ individual beliefs about what’s moral and what’s not. Thus, our legal system is not entirely analogous to the Bible… Maybe it’s closer to the Torah, I don’t know.

  • Heather

    Interesting that the very week I get forwarded your blog on this subject by a friend, I also get to see the excellent documentary called “For the Bible Tells Me So” about this very subject. I highly recommend it to all your readers, the lovers and haters alike. It might be harder for the people who send you hate mail to argue with a host of religious leaders across our country reiterating the very same arguments you make in favor of not “reading the Bible wrong.”

  • hf, Supreme High Lamb-y Dragon-y Person of Christians for the Antichrist

    As Fred has already pointed out, some people choose to focus on Paul’s lists of rules, believing that these rules must be explicitly followed by any Christian who wants to live his life as lovingly as possible.
    Er, yes, and? I’m saying that in order to make that claim one logically has to assert that these rules can never go against the principle of love, which Paul calls primary. That seems to me like a pretty secular, scientifically testable claim. And as we see in LB, it requires them to distort not just the Bible but the word “love” in ways that would horrify Big Brother.

  • hapax

    Contrast this situation with our present body of law, which someone mentioned previously. The vast majority of it is non-controversial, and it is written in a fairly unambiguous (though, obviously, not entirely unambiguous) way.
    Well, yes, but that’s because the vast majority of it was written (or updated) to explicitly and unambiguously codify Our Current Situation.
    A challenge!
    Craft a law to prohibit — oh, let’s say jaywalking — that will have literal, non-controversial relevance and applicability six thousand years from now.

  • Karen

    Regards to all English Slactivites on the World Cup match. That was a wonderful game, and I hope we meet again in the finals.
    You may now return to your regularly scheduled flame war.

  • Lee Ratner

    Harvey, Jesus could not possibly have knowledge of the Talmud since the Talmud was not written down in the 500s. The Midrash, the base of the Talmud, wouldn’t be written down for nearly a century passed after Jesus died. To say that Jesus had knowledge of the Talmud is anachronistic at best. Also Jesus was not a Rabbi since the office of Rabbi was still in the formation process of the time and because Jesus did not have Rabbinical ordination.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    Contrast this situation with our present body of law, which someone mentioned previously. The vast majority of it is non-controversial, and it is written in a fairly unambiguous (though, obviously, not entirely unambiguous) way.
    Well, yes, but that’s because the vast majority of it was written (or updated) to explicitly and unambiguously codify Our Current Situation.
    A challenge!
    Craft a law to prohibit — oh, let’s say jaywalking — that will have literal, non-controversial relevance and applicability six thousand years from now.

    Why? Who expects the laws that we are writing now, for our particular level of technology and cultural norms, to be in use, let alone revered, 6,000 years from now? I can imagine that some archeologists and sociologists would be interested in what the laws of the late 20th and early 21st century were, and might even find some underlying principals that they would find relevant to their own law-making, but I for one would not expect them to consider our laws as some kind of Holy Writ to which their laws must conform, one way or another.

  • Elizabby

    When I first read this, my initial response was: [applause!]
    I’ve just finished reading it again, and my more considered response is now: [standing ovation!!]
    The only sad part of all this happiness is that I think I’d get kicked out of some of my communities for linking this post there. :(

  • Fraser

    Coleslaw: ” Craft a law to prohibit — oh, let’s say jaywalking — that will have literal, non-controversial relevance and applicability six thousand years from now.
    Why? Who expects the laws that we are writing now, for our particular level of technology and cultural norms, to be in use, let alone revered, 6,000 years from now? I can imagine that some archeologists and sociologists would be interested in what the laws of the late 20th and early 21st century were, and might even find some underlying principals that they would find relevant to their own law-making, but I for one would not expect them to consider our laws as some kind of Holy Writ to which their laws must conform, one way or another. ”
    Actually we’ll probably have a lot in common: No theft, no murder, no rape, no arson. The third of these is the only one where the concept has undergone serious transitions over the years.
    And if there are streets and vehicles, jaywalking will probably still be a no-go.

  • F

    There are streets and vehicles in the United Kingdom, you know, and no such crime as jaywalking.

  • Loquat

    Much-Too-Late Confession Of Past Love That Only Appeared To Be Complete Boredom Guy. I’d appreciate some help here in trying to understand the circumstances…
    I wasn’t one of the women involved in that discussion, but my interpretation would be a guy who doesn’t show any interest in a woman when she’s available, and only declares his long-hidden love after she’s gotten involved with another man. A classic example is a letter to an advice columnist I once read, from a fellow who’d agreed to be the best man at his best friend’s upcoming wedding but had long been attracted to the bride, asking whether it might possibly be a good idea to tell the bride about his feelings and find out if she returned them. (Needless to say, the advice columnist did not encourage him to do so.)
    Also, hello slacktivist people. I won’t be killing anyone with sheep, but I make no promises regarding llamas.

  • Bryan Swartz

    re: Launcifer
    “Okay, the whole thing is accorded that status, but I fail to see how lists of a particular king’s antecendents are particularly instructive.”
    Not to us, but they are to the Jews. For example the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew etc. are very important to demonstrate to those of the Jewish faith that Jesus qualifies as a king, who must be from the line of David.
    “It’s all well and good saying that the whole thing’s divinely inspired, but if God inspired Ezekiel, then God doesn’t half inspire some lunacy in His followers.”
    I don’t follow what your point is here.
    “, if it’s all divinely inspired, then God must, albeit implicitly, be okay with interpretation, given how much is allegorical, coded, or otherwise related in parable and fable form”
    That’s why the Holy Spirit is required to guide us into all truth. We can know nothing spiritually without it being revealed to us. See, for example, the explicit explanation by Jesus in Matthew 13:10-17 of why He spoke in parables. The fact that interpretation is required does not preclude certainty of truth: if it did, Jude 3, the wellknown statement that the truth will set you free, etc. make no sense.
    re: MercuryBlue — I’m not using circular reasoning. For someone who believes the Bible, it has to be authoritative. It is of course possible to reject it completely. Someone who doesn’t believe in the Bible’s authority at all is a different conversation, but Fred clearly does.
    re:Fraser
    “My perception of reality is quite comfortable with the resurrection because it doesn’t rule out divine intervention per se. It does rule out Genesis because there’s hard evidence against the creation story ”
    So then you would disagree with Fred’s point on homosexuality, since divine intervention is possible there as well, correct?
    A key problem with ruling out Genesis is that Jesus specifically endorsed the entirety of the OT(particularly in the Sermon on the Mount). He specifically referred to Abel as a historical person, and quoted Gen 2:24 among other passages as truth. Paul talked a great deal about Adam, again as a historical person, not some allegory or myth. So if Genesis isn’t true, then both of them are liars and we can’t trust anything they’ve said.

  • Kubrick’s Rube

    Hapax,
    If I write a jaywalking law- or any other law- I hope it’s revised, amended, refined, clarified, etc, over the next 6,000 years. I’d prefer that to having the same word-for-word injunction parsed ad infinitum and hoping the principle comes through intact.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “But this isn’t what Fred is saying. He doesn’t say: “Pick out a verse. Does it conflict with reason / experience? Then the Bible is wrong.” He says, “Pick out a verse. Does your understanding of it conflict with reason / experience? Then maybe you should think about it a little more.”
    No, he says if it conflicts you are reading the Bible wrong. The point is, by doing this you elevate your perception of reason/experience above your perception of the Bible. In this way the Bible is removed from it’s proper place and human experience/science/reason etc. is put there.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    Fraser, I didn’t say, “Craft a law to prohibit — oh, let’s say jaywalking — that will have literal, non-controversial relevance and applicability six thousand years from now”, hapax did. That’s why I had it in block quotes.

  • MercuryBlue

    I don’t remember offhand what reason Fred has for believing the Bible is authoritative, but I’m fairly certain “because the Bible says the Bible is authoritative” isn’t it.
    So then you would disagree with Fred’s point on homosexuality, since divine intervention is possible there as well, correct?
    I’m not following.

  • Fraser

    F, point taken.
    Bryan: “Not to us, but they are to the Jews. For example the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew etc. are very important to demonstrate to those of the Jewish faith that Jesus qualifies as a king, who must be from the line of David. ”
    Of course, since Jesus had no blood relationship with Joseph–if I recall, that was his supposed link to David’s line–then that didn’t happen, did it?
    “”My perception of reality is quite comfortable with the resurrection because it doesn’t rule out divine intervention per se. It does rule out Genesis because there’s hard evidence against the creation story ”
    So then you would disagree with Fred’s point on homosexuality, since divine intervention is possible there as well, correct?”
    Huh? Divine intervention to what? That makes no sense.
    Bryan: “A key problem with ruling out Genesis is that Jesus specifically endorsed the entirety of the OT(particularly in the Sermon on the Mount). He specifically referred to Abel as a historical person, and quoted Gen 2:24 among other passages as truth. Paul talked a great deal about Adam, again as a historical person, not some allegory or myth. So if Genesis isn’t true, then both of them are liars and we can’t trust anything they’ve said. ”
    If you’re referring to his statement that he isn’t annulling the law of the prophets, then we’re back to all the other stuff in the OT, such as not eating shellfish. And, of course, usury. What’s your take on Fred’s point that the people who feel charging interest–even uxorious interest–is fine but Biblical prohibitions on sexual behavior are mandatory.

  • MercuryBlue

    Hey wait a minute. Bryan, did you seriously just say that either Adam and Abel were historical figures or Paul and Jesus were liars? What resources did Paul and Jesus have access to that might tell them whether Adam and Abel were historical figures? We have evidence that human civilization is rather older than six thousand years, we have evidence that the human population was never smaller than a few thousand, so we can be fairly certain Adam and by extension Abel weren’t historical figures. Paul and Jesus had the Book of Genesis, which assured them that Adam and Abel were historical figures. Paul and Jesus might have been wrong, but they weren’t lying.

  • Launcifer

    Paul and Jesus might have been wrong, but they weren’t lying.

    Actually, if there wasn’t a literal creation and propagation story as offered in Genesis, then Jesus may have a problem, what with being God made flesh and all that. It might work if he was deliberately using a device that he personally knew to be untrue in order to explain a wider point to his audience, but still – there is the possibility for something slightly screwy. Then again, it’s not as if it’s that great a leap from something like this to the parable of the sower.
    Paul’s different on the face of it, though. I can accept Paul’s reasoning without necessarily accepting the facts as he understood them. I can interpret those differently without losing anything from Paul’s conclusions, because I can take a look at the world as he understood it and give him credit for showing his work. To do otherwise feels a bit like junking calculus because Newton didn’t properly account for the anomolous orbit of Mercury in his model of the solar system.

  • ako

    The point is, by doing this you elevate your perception of reason/experience above your perception of the Bible. In this way the Bible is removed from it’s proper place and human experience/science/reason etc. is put there.
    It’s not elevating them above your perception of the Bible, it’s incorporating them into your perception of the Bible.
    For instance, if you read the King James version of the Bible, you can find more than one reference to the four corners of the Earth. Now if you perceive this passage as being a literal description, and put that interpretation of the Bible ahead of what reason, experience, and scientific evidence tell you, then you end up believing, contrary to all evidence, that the planet has corners (and is either a flat square or a tetrahedron).
    But if you take Fred’s approach, you see and acknowledge that the world does not, in fact, have corners. Which means that believing in the four literal corners of the Earth is reading it wrong. And furthermore, you see that “The four corners of the Earth” is a common figure of speech for “The whole world”, and has been used by people who were fully aware that the world doesn’t have corners. So you get an interpretation where the evidence of the world around you, and the evidence of the text fit together.

  • MercuryBlue

    My brother began to dictate in his best oratorical style, the one which has the tribes hanging on his words.
    “In the beginning,” he said, “exactly fifteen point two billion years ago, there was a big bang and the Universe–”
    But I had stopped writing. “Fifteen billion years ago?” I said incredulously.
    “Absolutely,” he said. “I’m inspired.”
    “I don’t question your inspiration,” I said. (I had better not. He’s three years younger than I am, but I don’t try questioning his inspiration. Neither does anyone else or there’s hell to pay.) “But are you going to tell the story of the Creation over a period of fifteen billion years?”
    “I have to,” said my brother. “That’s how long it took. I have it all in here,” he tapped his forehead, “and it’s on the very highest authority.”
    By now I had put down my stylus. “Do you know the price of papyrus?” I said.
    “What?” (He may be inspired but I frequently noticed that the inspiration didn’t include such sordid matters as the price of papyrus.)
    I said, “Suppose you describe one million years of events to each roll of papyrus. That means you’ll have to fill fifteen thousand rolls. You’ll have to talk long enough to fill them and you know that you begin to stammer after a while. I’ll have to write enough to fill them and my fingers will fall off. And even if we can afford all that papyrus and you have the voice and I have the strength, who’s going to copy it? We’ve got to have a guarantee of a hundred copies before we can publish and without that where will we get royalties from?”
    My brother thought awhile. He said, “You think I ought to cut it down?”
    “Way down,” I said, “if you expect to reach the public.”
    “How about a hundred years?” he said.
    “How about six days?” I said.
    He said horrified, “You can’t squeeze Creation into six days.”
    I said, “This is all the papyrus I have. What do you think?”
    “Oh, well,” he said, and began to dictate again, “In the beginning– Does it have to be six days, Aaron?”
    I said, firmly, “Six days, Moses.”

    –”How It Happened”, Isaac Asimov

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Will: Offhand–being none of the women involved in the conversation at the time either–I’m inclined toward Loquat’s interpretation. (I also like the name. We had a loquat tree in our backyard when I was growing up.) I don’t *think* they’re talking about simple missed cues: even people who are pretty good at reading social situations can end up misinterpreting things, especially where something as tricky as romantic interest is involved. (I myself, though pretty aware of it when Sketchy Guy is Being Sketchy, am veeery slow to catch on or let myself believe that guys I like are actually into me.)
    Without knowing you or your social group, I’m not sure what advice to give you. I myself am a lot more comfortable with unemotional-appearing people than with the ones at the other end of the spectrum, who have no grasp of personal space or volume control. That said, if you’re interested in someone, I think the best thing you can do is be straightforward in that situation: “So, I’m kind of attracted to you, but I’m not really great at flirting. Would you like to have coffee sometime?” would be fine by me–even if I rejected the guy for other reasons, I would respect the approach.

  • Lee Ratner

    Self-correction on my post about Jesus and the Talmud. The Mishneh is the base of the Talmud not Midrash.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Huh? Divine intervention to what? That makes no sense.”
    He said verses on homosexuality should be re-interpreted based on his observation that homosexuality is not a choice, people aren’t cured of it by ex-gay ministries, etc. If you believe in divine intervention, don’t you have to believe that God could change a person’s sexual desires?
    “What’s your take on Fred’s point that the people who feel charging interest–even uxorious interest–is fine but Biblical prohibitions on sexual behavior are mandatory.”
    I wasn’t going to bring this up because I wanted to limit the number of cans of worms going on at once, but I think his claim that the Bible clearly prohibits interests in all cases is flatly and demonstrably not true. I don’t see how one can maintain that position in light of the parable in Matthew 25:26-27, as one example. There the servant is condemned for NOT going to a bank and earning interest.
    I think Fred has set up a false dichotomy on this issue between teaching on usury and reality. However, if the Bible had universally condemned interest, then not using interest would be the appropriate response.
    Shellfish etc. are a different issue. There are some elements of OT law that Jesus specifically said no longer apply: dietary requirements are the clearest among them.
    “Of course, since Jesus had no blood relationship with Joseph–if I recall, that was his supposed link to David’s line–then that didn’t happen, did it?”
    Jesus was still the legal heir of Joseph, even though he wasn’t Joseph’s son.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Paul and Jesus might have been wrong, but they weren’t lying.”
    As far as believing what the Bible says though, the difference is immaterial. If they were wrong, they still aren’t reliable as a source of truth, which makes everything they say about the way of salvation, the kingdom of heaven, etc. untrustworthy.
    “It’s not elevating them above your perception of the Bible, it’s incorporating them into your perception of the Bible.”
    You can’t really do one without the other(see below).
    ” if you take Fred’s approach, you see and acknowledge that the world does not, in fact, have corners. Which means that believing in the four literal corners of the Earth is reading it wrong.”
    And that’s exactly what I have a problem with. What you just described is in fact elevating your perception of the world around you above your perception of the Bible. If you considered them to equal you would have to say maybe I read the Bible wrong, maybe my observation of the world is wrong. By jumping to the conclusion I must be misunderstanding the Bible, you put your perception of the world on the throne.
    What I think is appropriate is to re-evaluate whenever such conflicts are seen. But re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?

  • Danielle

    Nobody takes the rulebook and follows it as written, because you can’t. The book assumes that there’s a tabernacle where the priests of the house of Aaron are regularly sacrificing sheep, and that if you need clarification on whether you have leprosy you can consult your local Levite, and that men routinely sell their daughters into marriage. That culture is dead.
    This is certainly a good way to look at the bible and the rules therein, but it rather raises the question why those now-unfollowed rules were put in the bible in the first place. Didn’t God know that, two thousand years on, most people wouldn’t be priests in the house of Aaron sacrificing sheep, or have a local Levite to consult on skin complaints? Things like, to take a random example, stoning a girl to death if she refuses to marry her rapist. It may have been acceptable to the general populace back then, but nowadays we- well, most people- consider such a suggestion morally abhorrent. If our morals come from God, then presumably God also considers such a rule abhorrent, so why was the rule given to Moses and the Hebrews in the first place? Yes, such things were the custom of the time, but God is supposed to be an eternal font of goodness and absolute moral perfection (as far as I understand it. Please correct me if I’m wrong). To quote Stephen Fry, “You can’t say ‘we didn’t know any better at the time, because nobody else did’. Then what are you for?”
    P.S. I’m not trying to be a troll and apologise if if I’ve inadvertently come off as such. These are things I’d really like an answer to from a Christian perspective, but my Christian friends all seem reluctant to discuss these sort of things with me because they’ve not done formal study of the bible, and say I should ask a priest or theologian instead.

  • MercuryBlue

    Praying the gay away demonstrably does not work. Even assuming for sake of argument that God exists and is capable of changing people’s sexual orientation, he clearly does not do so.
    Basing rules on the hypothesis that God can change people’s sexual orientation seems kind of like basing my July budget on the hypothesis that ten thousand dollars will land in my bank account in two weeks: sure, it’s possible, but it’s not exactly likely, and acting as though it’s a certainty is gonna cause a world of hurt.

  • P J Evans

    Bryan said
    ShifterCat and PJ Evans want an explanation of the Bible is perfect argument. II Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is inspired by God: the word translated inspired there literally means God-breathed. God used men to write the Bible, and their personal distinctives certainly come through, but if it is God-breathed, God is ultimately the author of all of it. Jesus declared in John 10:35 that ‘Scripture cannot be broken’. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.
    Completely missed my point, I think. I didn’t say the Bible wasn’t inspired by God (although there are places where I have my doubts).
    Where did God say that the Bible is perfect?

  • ako

    What you just described is in fact elevating your perception of the world around you above your perception of the Bible.
    I bolded that, because that’s sticking out at me. Elevating your own personal perception of what the Bible says too highly sounds more like arrogance than anything else. There seems to be this weird “putting God first”=”putting the Bible first”=”putting my personal perception of the meaning of the Bible first” assumption you’re making, and I don’t see why. They don’t sound like the same thing to me.

  • MercuryBlue

    If they were wrong, they still aren’t reliable as a source of truth, which makes everything they say about the way of salvation, the kingdom of heaven, etc. untrustworthy.
    The US plays Spain in the World Cup tomorrow. The forty-second episode of Supernatural had a lot of callbacks to the pilot episode.
    I’m probably wrong on the World Cup thing. (I don’t even know if Spain is in the World Cup.) Does that have any bearing on whether I’m a reliable source of truth on the Supernatural thing?

  • Fraser

    “Huh? Divine intervention to what? That makes no sense.”
    He said verses on homosexuality should be re-interpreted based on his observation that homosexuality is not a choice, people aren’t cured of it by ex-gay ministries, etc. If you believe in divine intervention, don’t you have to believe that God could change a person’s sexual desires?”
    No. I could, for example, believe Jesus was a special redemptive event and that God does not normally intervene. Or that he does intervene, but there’s no sign he does it by turning gays straight (or for that matter by turning straights gay). Or I could believe that it’s theoretically possible he could and might intervene to change someone’s sexual orientation but there’s no evidence that he does so–I’m no more convinced by someone who says God Made Me Straight than someone who claims Satan Made Me Cheat On My Wife.
    As to what I actually believe: I think God may intervene, mostly by nudging (the voice in your head that says “No, you really need to pull off and take a nap before driving the rest of the way home.”). However, there’s no way as a human being that I can see a systematic underlying logic (i.e., why he intervenes in some cases–if he does–and not others where the need is great), which may mean I’m wrong, or that it all makes sense. So therefore there’s no way to extrapolate and say “if God performed intervention X, then clearly he must also intervene in Y.” So no, I personally don’t believe it.
    As for the OT references, I wouldn’t be at all troubled by the idea Jesus isn’t cosmically aware and doesn’t “know” the origin of the universe (assuming you’re correct and he did sign off on it–my memory of that is a bit faded). It’s quite possible for him to be the Son of God, perform miracles and not be omniscient (the assertions taht some of those then living will see hm show up might be another example).

  • Launcifer

    But re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?

    Yes, but surely there would come a point where Occam’s Razor might apply? I suppose, under this notion, that Biblical “truth” would supercede this particular notion, but it does seem a damn sight easier to throw out a thousands of years old text, whatever its alleged provenance, in favour of whatever alternative evidence has since been accrued. In that sense, I’d only be doing what I suggested Paul did in a previous post: taking whatever evidence he had to hand and reaching the most logical conclusions he could, based upon that evidence. If, for example, thinking that the world was shaped like a cube buggered up my understanding of numerous laws and principles in physics, geography, history and the like, then I’m going to respectfully suggest that the cube idea might be incorrect, because there’s an awful lot of evidence to the contrary. That doesn’t mean that my understanding is in some way more truthful, but it is the best that I can do with the evidence – as I understand it – before me.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Didn’t God know that, two thousand years on, most people wouldn’t be priests in the house of Aaron sacrificing sheep, or have a local Levite to consult on skin complaints?”
    Yes, God knew. A blood sacrifice was required for sin. The OT sacrificies foreshadowed Christ, and are un-necessary after his death and ressurection because now the penalty has been paid for all.
    “If our morals come from God”
    I wouldn’t say it’s at all accurate to say most modern morals come from God. Our ideas of love are GREATLY different from His, for example.
    “Where did God say that the Bible is perfect?”
    I’m not sure how I can answer it more directly at all. If Jesus says Scripture can’t be broken, that not the smallest stroke of a pen will pass away until all if fulfilled, if Paul says that all Scripture is God-breathed … how could God more directly say that the Bible is perfect?

  • MercuryBlue

    I’m trying to figure out whether finding one of the lists of internal contradictions in the Bible and asking Bryan to explain them would count as a thread derailment.

  • Launcifer

    I’m probably wrong on the World Cup thing. (I don’t even know if Spain is in the World Cup.) Does that have any bearing on whether I’m a reliable source of truth on the Supernatural thing?

    Of course it does, because – as any football fan would know – Spain are European Champions and qualified for the World Cup at a canter. Furthermore, the USA played the only team with a comparable qualifying record to Spain – England – and drew one all. The USA fielded a player called Edson Buddle, named after another famous Edson: Pelé. Pelé is perhaps the greatest footballer ever known and, therefore, arguably a god (unless you come from the English Midlands, in which case God’s name is Brian Howard Clough). If you can’t be trusted to know that a man anointed in a god’s image is playing for your own team, how can we trust your understanding of a television programme which will probably shortly be killing that selfsame god for the third time this series?
    Not that I think there’s some failure of logic inherent in the other side of this debate or anything ;) .

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Praying the gay away demonstrably does not work. Even assuming for sake of argument that God exists and is capable of changing people’s sexual orientation, he clearly does not do so.”
    A friend of mine who has told me it is a choice and whom I’ve spent a considerable amount of time discussing these things would disagree with you. I’ve seen this happen. But of course this is beside the fundamental point, which has nothing to do with whether or not God actually does this.
    “It’s quite possible for him to be the Son of God, perform miracles and not be omniscient”
    Not at all. The Bible is clear on the fact that Jesus was very much involved in creation. It also says things like being God, he knew the hearts of all men. He both knew creation and was omniscient.
    “Elevating your own personal perception of what the Bible says too highly sounds more like arrogance than anything else.”
    How is it in any way arrogant, but elevating your perception of the world more highly is not?

  • MercuryBlue

    Dammit, Launcifer, laughing this hard hurts!

  • Francis D

    Not at all. The Bible is clear on the fact that Jesus was very much involved in creation. It also says things like being God, he knew the hearts of all men. He both knew creation and was omniscient.
    And yet the bible is full of rubbish on some issues. The bible is plainly an unreliable narrator and can not be taken at face value.
    How is it in any way arrogant, but elevating your perception of the world more highly is not?
    Because you can test your perception of the world. You can say “If this is true then logically this must follow” and check that. To start with the Bible is to start with the assumption that one source is right. To start with the world is to start with the assumption that you do not know and do the best you can.
    And on what basis do you elevate your version of the bible over the other versions of the bible, the Talmud, the Qua’ran, the teachings of Zoroaster or Buddha, or any other religious book you care to name?

  • Launcifer

    Dammit, Launcifer, laughing this hard hurts!

    I aim to please ;) .

  • ako

    How is it in any way arrogant, but elevating your perception of the world more highly is not?
    Looking at what reason and evidence says is admitting you might be wrong. New evidence crops up all of the time, and you have to keep re-evaluating things, if you’re going to keep up with the constantl influx of new information and changing perception. It’s placing yourself as a fallible human being who doesn’t have a perfect understand of everything. You can’t use reason and experience to judge things without constantly being open to the possibility that you’re mistaken.
    Reading through the Bible, and insisting that your perception trump any and all subsequent evidence of how the world works seems like assuming that your ability to understand God is so great that you can’t be wrong. Assuming that one human’s perception of a book that’s been translated and re-translated repeatedly for thousands of years is so perfect that you can safely elevate it above all other evidence is holding a really high opinion of the value of your own truth-finding skills.

  • MercuryBlue

    Okay, so one person has successfully prayed the gay away. That doesn’t make it a good idea to assume everyone is capable of praying the gay away. Just like there are lottery winners, but it’d be stupid to make economic decisions based on everybody winning the lottery.

  • ako

    Just like there are lottery winners, but it’d be stupid to make economic decisions based on everybody winning the lottery.
    Or to make the assumption that only bad people don’t win the lottery, losing means that God’s punishing you for not loving enough, and refusing to play is an act of wanton wickedness.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    What MercuryBlue says, and also this: even if people *are* capable of “choosing” their sexuality, in one form or another–and I’d emphasize that we only have Bryan’s friend’s word that this actually happened, and indeed Bryan’s word that his friend said this at all–what kind of God would require people to deny a part of themselves that isn’t hurting anyone?
    I’m not a Christian. People like Fred and hapax make me sorry about that sometimes. People like you, Bryan, make me very, very glad.

  • Fraser

    Bryan, I’m inclined to argue your point about the interest in Matthew–which was brought up on a previous thread–supports Fred’s broader argument about perception.
    Fred’s quoted Bible verses that flatly ban interest. Matthew appears to contradict it. We have to apply some sort of personal perception to reconcile the two because the Bible doesn’t resolve the contradiction.
    And as Fred’s pointed out, many Biblical literalists and inerrantists will switch gears when convenient. The story of Joseph breeding spotted cattle by letting them copulate in front of a spotter stick, for instance: A friend of mine assures me that “obviously” this isn’t literally what happened, even though she insists Genesis Must be taken literally. Or the conservatives who reject the woman taken in adultery story as an interpolation.

  • Mr. Cales

    @ Launcifer’s “Occam’s Razor” comment:
    You have a good point. And truth is, much of the Bible must simply be tossed; a lot of it, written as a guide for people who lived many centuries ago, just doesn’t apply to us. In that, the cube analogy is correct. But I submit that Occam’s Razor is not so easily applied here.
    The parts of the Bible people like me and Fred wish to toss are actually quite minor- one or two passages here, one or two over there. Really, they only seem to be such “major” portions of the Bible because they are the only parts anyone ever talks about. There is much that remains, much that is exactly what draws people like me and Fred to the Bible in the first place. Charity, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners… hell, the very idea of a God who would not forget a man who had given a child a drink of water. The values espoused in much of the Bible are still good today. These are the values we absorb and reflect on in our faith.
    These are often the values, curiously, that no one talks about, because fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Atheists have so much bet on making sure we talk about the parts of the Bible that are obviously wrong these days. Fundamentalist Christianity maintains its control over its many, many peons by making sure they have a bias against reality and for their preacher, while fundamentalist Atheism uses the same passages to point out to everyone else what goddamn fucktards the fundamentalist Christians are, in the hopes of spreading that completely true observation to all other religious belief.
    Note on Atheism: I don’t think anyone capitalizes that word, and it occurs to me that this is a great indignity, since we capitalize everyone else’s religious beliefs, usually, so I’m going to start capitalizing it.
    The Bible is not so clear-cut as anyone here, except perhaps Fred, gets. It’s not just relentless gore, bloodshed, and OT God doling out the harshness, like a lot of people believe. It’s also not just fluffy bunnies and sunshine meadows, which is what a lot of other people seem to believe. It’s deep, complex, and requires thinking about, which actually fits my bill for a religious book very well.
    So, to go back in this long-winded post; your Occam’s Razor is quite valuable in many situations. But there is too much to this book, and the religion based on it, for the argument to truly apply. Often, we can cut away parts of the Bible; we have before, and we sort of need another overhaul these days to do it again. Parts are added.
    And some parts remain. Issues of religion, ethics, morality and thought are never easy to solve; the simplest answer is often the wrong one.
    So those are my basic thoughts on the matter.

  • Steve Morrison

    Mary Kaye, the quote from Tolkien is from his essay “On Fairy-Stories” and can be found here. The elaboration on it by Lewis is IMO also very interesting, and I quoted it a while ago in this Usenet post.

  • Harvey

    Lee:
    The basics of the Talmud were promulgated during the Babylonian expulsion (i.e. the time of Daniel and the destruction of the first Temple). This certainly preceded the time of Jesus by many years. The use of the term Rabbi when referring to Jesus is usually understood in the sense of learned teacher, rather than in the more modern usage, which may or may not involve formal “ordination”. In any event, Jesus (if he existed as we are told by the New Testament) would have understood the Talmudic concept of finding guidance in the Torah to apply to day to day ethical conundrums, even when the precise problem was not actually referred to literally. Hence, the idea of applying the principle underlying the Law rather than its word for word statement, as is done by some more recent theologians and, occasionally, in the application of our own Constitution.

  • Mr. Cales

    Steve, that quote is bloody awesome.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “I’m trying to figure out whether finding one of the lists of internal contradictions in the Bible and asking Bryan to explain them would count as a thread derailment.”
    I’m happy to provide my email for such purposes if you are interested in an exchange on this. I’ve studied several such lists in the past and found them to be more humorous and tragic than anything else. But I value few things more than the pursuit of truth. If I’m wrong about the Bible I’d definitely want to know it, because if the Bible is not the authoritative Word of God I’m wasting my life and as Paul said, I deserve to be pitied more than all men.
    “The bible is plainly an unreliable narrator and can not be taken at face value.”
    That’s a more fundamental issue than this discussion. Fred’s point presupposes the truth of Scripture.
    “what kind of God would require people to deny a part of themselves that isn’t hurting anyone?”
    I need to answer this a little more personally, Izzy. I greatly regret that my comments make you glad you aren’t a Christian. I hope you reconsider that. But there is no such thing as ‘a part of themselves that isn’t hurting anyone.” All the decisions we make affect both ourselves and all those around us. Any sin is destructive to our soul, which is far more important than our self-esteem, health, prosperity, etc.
    What this statement really says is you want a God in your image. That your morality is more valuable/esteemable than God’s. Some would say it is unloving for God to condemn that attitude — but in fact that is the only loving thing He can do, and that’s why I’m being so direct about this. Surrendering to God’s wisdom is an essential first step for growth in anything.

  • ako

    I don’t think anyone capitalizes that word, and it occurs to me that this is a great indignity, since we capitalize everyone else’s religious beliefs, usually, so I’m going to start capitalizing it.
    I don’t think that’s a good idea. We generally capitalize religions, and while atheism is a belief about religion (and could be considered a religious belief in that sense of the word), it’s not a religion, or equivalent to one. And a lot of atheists have bad associations with people drawing too close of an equivalence as 1) it leads to inaccurate assumptions (such as the idea that there’s a whole atheist dogma, above and beyond “There is no god”, that atheists are obliged to adhere to), and 2) it’s evocative of the snotty “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist” conversion attempts that many of us get subjected to.
    I’m just one atheist, but I’d personally rather not have people start capitalizing it.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “you have to keep re-evaluating things, if you’re going to keep up with the constantl influx of new information and changing perception. It’s placing yourself as a fallible human being who doesn’t have a perfect understand of everything.”
    I totally agree, but this has nothing to do with the point. I agree that re-evaluating things is good. I don’t agree with the hierachy of putting reason/experience/science ahead of the Bible.
    “Assuming that one human’s perception of a book that’s been translated and re-translated repeatedly for thousands of years is so perfect that you can safely elevate it above all other evidence is holding a really high opinion of the value of your own truth-finding skills.”
    Not at all. It’s holding a really high opinion of the Bible vis a vis other sources. Again, ‘one’s human perception’ applies to all other possible sources of evidence as well. This is what faith is: holding God as infinitely reliable and valuable, which doesn’t mean jettisoning logic or science or the real world or any of that. On the translation issue, we translate from better and more numerous source documents than any other piece of ancient literature, many of which are not questioned at all. It isn’t like we translate from the NIV which came from the KJV which came from the Vulgate etc. It’s not a chain. We go back to the sources(and better ones with modern findings) from which those versions were translated.

  • ako

    Not at all. It’s holding a really high opinion of the Bible vis a vis other sources. Again, ‘one’s human perception’ applies to all other possible sources of evidence as well. This is what faith is: holding God as infinitely reliable and valuable, which doesn’t mean jettisoning logic or science or the real world or any of that.
    Again, you’re doing “my interpretation of the Bible’s message”=”the Bible”=”God”.

  • Bryan Swartz

    ” I’m inclined to argue your point about the interest in Matthew–which was brought up on a previous thread–supports Fred’s broader argument about perception.
    Fred’s quoted Bible verses that flatly ban interest. Matthew appears to contradict it. We have to apply some sort of personal perception to reconcile the two because the Bible doesn’t resolve the contradiction.
    ”
    I think the Bible does resolve it. I don’t think it explicitly bans interest in all circumstances anywhere. This is simplistic. It’s like if I say I like movies — it doesn’t mean I like horror movies and dramas and comedies and documentaries etc. I might dislike one subset and still like movies in general.
    “many Biblical literalists and inerrantists will switch gears when convenient.”
    This is true and extremely blameworthy. There is much truth in Fred’s argument about the way teachings on wealth are treated. However, the correct way to approach the Bible is not to get hung up on that, it is to work on interpreting it correctly. I am at the same time more ‘conservative’ and more ‘liberal’ than my church on different issues. I’ve gotten in trouble on both sides.
    It will probably surprise most in this thread, for example, that I am fully in favor of legalizing same-sex marriages. Most in the conservative Baptist church I attend don’t even care(contrary to the caricature that often passes around here about our wing).

  • Isis-sama

    Just a note – based on my memory of the Bible, there’s nothing in there about homosexuality being a choice. There are a few passages in there about homosexuality being “an abomination unto the Lord,” however the reader wants to interpret the context, but nothing at all about the cause of homosexuality, why people with those desires exist in the first place, or why two people of the same gender having sex is an abomination unto the Lord. Now I do not believe you should read everything in the Bible literally, but it seems to me that even if you do believe that that is the correct way to read the Bible, there’s nothing that explicitly states that homosexuality is a choice. As far as I can tell, the fundamental conclusion that it is comes from the reasoning that a good and loving God would not doom people to be born from birth into being forced to percieve the same sex in such a way as that was an abomination unto himself, so they conclude based on that that therefore, homosexuality must be a choice – some extremely faulty reasoning that there’s not only no evidence in the real world to support, but none in the actual Bible either. Of course if you choose to read the Bible literally, you’re still left with the question of why a good and loving god would doom people to be born gay with no say in the matter if homosexuality is an abomination, as the Bible does unambiguously state, but then I suppose you can add in the context that God does not want you to be like idolaters, which the Bible also makes very clear that God does say, but then you also have to try to figure out if what God really meant by homosexuality is an abomination unto me was really don’t be like the idolaters and not related to his actual position on homosexuality at all, whatever it might be, and if that was what he meant why didn’t he just say don’t be like the idolaters and frame it in such a way that indicated so strongly that homosexuality is an abomination unto him in the first place?

  • Bryan Swartz

    No I’m not ako. I’m not making that equivalency at all.

  • Bryan Swartz

    Good post Isis. The bible does not explicitly say homosexuality is a choice, but it does say all sin is a choice(I’ll back that up if you are interested), and if homosexuality is a sin, ergo it is a choice.

  • ako

    Not explicitly, but your defenses of valuing your interpretation of the Bible above all contradictory evidence all go back to the importance of seeing God as infinitely reliable. Which, without making a God out of your interpretation of the Bible, doesn’t work.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I’m saying that in order to make that claim one logically has to assert that these rules can never go against the principle of love, which Paul calls primary. That seems to me like a pretty secular, scientifically testable claim. And as we see in LB, it requires them to distort not just the Bible but the word “love” in ways that would horrify Big Brother.I think you may have defeated your own argument. As we have indeed seen, it is possible for people to believe in the principle of love, while simultaneously believing in LH&J’s Left Behind God. They can, and do, quote scripture to support their interpretation of it, just as you do. You might say, “well, it’s obvious to any right-thinking person that these people are nuts” — but they say the same thing about you. So, is it their word against yours ? It would be nice if there was some “secular, scientifically testable” way of testing what Paul, Jesus, or any other character truly, really meant… But there isn’t. When you speak of “love”, and when a RTC speaks of “love”, you use the same word, but you mean completely different things, according to your faith.

    Craft a law to prohibit — oh, let’s say jaywalking — that will have literal, non-controversial relevance and applicability six thousand years from now.

    Firstly, why jaywalking ? Why not murder or theft ? But more importantly, I’m not sure what your point is. My point was that our present laws are not at all like scripture, and you seem to agree with me — and yet, your tone suggests disagreement, so I’m at a loss. However, you do bring up another good point about law: laws are continuously re-written and updated to remain relevant and applicable to the culture of their time. The Bible, on the other hand, is not. Sure, its interpretations can and do change drastically, but the text itself is pretty much set in stone. Thus, with every new generation, more and more interpretations are required to keep it relevant…

  • Bryan Swartz

    If you don’t see God as infinitely reliable, there’s no reason to even include the Bible or any other religious book at all. It claims to be true, you have to decide whether it is or isn’t. If it is, it’s worthy of your trust. If not, you ought to burn it and tell all your friends to do the same.

  • Launcifer

    It’s holding a really high opinion of the Bible vis a vis other sources.

    I assume you realise that this is really quite close to arguing Biblical inerrancy, right? If I’m to hold this particular book, written some millennia ago, as a higher source of knowledge – which is really what you’re suggesting, regardless of the language – to current understanding of pretty much anything that might conflict with the aforementioned text, then I’m supposed to supplicate myself to a book whose authors were inerrant because they were somehow divinely inspired and also to disregard the possibility that anyone before or since was similar so inspired. What you’re effectively suggesting is that the Jews got it right, ish, but didn’t go far enough and that the Christians were bang on, because they got the whole thing – and that everyone else is incorrect, because they don’t hold this particular text in such high esteem.
    Fruthermore, if faith is required to hold this particular text in such high esteem, than you yourself must be similarly inspired, in the same way that the authors were allegedly inspired, no? Doesn’t this amount to an argument somewhere along the lines of “I’m correct because I believe that the Bible is correct because it says it is correct”?
    I may well call bullshit at this point, albeit very politely, purely because I’m not throwing out two thousand years of potentially contradictory evidence of various forms, purely to pretend to agree with you. I may be many things, but I’m not a complete pancrack.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Bryan: All the decisions we make affect both ourselves and all those around us.
    Yes, they do. But if you’re going to condemn a decision as “bad”, you need proof that there are some destructive effects of that decision.
    Any sin is destructive to our soul, which is far more important than our self-esteem, health, prosperity, etc.
    Prove it.
    Then prove that homosexuality is actually a sin.
    What this statement really says is you want a God in your image. That your morality is more valuable/esteemable than God’s.
    No and yes, sort of.
    I give God-or-gods a *fuckton* of leeway about the world, really. I accept that bad things happen to good people and that maybe they have to; I accept that maybe there’s a reason we can’t get proof of What It All Means when we’re alive; I accept a lot of things that a lot of people won’t. And I’m willing to posit a lot under “well, transcendent beings aren’t terribly comprehensible to us”.
    However: if a being, transcendent or not, wants me to do something? They can damn well explain why not in reasons that aren’t “because I said so.” If the hypothetical creator of the universe really wants me not to have sex with whatever other consenting adult I feel like, they could have made actual, real-world, provable reasons why that’s a bad thing. Because otherwise? No, I’m not going to listen.
    Some would say it is unloving for God to condemn that attitude — but in fact that is the only loving thing He can do, and that’s why I’m being so direct about this.
    Really? *Seriously*? Theoretically omnipotent being and the *only* loving thing He can do is tell me not to do something that makes me happy, for totally unverifiable reasons…because He says so?
    Fuck that notion of “love”. Fuck Him, too, if that’s what He’s like.
    Like I said: no better than Azathoth.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Also, my life’s gone pretty well without surrendering to “God’s wisdom,” and who the hell are you to tell me what sort of growth I need?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Again, you’re doing “my interpretation of the Bible’s message”=”the Bible”=”God”.

    Absolutely, but how is that different, in principle, from what Fred is doing ? That was kind of my point earlier — I agree with Fred’s conclusions and I disagree (I think) with Bryan Swartz’s, but both of their arguments are equally weak.

  • ako

    If not, you ought to burn it and tell all your friends to do the same.
    Why? I’m an atheist (and gay), but I don’t feel any need to go setting religious texts on fire. For one thing, I write fiction as a hobby, and they can provide handy attention-getting quotes and references. For another, it’s not like I believe people are going to be punished for having religious beliefs. I’m not going to encourage people to find religion, but I don’t see any desperate need to discourage it among people who aren’t hurting themselves or anyone else. And a lot of people seem perfectly happy with their religion, and hold beliefs that don’t involve trying to harangue me into unwanted church-going or unwanted heterosexual relationships, or legalizing discrimination against gay people, or otherwise creating problems.

  • Launcifer

    Like I said: no better than Azathoth.

    Arguably worse, given that only one of them is “three times very clever” ;) .

    Theoretically omnipotent being and the *only* loving thing He can do is tell me not to do something that makes me happy, for totally unverifiable reasons…because He says so?

    Oh, fuck no, it’s not even that good. Someone else tells you not to do something because they personally believe that they are in contact with a god who told them to tell you not to do it, because they may or may not have said so. Let’s get this gossamar-thin web of insistence right, now, shall we?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    @Bryan and his detractors:
    You guys keep arguing about “what The Bible says”, or “what Jesus taught”, etc. However, from my (admittedly atheistic) perspective, there is no such thing as “what The Bible says” or “what Jesus taught”. Instead, there are people’s interpretations of scriptural texts. So, the best you can do is say, “according to my faith and literary analysis, this specific Biblical passage means X”. Unless, of course, Jesus spoke to you audibly and directly and taught you something in a more immediate and spectacular fashion; that’s always a possibility.

  • Will Wildman

    Loquat, Izzy, that does makes more sense, and it’s good to think I might not be singled out for things that I can’t fully control. It certainly wasn’t a situation where someone was ignored while single but the Secret Love Confession came out once they had hooked up with someone else – I’m many things, but I’m not That Guy. ; )

    That said, if you’re interested in someone, I think the best thing you can do is be straightforward in that situation: “So, I’m kind of attracted to you, but I’m not really great at flirting. Would you like to have coffee sometime?” would be fine by me–even if I rejected the guy for other reasons, I would respect the approach.

    I am all about the straightforward-without-pushy. So far it hasn’t been especially effective, but I’m at least pretty sure it’s not my critical weakness.
    —
    The rest of this thread has evolved in a curiously migraine-inducing direction. I will come in on the side of not capitalising atheism – atheists aren’t members of a collective group, we’re the opposite of that, and don’t necessarily share any beliefs of any kind. In a way, it feels like an extremely mild version of ‘the disabled’ compared to ‘persons with a disability’ (that phrase has come up a lot at work lately, so it’s top-of-mind) in that the group is being emphatically defined by a trait that members may feel really shouldn’t be considered their definitive feature.
    Of course, there are always the militant internet atheists who blabberingly explain that all religions are stupid and evil and only by embracing the absence of divinity can you become a worthy and functioning person. They can be Atheists; I’m okay with that.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Like I said: no better than Azathoth.

    To be fair, Azathoth actually isn’t that bad (note, I didn’t say he/she/it was good, for that would be madness). All he does it pretty much hangs out at the center of the universe, waiting to sing the song that ends all existence. Meanwhile, though, he doesn’t do much. By comparison, Shub-Niggurath and Hastur and even Nyarlathotep, are much worse, since they actively work on advancing their agendas.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Launcifer: Good point. Azathoth, one can argue, can’t *help*, what with being blind and mindless and all that. Being a dick to someone is bad enough; it’s worse when you claim you’re doing it for their own good. “I love you enough to encourage unquestioning obedience above everything else” is, um, Gorean-style creepy. (One of my LARP characters ran across a necromancer-y person, Maeglin “the Kind”, who’d put his servant’s eyes out for, or so he claimed, said servant’s own good. Yeaaah.)
    Oh, fuck no, it’s not even that good. Someone else tells you not to do something because they personally believe that they are in contact with a god who told them to tell you not to do it, because they may or may not have said so. Let’s get this gossamar-thin web of insistence right, now, shall we?
    Well, yes, that’s what it really comes down to. I guess my point was less “um, I don’t believe God’s like that”–true as that is–and more “if God *is* like that, then God can suck my metaphorical left one.”

  • Bryan Swartz

    ” assume you realise that this is really quite close to arguing Biblical inerrancy, right?”
    If it’s ‘quite close’, then I’ve misspoken myself. I believe in inerrancy, so I’d want it to be exactly the same thing.
    “if faith is required to hold this particular text in such high esteem, than you yourself must be similarly inspired, in the same way that the authors were allegedly inspired, no? Doesn’t this amount to an argument somewhere along the lines of “I’m correct because I believe that the Bible is correct because it says it is correct”?”
    Pretty much. The Bible doesn’t allow for much ecunmenical tolerance. To believe it is true, you have to believe all other religions are wrong. Because if they aren’t, ‘no one comes to the Father but by me”, “there is no other name given under heaven”, etc. don’t make any sense.
    There’s a lot more evidence for what I believe than ‘the Bible says so’, but it all comes back to the fact of faith in God(not in the Bible first); but to believe in God in the sense the Bible speaks of it requires believing in the Bible, because otherwhise God lied to us.
    “Prove it.
    Then prove that homosexuality is actually a sin.”
    The only way it can be proven is from the Bible, which would require you accepting it as an authority. Are you amenable to those terms?
    “If the hypothetical creator of the universe really wants me not to have sex with whatever other consenting adult I feel like, they could have made actual, real-world, provable reasons why that’s a bad thing.”
    What I think is missing here is that for God to say ‘Because I said so’ is the best reason in the universe their could possibly be. God telling you to do something for your benefit isn’t nearly as good a reason as telling you to do it for His benefit, since the glory of God is the greatest good in the universe.
    “Theoretically omnipotent being and the *only* loving thing He can do is tell me not to do something that makes me happy, for totally unverifiable reasons…because He says so?”
    What would be verifiable? Come up with something that would be. First of all, in God’s calculus your character is more important than your comfort happiness(as with a parent who tells his child not to go play in the street even though that might make them happy). Things that exist in the spiritual plane are by their very nature not verifiable directly by our senses. You can’t see the destruction of sin, only it’s effects. Become a liar and you’ll see effects long-term, though you might enjoy it right now. It might earn you money, the favor of others, whatever. All sin works that way.
    Someone, whether it’s God, a friend, employer, whatever who is more interested in our happiness than our long-term well-being … do you really prefer that notion of ‘love’? I sincerely hope you don’t, but if you do then you don’t want God.

  • ako

    Absolutely, but how is that different, in principle, from what Fred is doing ? That was kind of my point earlier — I agree with Fred’s conclusions and I disagree (I think) with Bryan Swartz’s, but both of their arguments are equally weak.
    I don’t know. I mean I don’t believe any of this is true either. I’m mostly arguing against the assumption that Bryan’s style of interpretation is taking the Bible seriously while Fred’s isn’t. I disagree with some of the basics of Fred’s belief, but I don’t think he’s not valuing what the Bible says. And I think the RTC-types get too much power partially because of the prevalence of the assumption that they’re the people who are taking the Bible seriously, and people who interpret it less sexist and homophobic ways aren’t.

  • MercuryBlue

    If you don’t see God as infinitely reliable, there’s no reason to even include the Bible or any other religious book at all. It claims to be true, you have to decide whether it is or isn’t. If not, you ought to burn it and tell all your friends to do the same.
    My bookshelf currently contains the Scofield Bible, the NRSV Bible with annotations meant for Catholic teens, the Everett Fox translations of the Torah and of 1 and 2 Samuel, the Harold Bloom translation of the selections of the Torah attributed to J, the Oxford World Classics translation of the Qu’ran, the William Buck translations of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the Eknath Easwaran translations of the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Dhammapada, the Barnes & Noble Classics translation of the Tao Te Ching…

  • Bryan Swartz

    ” love you enough to encourage unquestioning obedience above everything else” is, um, Gorean-style creepy.”
    Here’s the thing though. If, as the Bible says, we are created for the purpose of glorifying, worshiping, and enjoying Him forever, then nothing compares with the value of this unquestioning obedience.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Bugmaster: Yeah, I feel like Nyarlathotep would be a better choice, in retrospect. Although he didn’t create the universe. Damn delegatey pantheons.
    Will: Sars et al don’t give the impression of basing That Guy status on things beyond a person’s control, generally speaking, so I’m thinking that it’s more a matter of not pulling Grass Is Always Greener/Big Yellow Taxi mindsets on someone than of coming off as unemotional.
    And straightforward-without-pushy definitely gets points.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    The only way it can be proven is from the Bible, which would require you accepting it as an authority.

    Not necessarily. By analogy, I could definitely prove to you that Dumbledore was gay or that Piglet was pink, and yet I do not accept Harry Potter or Winnie the Pooh as authoritative.
    I’ll let Izzy speak for herself regarding the rest of your argument, though (such as it is).

  • ako

    “I love you enough to encourage unquestioning obedience above everything else” is, um, Gorean-style creepy.
    It seems very much like Ministy of Love-style “love”. Breaking a person of all heretical thoughts and giving them a sufficiently orthodox personality is the most important thing, and justifies whatever you need to do to destroy their original, insufficiently goodthinkful self.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “my life’s gone pretty well without surrendering to “God’s wisdom,” and who the hell are you to tell me what sort of growth I need?”
    I certainly don’t know you to be able to tell you exactly what kind of growth you need. But I do know where you should go to get it.
    You say your life has gone well, but I do wonder how you evaluate that. I.e., well as compared to what?

  • Launcifer

    There’s a lot more evidence for what I believe than ‘the Bible says so’, but it all comes back to the fact of faith in God(not in the Bible first); but to believe in God in the sense the Bible speaks of it requires believing in the Bible, because otherwhise God lied to us.

    And this, without wishing to be insulting, is why we’re all butting heads, because it really does amount to you believing it because the Bible says so, in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. The reason I say this is because the majority of the revelant writing concerning this particular god is encapsulated within this compendium of texts. Anything else occurs later – and these alternate readings seem to be something you’re perfectly willing to ignore, if only because they aren’t in the Bible. Dress it up how you want, but there seems to be no way around this from my perspective.
    I, certainly, struggle to accept that as a premise for belief – though if I’ve misunderstood, then I’m happy to stand corrected.

  • Will Wildman

    Big Yellow Taxi…? I feel like I’m using one of those Monty Python phrasebooks. “My hovercraft is full of eels.”

    If, as the Bible says, we are created for the purpose of glorifying, worshiping, and enjoying Him forever, then nothing compares with the value of this unquestioning obedience.

    That doesn’t actually follow. Glorifying, worshipping, and enjoying don’t necessarily require obedience. You can glorify someone even while they tell you not to. You can enjoy someone while still thinking that their rules are out to lunch. You could even worship someone, revere them, exalt them, while still making alternative decisions “for their own good”. The unquestioning obedience comes in if humanity was created for the purpose of serving God, which is ludicrous, because He’s omnipotent and has literally no need for servants.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “there is no such thing as “what The Bible says” or “what Jesus taught”. Instead, there are people’s interpretations of scriptural texts. So, the best you can do is say, “according to my faith and literary analysis, this specific Biblical passage means X”
    True, but there’s really no meaningful difference. When talking about anything there is always the assumption of perception. Read any newspaper of website and you get the same thing … it’s just not useful in my opinion to always include that disclaimer :) .

  • hapax

    @Bugmaster: Forgive me if this seems a little incoherent. I’ve just spent two hours in the heat mowing the lawn, and I’m a little brain-fried.
    However, you do bring up another good point about law: laws are continuously re-written and updated to remain relevant and applicable to the culture of their time. The Bible, on the other hand, is not. Sure, its interpretations can and do change drastically, but the text itself is pretty much set in stone. Thus, with every new generation, more and more interpretations are required to keep it relevant…
    Well, I do think that we agree that the Scriptures are different from a modern legal code. One of the big problems with interpreting it as a rule book is precisely this attitude towards treating the mishmash of other literary forms that make up the bulk of the text (poetry, histories, mythic narratives, aphorisms, apocalypses, ad hoc letters, etc. etc. etc.) as legal code, which simply doesn’t work.
    Even with the U.S. code, we might look to the Federalist letters for understanding on how the Constitution was meant at the time. We might even look at the diaries and letters of the Founders, popular songs of the time, Poor Richard’s Almanack, all to get a sense of what the priorities and themes of the day were. But we do not read those the same as we do the legal codes; that’s not what they were FOR.
    Does that mean that I don’t think that the Scriptural laws were Divinely inspired? I do — but note that I say, “inspired”, not “dictated”. I visualize it something like a community, perhaps through charismatic leaders like Moses, grasping something about how God wants us to live with each other. Something like this:
    Moses: Don’t put anything else in the place of God.
    People: You mean, like idol-worship?
    Moses: Well, no, not exactly — but that’s a start, yeah.
    People: Well, how do we know we’re doing that?
    Moses: You’ve seen idolaters! People who claim their selfish desires are dictates of their gods! You know what they do!
    People: Well,we’ve seen some weird stuff, like having sex with guys in their temples, and getting tattoos, and that icky goat-and-milk stew…
    Moses (exasperated): Yeah, fine, fine, don’t do anything like that.
    People: Check. Seething a kid in his mother’s milk, Right Out.
    And that last line is all that’s left, to be set in stone. The trick is figuring out to go back from there to the underlying principle.
    Unfortunately, it isn’t easy, it isn’t unambiguous, it isn’t always consistent, and people are going to disagree. I think it’s worth the trouble, but that’s because I believe that there is, indeed, an infinitely valuable Source back there to be found. I can’t fault anyone who doesn’t perceive a glimmer of that Source for not wanting to make the effort, and starting from scratch.
    I can and do fault people who claim to be celebrating the Source, but are actually clinging to the stale exhalations and thousand-times re-exhalations as if it were the original Breath of the Spirit.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Bryan: Nope, not accepting the Bible as an authority. Not a Christian. If your arguments for a particular belief system are based entirely on that belief system, that…is circular logic. Good luck with that.
    Fucking Typepad put your post a page back, so I can’t really quote. However:
    I am not a parent. But *my* parents, when they told me to do or not do something, always gave me a reason. “Don’t play in the street, because there are cars and you’ll get hurt.” “Don’t hit your sister, because you wouldn’t like someone to hit you.” “You can’t have that, because we can’t afford it.”
    If my parents *hadn’t* given me reasons, I’d have been ten times more likely to disobey, I’d feel *eminently* justified in doing so, and I probably wouldn’t get along with them nearly as well now.
    As far as the spiritual plane goes…again, we come back to the argument wherein God is, y’know, omnipotent. If taking it up the ass causes sooooo much damage to us on the spiritual plane, couldn’t He have *made* us able to perceive said spiritual plane? I feel no particular need to worship a being too lazy to give us fifth-dimensional sight if we’re going to be taking damage in said fifth dimension.
    Here’s the thing though. If, as the Bible says, we are created for the purpose of glorifying, worshiping, and enjoying Him forever, then nothing compares with the value of this unquestioning obedience.
    Then the entire universe is fucked up and creepy , and its creator doubly so.
    Which is possible. But your basic argument seems to be that we’re living in a twisted crapsack world run by, basically, a DC Comics villain with unlimited cosmic power, and that we should shut up, bend over, and learn to get used to it. Just thought I’d point that out.
    I certainly don’t know you to be able to tell you exactly what kind of growth you need. But I do know where you should go to get it.
    Hee. Oh, dear.
    You say your life has gone well, but I do wonder how you evaluate that. I.e., well as compared to what?
    I’m content with things most of the time and get over it when I’m not; I have a good job, good friends, and either get laid regularly or am happy with not doing so; I enjoy many hobbies and even have occasional moments of what I consider transcendence and spiritual insight.
    So…yeah, pretty well. Not really seeing a lack here.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Ako: Pretty much, yeah. I mean, 24/7 BDSM stuff squicks me badly enough.
    Dear Jehovah: I did not agree to this scene. Do not make me use the safeword. Seriously, dude.
    Will: Oh, sorry! Big Yellow Taxi is the “you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone” song. I think by Joni Mitchell?

  • Bryan Swartz

    FWIW, I don’t consider my interpretation of the Bible to be either sexist or homophobic(the latter being a label that gets applied far too often around here).
    Will: It’s not about God having a need for servants. He didn’t have a need to create the universe either. He didn’t do it because he had to, he did it because he wanted to. The obedience part is indeed part of worship: worship involves losing oneself in God as the ultimate experience. You can’t do that without obedience and submission of will. Obedience can’t be separated from worship: you can’t worship without obeying.
    @ Launcifer: There is really no such thing as proving the bible, in the sense that nobody can be argued into belief. On the evidence front, I would recommend looking at the lives of people like George Muller. I could tell you stories from my life, but those are easy to dismiss. The moral sense that all humans have makes no sense to me apart from God.
    What it comes down to is that we all have to be given the gift of faith by God in order to believe. This does not make those who believe innately better than those who don’t — rather, it’s evidence that we are all the same, because the same gift is required for all. The best thing I think I can tell you is that if you honestly and earnestly seek God, you will find Him.

  • Launcifer

    True, but there’s really no meaningful difference. When talking about anything there is always the assumption of perception. Read any newspaper of website and you get the same thing … it’s just not useful in my opinion to always include that disclaimer :) .

    I’d like to call this a logical fallacy, if only because I’m English, it’s gone 4am and I want to go to bed, but it isn’t even that. You cannot, CANNOT argue (well, you can, but I rather suspect you’d be talking bollocks) that there’s no meaningful difference between individual interpretation and your position (and apologies if the conflation here is incorrect) when your position is that the Bible is the Prime text when it comes to a discussion of this nature. Either the various and alternate interpretations have weight and merit, or they don’t. Your apparent position with regard to the Bible suggests that they only have merit insofar as they support the Bible, given that the Bible is the Prime text and must be referred to – ad given primacy – during anysuch discussion.

  • Will Wildman

    It’s not about God having a need for servants. He didn’t have a need to create the universe either. He didn’t do it because he had to, he did it because he wanted to.

    Quite so. Which means He either created us to serve some other purpose, or He was sitting around one Eternity and said “You know what would be great? Independent minds sublimating themselves in my glory. I should invent free will, then command them not to use it.” I favour the former over the latter.

    The obedience part is indeed part of worship: worship involves losing oneself in God as the ultimate experience. You can’t do that without obedience and submission of will. Obedience can’t be separated from worship: you can’t worship without obeying.

    Feel free to provide backup for any of that.

  • ako

    Pretty much, yeah. I mean, 24/7 BDSM stuff squicks me badly enough.
    Yeah. I don’t get off on obedience (no, not even deep down inside), and if the universe is set up so that the greatest possible thing is endless unquestioning obedience, and the only alternative is eternal torment, then the universe is a horrible place. As disturbed as some people are by “There is no God, and when you die, your mind stops and your body rots”, it strikes me as far less creepy than “There is a God, and when you die, the best thing that can possibly happen is to be turned into a perfect servant, who will adore him obediently for all eternity”. Non-existence sounds good in comparison.

  • hapax

    it really does amount to you believing it because the Bible says so, in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary.
    Bryan, you may not accept St. Augustine as an authority, but I think you will agree that he was not a stupid man, nor that he did not take the Bible seriously?
    I always like to quote this wonderful passage from “On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis”:

    “Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion…With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.”

    tl;dr version: The Scriptures are not a science textbook. Nor are they a rulebook. They are a map, a comfort, and an inspiration to a spiritual transformation.
    To treat them as they are not is to reject their aid, mock their message, shame their compilers, and turn your back on their Source.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    What’s your take on Fred’s point that the people who feel charging interest–even uxorious interest–is fine but Biblical prohibitions on sexual behavior are mandatory.
    Uxorious? Interest can be overly devoted to its wife? Usurious.
    Sorry for the pedantry, but the image made me giggle.
    But re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses.Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?
    No. It might be the point for you, but it’s not the point for a lot of us. Faith doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone, and doesn’t have the same point for everyone.
    If you don’t see God as infinitely reliable, there’s no reason to even include the Bible or any other religious book at all. It claims to be true, you have to decide whether it is or isn’t. If it is, it’s worthy of your trust. If not, you ought to burn it and tell all your friends to do the same.
    No. Just because that’s how you feel about it doesn’t mean that that’s how every theist feels about it. My religion has no scripture, and my gods are notoriously unreliable, and yet I find them worthy or worship, and find many books to hold some truths worthy of consideration. Stop universalizing your own experience and opinions, it’s insulting to the rest of us.
    However: if a being, transcendent or not, wants me to do something? They can damn well explain why not in reasons that aren’t “because I said so.” If the hypothetical creator of the universe really wants me not to have sex with whatever other consenting adult I feel like, they could have made actual, real-world, provable reasons why that’s a bad thing. Because otherwise? No, I’m not going to listen.
    This. To ignore one’s own faculties of reason, given to one by one’s god/ess/e/s, is to ignore one’s god/ess/e/s.
    Look, the world is, by your beliefs, your god’s creation, made directly by him. Does that not make it at least as special and important as the book your god dictated through others, which has been edited and interpreted by highly fallible humans along the way? So you can look at the way the world works — and I’m talking about physics and genetics and soforth — and see that it clearly does not work the way the Bible seems to say it works. So why would you not believe that the world is the way it is, and God made it that way, and clearly someone wrote something down wrong somewhere along the way — transcription error or something — or else you’ve misunderstood the verse because you’re a fallible human? Why not believe in the infallibility of your god by believing in the infallibility of the world?

  • MercuryBlue

    worship involves losing oneself in God as the ultimate experience. You can’t do that without obedience and submission of will.
    What it comes down to is that we all have to be given the gift of faith by God in order to believe. This does not make those who believe innately better than those who don’t — rather, it’s evidence that we are all the same, because the same gift is required for all. The best thing I think I can tell you is that if you honestly and earnestly seek God, you will find Him.
    So why did he make so many people (myself included) stubborn fucktards who don’t consider “because I said so” a good reason not to disobey, who really don’t consider “because I said God said so” a good reason not to disobey, and who, no matter how honestly and earnestly we sought him, haven’t found any reason to believe that he ever existed long enough to say anything? That seems sort of like cooking something with jalapenos and then throwing it away because it contains jalapenos.

  • Will Wildman

    That seems sort of like cooking something with jalapenos and then throwing it away because it contains jalapenos.

    And that’s without even engaging the whole eternal-torment deal.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Ako: Yeah. I can dig some unquestioning obedience sometimes, as a game, and I can do other forms of it sometimes as part of a job–although even there, a job whose policies largely don’t make sense is a job where I’ll spend a lot of time slacking when I can get away with it–because it’s too much trouble to tangle with management or whatever. But as a general Good Thing? Er, no.
    And I’ll note that “homophobic” or “sexist” as labels get applied to things or people that are homophobic or sexist. If you don’t like that, um, stop being homophobic or sexist. And also bite me.
    Going to bed now.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    The obedience part is indeed part of worship: worship involves losing oneself in God as the ultimate experience. You can’t do that without obedience and submission of will. Obedience can’t be separated from worship: you can’t worship without obeying.
    I do not think that word means what you think it means, dude.
    I worship my gods, and fairly often disobey them — their goals and desires are not always mine, and while I am of course happy to do things for them when I can, sometimes what they want me to do goes against my ethics, or would cause me health problems, or make me miss work, or one god’s instructions conflict with another’s, or whatever. And then I say, “Sorry, won’t be doing that. I will worship you in this other way you like, though.”

  • MercuryBlue

    Will: Or all the people who don’t seek God because their–there’s an appropriate word for this blank, I know it–let’s go with their need for the transcendent is fully satisfied by various and sundry including lighting incense to a statue of Ganesh and praying for his blessing on whatever they’re about to embark upon.

  • Andrew Glasgow

    @Bryan Swartz

    But as God has declared the Bible perfect

    [citation needed]

  • Rebecca

    LOL @ person trying to convert Izzy.
    FWIW, I don’t consider my interpretation of the Bible to be either sexist or homophobic(the latter being a label that gets applied far too often around here).
    I’m sure you don’t. There’s nothing sexist, for example, about declaring the Godly inerrancy of the commandment that a rape victim be forced into marriage with the attacker, for example. Nor is there anything homophobic about making male-male sex an abomination. (Which is different from a sin, mind.) And of course you, as a straight male, are the most qualified to notice when things are sexist or homophobic.

  • cyllan

    What it comes down to is that we all have to be given the gift of faith by God in order to believe.
    Good heavens, it’s a traditional Presbyterian! Quick take a photo; I didn’t think folks still believed in pre-destination anymore. Do you also believe that those to whom God does not grant the gift of faith (as you put it) are condemned to hell?
    The best thing I think I can tell you is that if you honestly and earnestly seek God, you will find Him.
    I will point out that I honestly and earnestly sought god, and when I found him, he turned out to be a She, and She had nothing to do with the Christian faith. Also, She was only one of a number of ways of reaching the Divine.
    Nor, (like MadG) do I always obey my gods, and my relationship with them is stronger because of it.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Bryan Swartz said:

    …re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?

    Are you honestly saying that the literal interpretation of the phrase “corners of the earth” — a phrase even small children can understand, without having to have it explained to them, as a metaphor — is the correct one, and all the evidence of our senses is… what, mass delusion? Seriously?
    Ditto the business about insects having four legs and hares chewing cud, I suppose?
    See, this is what Fred means when he refers to people making a conscious choice to be stupid.

    If you don’t see God as infinitely reliable, there’s no reason to even include the Bible or any other religious book at all. It claims to be true, you have to decide whether it is or isn’t. If it is, it’s worthy of your trust. If not, you ought to burn it and tell all your friends to do the same.

    Speaking of metaphors, there’s one concerning babies and bathwater. Perhaps you’ve heard it?

    Jesus says Scripture can’t be broken, that not the smallest stroke of a pen will pass away until all if fulfilled…

    I guess you think Jesus was a big ol’ hypocrite, then.
    After all, he wanted people to follow in his example — and HE BROKE THE RULES. A lot. So: either he was a complete hypocrite, or he had a different interpretation of what it means to fulfill the law than you do.
    Also, according to Christian thought, the Bible was written by divinely inspired humans. So, a secondhand creation. (That’s being generous, mind you — with translations, copy errors, and all the “creative editing” that’s gone on, surely it’d be more like fifth- or seventh-hand by now.)
    The world, on the other hand, is a firsthand creation.
    Our big primate brains? Also firsthand creations.
    You, Bryan, are using the secondhand creation as a set of blinkers against the world. And refusing to accept and process information about reality inevitably results in mental atrophy.
    In other words, you’re using your God’s secondhand creation as an excuse to spit on his firsthand creations.
    You should go hang your head in shame.

  • J

    I’m so Not Playing This Little Game. I don’t need the approval of some bullshit deity to do what’s right and I certainly ain’t listening to him if there’s something I want do that he disapproves of.* Fuck the bible, no matter what it “really” means. From now on I vow that whenever I got to a hotel, I’ll remove the Gideon squatshit from the top drawer, but it in my bag and then drop it in the grease barrel out behind the kitchen service entrance after check out.
    *On a related note, having just read a sample issue of Metapaper. I’ve recently abandoned pure veganism, but ONLY so I can eat trayfe meats. That’s right: it’s eel, bacon, molluscs, and catfish from here on out. I have experimented and found these meats to be by far the most delicious, and god forbidden their consumption fits in perfectly with the essentially evil, pleasure-hating nature of the god of Judaism, Christian and Islam. (I.e. “No, don’t enjoy life’s pleasures! Go and grind yourself down with piss-in-the-wind social work and meaningless bullshit rituals!”)

  • J

    *is it just me or has atheism-related trolliness increased since I’ve been gone? *
    Expect it to continue. You’ve had 5,000 years to improve the world using religion and you’ve FAILED on every level. Your time is coming on; it’s our time now. One day you’ll wake up and find our teeth at your necks the ways yours always have been poised at ours.

  • J

    Should’ve been “Meatpaper”, not Metapaper.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    Damn. I’d much rather read something called “Metapaper”.

  • ako

    Are you honestly saying that the literal interpretation of the phrase “corners of the earth” — a phrase even small children can understand, without having to have it explained to them, as a metaphor — is the correct one, and all the evidence of our senses is… what, mass delusion?
    The more I think about it, the more I want a “The world is secretly a tetrahedron!” theory. And for at least one adherent of that theory to get into an argument with the Time Cube guy.

  • MercuryBlue

    J, knock it off, you’re making me look bad.

  • ako

    For the record, I have no intention of trying to bite the necks of the theists of the world.
    Although I might consider it if I met a nice theistic girl who was into that sort of thing. ;-)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    MadGastronomer said:

    To ignore one’s own faculties of reason, given to one by one’s god/ess/e/s, is to ignore one’s god/ess/e/s.

    This is the tl;dr version of my post. :)

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    Although I might consider it if I met a nice theistic girl who was into that sort of thing. ;-)
    I’m into that sort of thing… ;)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Zip up your pants, J, we’re not impressed.

  • Emcee

    Expect it to continue. You’ve had 5,000 years to improve the world using religion and you’ve FAILED on every level. Your time is coming on; it’s our time now. One day you’ll wake up and find our teeth at your necks the ways yours always have been poised at ours.
    As an atheist (Unitarian label besides the point), kindly go away, do not come back, EVER, and while I try not to wish death on anyone, you are making me reconsider. No one makes you come here, no one wants you to come here, and if Fred’s faith is so offensive to you, you shouldn’t want to be here. You are no better than Bryan, just as judgemental, just as devisive, just as dogmatic, and just as bigoted. Obviously, you aren’t very secure in your atheism, or you wouldn’t feel the need to denigrate people who disagree with you. Or maybe you just have a little dick.

  • Emcee

    Or what MercuryBlue said.

  • hf

    I think you may have defeated your own argument. As we have indeed seen, it is possible for people to believe in the principle of love, while simultaneously believing in LH&J’s Left Behind God. They can, and do, quote scripture to support their interpretation of it, just as you do. You might say, “well, it’s obvious to any right-thinking person that these people are nuts” — but they say the same thing about you. So, is it their word against yours ? It would be nice if there was some “secular, scientifically testable” way of testing what Paul, Jesus, or any other character truly, really meant… But there isn’t. When you speak of “love”, and when a RTC speaks of “love”, you use the same word, but you mean completely different things, according to your faith.
    What the buggering hell are you talking about?
    I’m not a Christian, and I don’t cite the Bible to support my interpretation of love. L&J and Bryan seem to agree with Fred on the part I cited. All Christians (as far as I know) accept that bit. The only dispute concerns the English language and whether or not torture is love. And that, it seems to me, is not a matter of faith or literary interpretation.

  • Mr. Cales

    I was gonna post something clever against Bugmaster’s randomly chaotic posts, but hf beat me to a better version. Also lol at J’s random atheist biter army stuff. What, are all atheists goddamn Tyranids?
    Have heard the message about not Atheists, personally prefer to do so but will refrain. Refer to crazies of J’s ilk as New Atheists, as it seems more appropriate to separate them from more sane atheists.
    As for Biblical belief, I’ll ignore Bryan as a moron, and simply put this out there: it’s about inspiration, hope, love. It’s not about reinterpretations to fit modern times- that’s a silly, Progress-infected idea. No, “feed the hungry, clothe the naked” is pretty much what it says and what its been in all the years hence. The underlying messages really are the same, though you have to look at when they were written to figure out the messages underneath what is actually written. Is it reinterpreting to fit a new time? No. Many “new”, “liberal” interpretations are older than modern-day RTC Christianity, and even if they weren’t, it matters not. It’s not about age, it’s about searching. We are they who search for messages in the books and writings of our teachers. While I understand the urge to examine the world oneself, it’s not infallible either. We’re all just people, making it as best we can.
    Tl;dr? Can’t we all just get along?

  • hf

    By contrast, Bryan’s take on the Parable of the Harsh Master does seem like a matter of literary interpretation. But even here, some interpretations seem better than others. Either I’ve missed something in translation or the pro-interest theory has more holes than Swiss cheese. Because the cited version of the story explicitly starts as a simile, a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven. It follows a similar metaphor about virgins and oil. It precedes another simile about burning your goats alive. (L&J try to take that last one “literally”, without either limiting it to livestock or noticing what the words of the speech mean.) I’ll grant you the bit about interest probably made a risqué parable for anyone who believed in a literal reading of the Law.

  • hf

    é

  • Ursula L

    Here’s the thing though. If, as the Bible says, we are created for the purpose of glorifying, worshiping, and enjoying Him forever, then nothing compares with the value of this unquestioning obedience.
    Thanks, but I’ll join [rot13] Evire Fbat va Gur Yvoenel [/rot13] forever.
    I don’t see a significant difference between “glorifying worshiping and enjoying him forever” and “unquestioning obedience” than the eternal torture that is the alleged alternative. Except that I get to continue to keep on being myself with the eternal torture.
    So, rather than “nothing” comparing to your version of Heaven, I’d say that you’re version of Hell compares to it, favorably.

  • Ursula L

    And that will teach me not to post so late at night. “Your” not “you’re.”

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Heh. As far as Bryan’s whole “blind obedience is the highest possible good!” line, wasn’t there a previous thread on which someone quoted some of the more horrifying passages from Elsie Dinsmore?
    As I recall, Elsie’s father figure forbids her from playing in her favourite meadow, and gives no other reason than, “Because I said so.” Being a small child, she goes to play in the meadow. Afterwards, Daddy Dearest presents her with the corpse of a venomous snake which the groundskeeper had killed in — dun dun DUNNN — that very meadow! And he’s all, “See, your disobedience could have gotten you killed.”
    And all the Slacktivites went, “Um, or you could have told her that the reason why she couldn’t play in her favourite meadow was because there was a poisonous animal lurking in it, but nooooooo, you preferred to risk your child’s life because you’re an authoritarian asshat.”

  • Andrew Glasgow

    @Bryan Swartz

    Yes, our opinions are always involved with anything. But that’s not really relevant to what I was saying. When you put reason/experience etc. on the same level with the Bible(i.e., if my opinion of one of them conflicts with my opinion of the Bible, I’m reading it wrong) as Fred has done, then what you’ve done is make your reason/experience of equal validity/authority to the Bible. This is awful hard to square with Prov. 3:5-6, among others: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”
    Back to the resurrection, I’m glad you have no problem believing it but my question is why? How can anyone who follow’s Fred logic of compare the Bible to reality believe in it? Doesn’t our experience with no man ever being raised to life require us to reinterpret the Bible in a way(i.e, we’re reading it wrong) that something else happened or is meant in all those passages where someone is raised to life that doesn’t involve an actual ressurection? If we reinterpret the Bible to fit our perception of reality, isn’t this a necessary hermeneutic?
    ShifterCat and PJ Evans want an explanation of the Bible is perfect argument. II Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is inspired by God: the word translated inspired there literally means God-breathed. God used men to write the Bible, and their personal distinctives certainly come through, but if it is God-breathed, God is ultimately the author of all of it. Jesus declared in John 10:35 that ‘Scripture cannot be broken’. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.

    See, you’re doing that hting where you’re using your reason and experience to interpret that to mean that the Bible is perfect. Obviously you need to stop that. It obviously means that every bible on earth was literally breathed out of God’s lungs, so whoever claims to have seen Bible factories is a liar and a secret Atheist. It also means that anyone who claims to have cut a bible in half, say with a knife or a chainsaw, is a liar as well, since “scripture cannot be broken”. In fact, I think it’s apparent that knives and chainsaws don’t actually exist, since if they did they could conceivably break scripture. So, lumberjacks are the servants of satan, pretending to cut down trees while actually undermining Christianity.

  • Mr. Cales

    Andrew, I love you a little right now.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I visualize it something like a community, perhaps through charismatic leaders like Moses, grasping something about how God wants us to live with each other. Something like this…

    I admit that your story sounds highly appealing to me, from a purely literary standpoint. However, from a theological standpoint, I think it suffers from a few problems.
    Firstly, you almost make it sound as though you, an individual living in the modern times, have a clearer understanding of what Moses said than all those primitive screwheads who actually lived in Moses’s time, and actually heard him speak (assuming, for the sake of the argument, that Moses really did exist). This sounds rather presumptuous to me.
    And secondly, you are still interpreting the Bible (in this case, the OT) through the lens of your modern secular morality. You are treating it as a secondary source. I personally have no problem with this, but, as we have seen on this very thread, some people do — based on their faith. Is their faith less true, objectively, than yours ?

  • Mr. Cales

    Bugmaster, at this point you’re just trolling. There’s no way to tell if somebody picked up their morality from secular society or from their religious beliefs, no way to know what’s “rea’”. Get over it, for God’s sake.
    And also, get off the fucking interpretation kick already! You throw that word around like a benediction!

  • ako

    I’m into that sort of thing… ;)
    Do feel free to call me if we’re ever in the same hemisphere and you feel like going out for a bite.
    As far as Bryan’s whole “blind obedience is the highest possible good!” line, wasn’t there a previous thread on which someone quoted some of the more horrifying passages from Elsie Dinsmore?
    I remember that! I read far too much of that (I’m easily sucked in by things that are fascinatingly horrifying), and got to the slavery-apologist bit in the later books.
    And yeah, Elsie’s dad was incredibly creepy.

  • hf

    ShifterCat and PJ Evans want an explanation of the Bible is perfect argument. II Timothy 3:16 says all Scripture is inspired by God: the word translated inspired there literally means God-breathed.
    Does this mean Adam never sinned, or just that our inherent urges as living humans are infallible?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I’m not a Christian, and I don’t cite the Bible to support my interpretation of love. L&J and Bryan seem to agree with Fred on the part I cited. All Christians (as far as I know) accept that bit. The only dispute concerns the English language and whether or not torture is love.

    Sorry, I meant “you” in a more collective sense. However, I’d argue that if person A believes that “love” includes torture, and person B does not, then they really have a very different concept of what the word means. You call this a dispute about the English language, or a dispute about the basic concept, but the end result is the same…
    FWIW, I prefer to play as T’au; Tyrannids never appealed to me, even though they are the more powerful army.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    I haven’t read Elsie Dinsmore, but considering how the author speaks in such glowing terms of Elsie’s father teaching her unthinking obedience and systematically crushing every little spark of independent thought, it doesn’t surprise me that he approves of slavery, too.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Hmm, I do enjoy eel and other non-kosher meats, but I do not enjoy J’s bullying. Seems I’m in a bit of a pickle.

  • Andrew Glasgow

    @Bryan Swartz

    He said verses on homosexuality should be re-interpreted based on his observation that homosexuality is not a choice, people aren’t cured of it by ex-gay ministries, etc. If you believe in divine intervention, don’t you have to believe that God could change a person’s sexual desires?
    …
    ” if you take Fred’s approach, you see and acknowledge that the world does not, in fact, have corners. Which means that believing in the four literal corners of the Earth is reading it wrong.”
    And that’s exactly what I have a problem with. What you just described is in fact elevating your perception of the world around you above your perception of the Bible. If you considered them to equal you would have to say maybe I read the Bible wrong, maybe my observation of the world is wrong. By jumping to the conclusion I must be misunderstanding the Bible, you put your perception of the world on the throne.
    What I think is appropriate is to re-evaluate whenever such conflicts are seen. But re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?

    So I take it you believe purely on the basis of your Biblical reading, and in denial of your senses and the sensory evidence of other human beings, that gays really do choose to be gay, that gay healing camps really do change people to be heterosexual, and that the world is flat?
    Because that really does appear to be what you’re saying here.
    Poe’s law?

    I’m not sure how I can answer it more directly at all. If Jesus says Scripture can’t be broken, that not the smallest stroke of a pen will pass away until all if fulfilled, if Paul says that all Scripture is God-breathed … how could God more directly say that the Bible is perfect?

    Jesus: “The bible is perfect. It doesn’t matter if it’s translated six ways from sunday, goes through a political process to decide which books are part of the bible and which ones aren’t centuries after My death, has clear, glaring contradictions both internally or what you plainly see in front of your face, it’s perfect because I say so.”
    That would be a statement that actually supports what you are claiming without, you know, ‘interpreting using your reason and experience’.
    Seriously, consider the King James Version of the Bible that had the hebrew “re’em” translated as “unicorn”. Many people concluded based on the Bible that unicorns therefore existed. Were they correct in doing so? Should we have ignored the ample physical evidence that unicorns never existed and are biologically impossible? Should we have resisted returning to the original versions of scripture and knowledge of ancient hebrew and concluding based on extra-biblical evidence of what the Hebrew term “re’em” actually refers to that the better translation was “Wild Ox” or “Aurochs”? Because that appears to be what you’re saying. That when you see something that conflicts with what you read in the Bible, you actually should shut your eyes, rather than consider the possibility that your reading is in error.
    Incidentally, your own “plain Bible reading” standard indicates that Iron Chariots > God.

  • ako

    Hmm, I do enjoy eel and other non-kosher meats, but I do not enjoy J’s bullying. Seems I’m in a bit of a pickle.
    I’m thinking of how you’d eat to spite Discordians. Because the fourth commandment prohibits hot dog buns, but the second commandment requires that you partake joyously of a hot dog every Friday, to remonstrate against religious food prohibitions such as the Discordian prohibition on hot dog buns.
    I supposed you could try spiting Discordians by eating hot dog buns whenever it wasn’t Friday, but any Discordians you were trying to spite would probably just give you a papal dispensation or something.

  • Andrew Glasgow

    @Bryan
    I’m starting to think even stronger that you’re a Poe, but the devilish bit of Poe’s law is that one simply can’t tell.
    Suffice it to say that if Unquestioning Obedience and unending mindless worship is what God wants, then there’s no way in Hell (ha!) he’ll get it from me. Homey don’t play that. Non Serviam.

  • Andrew Glasgow

    @ako
    Spiting Discordians will generally be futile, as they’ll just spite right back at you.

  • Erl

    Another text where I think this method of thinking is useful is the hippocratic oath, though there it seems to be more successful. Everyone knows the key passage: first, do no harm. But there’s a lot more–no operating for kidney stones, no sleeping with patients (or the family of patients), no telling your patients secrets, no abortions or assisted suicides, and an injunction to teach the children of your instructor.
    Each of these secondary tenets is considered differently today. The confidentiality requirement, for example, stands fairly unchanged, while the passage about kidney stones makes more sense with a more general reading–don’t operate outside your speciality.
    The reason it’s possible to reinterpret the bulk of the oath without losing its spirit lies in the existence of a central tenet: first, do no harm. When specific kidney stone provisions don’t serve that goal, well, out they go.
    It does a damn good job making doctors. So maybe Fred’s right about how effective it would be at making people.

  • Daughter

    If my parents *hadn’t* given me reasons [for their rules], I’d have been ten times more likely to disobey, I’d feel *eminently* justified in doing so, and I probably wouldn’t get along with them nearly as well now.
    Slight tangent here: Despite knowing that it’s satire, I could only stomach a few chapters of Stephen Colbert’s I Am America… and So Can You!, but I read far enough to encounter this gem (paraphrased from memory):
    “My first rule of parenting is that you have to give your kids rules. This is the only way they’ll learn obedience to authority. The rules don’t even have to make sense. I fact, it’s better that the rules don’t make sense. If your rules make sense, your kid will learn logic, not obedience.”

  • Jeff

    [[I do enjoy eel and other non-kosher meats, but I do not enjoy J's bullying. Seems I'm in a bit of a pickle.]]
    I love cheeseburgers, rare if possible. I think J is a dick. The two are anything BUT incompatable!

  • Deoridhe

    Be nice to Discordians! That’ll confuse them!

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    I supposed you could try spiting Discordians by eating hot dog buns whenever it wasn’t Friday, but any Discordians you were trying to spite would probably just give you a papal dispensation or something.
    Actually J is a pope, too, and so, by eating hot dog buns on days other than Friday, gives himself his own papal dispensation automatically. (I say so, and I’m a Pope.)
    Discordianism is full of all kinds of fun Catch-23s like that. Anytime you try to work against it, you actually end up serving Discordia and the Chao.
    Hail Eris!
    Be nice to Discordians! That’ll confuse them!
    And since confusion is a holy state for us, that’s being even nicer!

  • renniejoy

    “When your name is evil,
    that is good or so you think,
    but you’re so very wrong;
    it’s evil.
    But being wrong is right,
    so then you’re good again,
    which is the evilest thing of all…”
    Goddess bless They Might be Giants!

  • Lee Ratner

    Harvey: The base of the Talmud is the Mishnah. The process of creating the Mishnah started after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E as the Rabbis tried to create a form of Judaism that did not require the Temple. The old method of commentating on the Torah was no longer seen as accurate because it depended on the assumption that Temple Judaism was still practiced. Jesus died two generations before the destruction of the Second Temple. After the Mishnah was completed in around 200 C.E., the Rabbis commented on them and this commentary was called the Gemara. The Mishnah and Gamara were combined to form two Talmuds. The Jerusalem Talmud was completed in around 400 C.E. and the Babylonian Talmud was put in its final form around 500 C.E. Jesus could not have any knowledge of the Talmud because the Talmud was specifically designed for a Judaism without the Temple. The Temple still stood when Judaism was alive.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    The Temple still stood when Judaism was alive.
    Now there’s an interesting typo.

  • Fraser

    Bryan: ” Again, ‘one’s human perception’ applies to all other possible sources of evidence as well. This is what faith is: holding God as infinitely reliable and valuable, which doesn’t mean jettisoning logic or science or the real world or any of that. ”
    No on the first point: Such things as gravity, the earth being round and millions of years old (and Genesis being bunk) are verifiable as more than just one person’s perception.
    And yes, God, is infinitely reliable and i don’t think he conflicts with logic or science. The Bible does, if it’s interpreted as inerrant. I agree with Fred, it makes more sense to assume that our interpretation is off than to deny the objective facts of the world around us.
    Like a lot of biblical inerrantists, you seem to assume it’s all or nothing: If the Bible isn’t 100 percent true, then it’s invalid. I believe it’s transcribed by mortal human beings doing a best job–that doesn’t actually make interpretation easier (not for me anyway) but it does mean that an errant Bible doesn’t equate to God is A Liar.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    Have heard the message about not Atheists, personally prefer to do so but will refrain. Refer to crazies of J’s ilk as New Atheists, as it seems more appropriate to separate them from more sane atheists.
    As for Biblical belief, I’ll ignore Bryan as a moron, and simply put this out there: it’s about inspiration, hope, love.

    It amuses me when people do this (and not just Mr. Cales, it’s pretty much a human activity.) Even when we realize we can’t generalize about a whole group based on one or two examples, we proceed to look for a term with which to subdivide that group so that we can generalize about that smaller group, based on one or two examples. So J is an Atheist, or a New Atheist, as opposed to a sane atheist.
    Strangely enough, Mr. Cales, you are able to “ignore Bryan as a moron”. Do you think J could be – nah.

  • Will Wildman

    So J is an Atheist, or a New Atheist, as opposed to a sane atheist.

    J is generally a jackass, although in this particular environment he tends to express it as anti-religiosity. He’s anti-plenty-of-other-things too, depending on how whiny he feels on a given day.
    Also, try not using ‘sane’ in a way that places it as the antonym for such jackassery. People with actual sanity problems have enough trouble without getting randomly lumped in with the jackasses.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    J: Dude, you do not look better by comparison with Bryan. Which is saying something.
    I mean, I basically agree with what Emcee says–I am no authority on this board, and I don’t claim to speak for anyone but me, but I would be rather happy if you’d let the door hit you where the possibly-existent-and-debatably-good-Lord split you. You contribute nothing to this discussion board or, I suspect, to the world.
    On the other hand, if you and Bryan wanted to fight this out in a barbed-wire cage, I’d be cool with that. The ticket sales alone should do wonders for my student loan balance.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Any belief/nonbelief/fandom will have a small-to-substantial minority of absolutely worthless gits. Each population may express themselves in different ways–both Christian and atheist fuckwads, in my experience, tend to go for the conversion attempts, while pagan-brand fuckwads tend to be in the Burning Times/We’re All So Persecuted phylum–but I expect they exist in every subculture except at the level where it’s based on personal acquaintance. (And sometimes even then. Sigh.)
    There’s some kind of Sturgeon’s Law corollary here. “At least ten percent of any subculture are irredeemable douchebags,” maybe.

  • http://iamcoleslaw.blogspot.com/ Coleslaw

    So J is an Atheist, or a New Atheist, as opposed to a sane atheist.
    J is generally a jackass, although in this particular environment he tends to express it as anti-religiosity. He’s anti-plenty-of-other-things too, depending on how whiny he feels on a given day.

    Also, try not using ‘sane’ in a way that places it as the antonym for such jackassery. People with actual sanity problems have enough trouble without getting randomly lumped in with the jackasses.

    Will, I was paraphrasing Mr. Cales, who was trying to find a category into which to place J. That’s why I even quoted Mr. Cales in my post – the quote you deleted. See, I’ll try this again.
    per Mr. Cales:

    Have heard the message about not Atheists, personally prefer to do so but will refrain. Refer to crazies of J’s ilk as New Atheists, as it seems more appropriate to separate them from more sane atheists.

    My point, which you totally ignored, was that in trying not to stereotype atheists, Mr. Cales simply constructed a smaller group whom he felt it was safe to stereotype, rather than simply not stereotype at all.

  • Will Wildman

    Coleslaw: You’re right, I misattributed. Little and bad sleep, no bed, etc etc excuses. I’ve become sensitized to misuse of sane/insane since coming to this board, and jumped the gun. Sorry. On reread it looks like my point was actually a subsection of your point.

  • Amaryliis

    hapax: I can’t fault anyone who doesn’t perceive a glimmer of that Source for not wanting to make the effort, and starting from scratch.
    I can and do fault people who claim to be celebrating the Source, but are actually clinging to the stale exhalations and thousand-times re-exhalations as if it were the original Breath of the Spirit.
    Late as usual, but that’s the line that I’m going to bookmark.
    If the Bible is a map, I don’t think it’s exactly a road map, even. Let alone a GPS, commanding “turn left,” or “drive exactly 3.7 miles,” and blandly assuming obedience. For that matter, there are many who abdicated their brains and their eyes to the voice in the GSP, obediently turned left as directed, and were glad to live to regret it.
    If the Bible is a map, it’s more of a contour map, or physical map, of the terrain, with historical annotations by previous explorers. It describes the kinds of country you’re likely to encounter, and the possible paths through them, and some the things that were learned by those who took those paths. Maybe it recommends taking the pass through the hills rather than insisting on climbing over the mountain. Maybe it suggensts that your city will flourish better on the well-watered plain than on the stony crag. Maybe it reminds you that there’ll be times you’ll have to retreat to that mountain hideout, or that you’ll get through the desert faster if you keep your minds on where you’re going, or that the trip will be easier on everybody if you share…Maybe pencilled traces of the old roads are still there; maybe some have been erased forever, and new paths need to be mapped out…And maybe, if the map seems to say that there’s an impassible rock wall right in front of you, and you look up and see an open valley, you’re probably reading it sideways.
    —
    ako: The more I think about it, the more I want a “The world is secretly a tetrahedron!” theory.
    How about a dodecahedron? It’s a world with corners– and some interesting gods, too.
    —
    J: hat’s right: it’s eel, bacon, molluscs, and catfish from here on out. I have experimented and found these meats to be by far the most delicious, and god forbidden their consumption fits in perfectly with the essentially evil, pleasure-hating nature of the god of Judaism, Christian and Islam
    Well, there’s only one of those four that I’d touch with a bargepole. The rest of them can go on being forbidden till the cows come home, along with all their horrid snaily, shell-y, slimy relatives, and I won’t rebel.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Bah, I don’t like the moniker “New Atheist”. There’s nothing new about atheism; it’s been around for quite some time. True, coming out as an atheist is less of a suicidal act than it used to be, but other than that, there’s really nothing shockingly novel about atheism.

  • Karen

    It’s appropriate to this discussion to reference the best line from the best sermon I’ve ever heard in my life: “The Bible contains the Word of God, but God had to use broken pens to write it.” The minister at my church when I was in high school, gave a sermon about why Presbyterians aren’t inerrantists. Christians believe the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit but not dictated by Her.* That means there was a lot of room for the human authors to insert some of their own ideas into the texts, including some ideas that today seem horrible. To find out where God starts and the authors dumb ideas ended, compare the Bible to contemporary narratives and law codes, and where there’s a difference, attribute that bit to God. (Best example: No other ancient sources, including Classical and Germanic myths and legends, made their ancestors slaves. Everyone in those tales was a nobleman or the offspring of a god. The Israelites founding myth is “I called you out of the house of bondage.” Without the Exodus, there is no abolitionism later. Humans are kinda slow on this stuff.)
    It’s also important to remember that ancient nomads didn’t exactly have PODS to keep their extra stuff around in case they needed it later. If it wasn’t useful, it got abandoned. The same practical principal governed ideas that governed pottery; if we don’t understand it, we ain’t a-gonna keep it. So, the Holy Spirit had to inspire in a way that made sense to the writer and made sense to the readers and hearers as well. General relativity and evolution wouldn’t make sense to Bronze Age nomads, so that’s not included. Women’s rights would be meaningless in a world where no one has rights, so that’s not in there.
    I have to leave for church now, but I’ll explain more later.

  • Lonespark

    I’d much rather read something called “Metapaper”.
    Same here. Though I am fond of meat.

  • Jenny Islander

    The best seafood I have ever had was the time I got to pick sea urchins right off the rocks at low tide and smash them open with a hammer. The orange/yellow roe was dipped briefly in boiling water for safety’s sake (we were a few miles from town) and served on Ritz crackers. Ambrosia!
    Freshly boiled king crab is a close second. The best is when you saw it crawling around just before it was cooked. However, if it was killed and frozen at the processing plant a day or so ago, that’s almost as good.
    Third is a limpet plucked off the rocks and sucked right out of its shell. Mmmmmmm.
    Fourth has to be the tuna sashimi I got at this little semi-touristy restaurant in a small town on Kauai. It was the size of a stick of butter and perfectly raw and toothsome, with a texture almost like fudge except not melty; it tasted like salmon’s sophisticated cousin. That and tea and I was set for the afternoon.
    Fifth is wild Pacific salmon, any kind, fresh or canned, my homely pleasure.
    Sixth is fish and chips made with dogfish.
    Really, though, it’s pretty much all good.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    That’s why the Holy Spirit is required to guide us into all truth. We can know nothing spiritually without it being revealed to us.

    That strongly resembles the claim by RTCs that one has to have faith in order to understand the true meaning of scripture.

    the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?

    As an outsider to religion, I won’t judge whether that qualifies as faith. But it sure sounds like a dogma. If I have a belief in anything, I suppose it would be a belief that everything should be questioned.

    Looking at what reason and evidence says is admitting you might be wrong. New evidence crops up all of the time, and you have to keep re-evaluating things, if you’re going to keep up with the constantl influx of new information and changing perception. It’s placing yourself as a fallible human being who doesn’t have a perfect understand of everything. You can’t use reason and experience to judge things without constantly being open to the possibility that you’re mistaken.

    Quoted for truth.

    Assuming that one human’s perception of a book that’s been translated and re-translated repeatedly for thousands of years is so perfect that you can safely elevate it above all other evidence is holding a really high opinion of the value of your own truth-finding skills.

    I had perceived that assumption as amounting to simply accepting the text as truthful without questioning it. It hadn’t occurred to me to see such an assumption as a judgment of what constitutes absolute truth.

    It’s holding a really high opinion of the Bible vis a vis other sources.

    That sounds hierarchical and binarist to me. It assumes that sources are in competition with one another for credulity. It also treats reason and experience as another source instead of as a means of evaluating sources.

    The Bible doesn’t allow for much ecunmenical tolerance. To believe it is true, you have to believe all other religions are wrong. Because if they aren’t, ‘no one comes to the Father but by me”, “there is no other name given under heaven”, etc. don’t make any sense.

    Again, that presumes binarism, with no room for the possibility that some or all religions may have some degree of truth.

    You can’t see the destruction of sin, only it’s effects. Become a liar and you’ll see effects long-term, though you might enjoy it right now. It might earn you money, the favor of others, whatever. All sin works that way.

    That sounds like another version of the Just World Fallacy.

    You are no better than Bryan, just as judgemental, just as devisive, just as dogmatic, and just as bigoted.

    I agree with one caveat – Bryan doesn’t seem as angry and nakednly hateful in his judgmentality. I might understand J’s fury if, say, his children were murdered by someone spouting Christian theology.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    Also, Bryan’s “either man or God” dichotomy seems to be a very common one, and it doesn’t make sense to me that it would have to be either one or the other.

  • Emcee

    I am no authority on this board, and I don’t claim to speak for anyone but me,
    And my apologies for doing so. I can only blame the late hour, the hot button nature of the post, and my own sense of hyperbole.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    Let alone a GPS, commanding “turn left,” or “drive exactly 3.7 miles,” and blandly assuming obedience. For that matter, there are many who abdicated their brains and their eyes to the voice in the GPS, obediently turned left as directed, and were glad to live to regret it.

    I tend to look at scripture like I would any other book that purports to have insights about the human condition. Some such books may be useful for me and others may not, since the human experience is subjective. So I don’t know if the GPS analogy would have any relevance.
    I’m a huge map geek and I love technological toys, but I don’t own a GPS and I don’t know if I would want one. I might appreciate one if I was in an unfamiliar city and needed to find how to get to a location on a certain street. But I don’t see its use for me in learning the streets of one’s city of residence, or for planning cross-country trips. I prefer to have a physical map, whether it’s printed or on a computer screen, so I can view and learn the entire route ahead of time and picture the route in my head.

  • Lori

    Hi Fred,
    I heard about your blog from a Pagan friend. I’m an evangelical, born again, washed in the blood of the Lamb Christian whose been tarred by GASsers as too liberal. I’ve been struggling with this and your post was exactly what I needed to read. God’s grace is amazing and the Spirit leads in the most amazing ways. God bless you for sharing your journey with us.
    To anyone reading this: liberal evangelicals are not an anomaly. Who does the news media point the camera at, the church who welcomes gays or Fred Phelps?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Lori-who-just commented: you might want to change your handle a bit, so that we can tell you apart from Lori-who’s-a-regular-commenter.

  • hapax

    Sorry, Bugmaster, I didn’t see your post before.
    you are still interpreting the Bible (in this case, the OT) through the lens of your modern secular morality. You are treating it as a secondary source. I personally have no problem with this, but, as we have seen on this very thread, some people do — based on their faith. Is their faith less true, objectively, than yours ?
    No, I am interpreting the Bible through the same tools I use to understand any textual source — linguistic analysis, historical context, comparison with similar texts, identification of sources, styles, genres, themes, etc.
    Alas, like so many worthwhile (and admittedly less worthy) pursuits, there isn’t any measure of “objective truth” to be had, here. If I refused to participate in any activity that didn’t provide me absolute certainty and zero ambiguity, I’d be reduced to chucking rocks and predicting where they might land, which might pall after a while.
    But that doesn’t mean that every interpretation is up for grabs. After all, I could make a consistent case that the override message of HUCKLEBERRY FINN is support for the obedience to authority of the status quo, and that defying the law deserves eternal torment. Or that Twain was an explicit racist. Or that the novel celebrates polyamorous homoerotic ephebophilia. If I were eloquent enough, and clever enough at couching my argument to appeal to other’s deepest hopes and fears, I could probably convince any number of people that my interpretation was best.
    And there would be no “objectively true” way to prove me wrong. The literary police wouldn’t arrest me. The rocks whose trajectories I should have been calculating won’t divert from their courses and land on my head. Twain would not rise from his grave and write, in forty-foot high flaming letters across the sky, “THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL. THAT IS NOT IT, AT ALL.”
    Nonetheless, I would expect that most people would not find my interpretation helpful, or convincing. And the consensus of Twain scholars would reject my message, and not refer to me those wishing to understand Twain and lead a Twain-like life.

  • Will Wildman

    Twain would not rise from his grave and write, in forty-foot high flaming letters across the sky, “THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL. THAT IS NOT IT, AT ALL.”

    I would like to live in a world where this sort of thing happened all the time.
    Everything else you said was also an excellent point; I’ve been thinking for a couple of days how to present that idea, and I think you’ve covered it.

  • ohiolibrarian

    The problem with arguing with people like Bryan (which reminds me of hitting oneself in the head with a hammer) is that he cannot afford to recognize a main feature of the argument, i.e., that there is a difference between the Bible and any individual reading of the Bible. That when people say the Bible is inerrant, they inevitably mean that their reading is inerrant. This seems go a little too far for all but the most self-satisfied, arrogant twits. So, they refuse to recognize the point.
    When pressed sufficiently, the response is usually that the Holy Spirit is involved in their (correct) interpretation, but obviously not in all those other interpretations. So, back to being an arrogant twit. When asked for good reasons for accepting his interpretation over other interpretations … after a few rounds of the inevitable “but the Bible plainly says” (ignoring that whole reading and interpretation thing again) … the rest is silence.
    You would think that the Holy Spirit would come packaged with Bibles if God wanted us to all operate with the same rules. Apparently He just gives his spesul snoflakes the real rules and the rest of us amuse Him by stumbling about with whatever stuff we can make up (however well aligned with the sentiments of the Bible). Nice.

  • Will Wildman

    cannot afford to recognize a main feature of the argument, i.e., that there is a difference between the Bible and any individual reading of the Bible.

    Well, there’s what’s obviously in the Bible, which is what they see when they read it, and then there’s that wacky stuff that other people see when they read it. Interpretation is what other people do; those Infused With Holy Spirit (I think that’s a new line of Red Bull) are just reading the plain and literal meaning. Sigh.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/mmy mmy

    @Mr. Cales: Note on Atheism: I don’t think anyone capitalizes that word, and it occurs to me that this is a great indignity, since we capitalize everyone else’s religious beliefs, usually, so I’m going to start capitalizing it.
    My first response to your statement was to think an expletive and browse away.
    However, since you will not even be aware of my response let me make it clear.
    Only someone who has no understanding of what an atheist (note I am not capitalizing it) is would ever, ever, ever refer to it as a religious belief.
    I AM an atheist. So read the followng:
    There is a difference (a huge difference) between the following statements
    I believe there is no god.
    I do not believe there is a god.
    One is a positive belief. The other is a statement that I have NO belief. That is it.
    There is a list of thousands of gods that have been believed in by people. I don’t go around thinking
    I don’t believe in Shiva
    I don’t believe in Thor
    I don’t believe in Hathor
    I simply do not go about believing in God. The way I don’t go around not believing there is a teapot in orbit around Neptune.
    So don’t capitalize atheism. And don’t think that by doing so you can change the reality of what I am.
    And don’t ever, ever refer to fundamental atheism. Since there is no body of sacred and core beliefs to which an atheist can adhere there is nothing to be fundamental about.
    Don’t tell me what Harris or Dawkins or Hitchens argues as if their statements were doctrinal.
    I am an atheist.
    Without capitalization.
    Without belief.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    those Infused With Holy Spirit (I think that’s a new line of Red Bull) are just reading the plain and literal meaning.

    The explanation I’ve heard is that “the Bible makes no sense unless one reads it with faith.” That sounds like they’re talking about stage productions where one has to consciously suspend one’s disbelief in order to appreciate them. (I imagine an audience member standing up and exclaiming in shock, “Wait a damn minute, Blanche isn’t really having a nervous breakdown. She’s just acting! You’re all actors! This is just pretend!”)

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    stage productions where one has to consciously suspend one’s disbelief in order to appreciate them

    To clarify, I’m not suggesting that such a conscious suspension is necessary, but that the Infused With Holy Spirit mindset would imply that it’s necessary.

  • Fraser

    Great comment, Karen.

  • JE

    Bah, I don’t like the moniker “New Atheist”. There’s nothing new about atheism; it’s been around for quite some time. True, coming out as an atheist is less of a suicidal act than it used to be, but other than that, there’s really nothing shockingly novel about atheism.
    The New Atheist movement is a not a term for atheists but a movement made up of atheists who claim that they can present a non-theistic world view that is in every way as good and applicable as a theistic one, which naturally brings them into constant conflict theists since they are claiming that religion is useless.

  • JE

    Gah, that was supposed to be quoted, but I messed up my formatting. At least I didn’t unleash the dread italics

  • Lonespark

    Welcome new-Lori! But yeah, probably change your handle a little, otherwise confusion will reign.

  • hapax

    I imagine an audience member standing up and exclaiming in shock, “Wait a damn minute, Blanche isn’t really having a nervous breakdown. She’s just acting! You’re all actors! This is just pretend!”
    Darn it, Tonio, I’m going to a play later this week, and now I will have to sit on my hands to keep from doing exactly this.

  • http://jamoche.livejournal.com Jamoche

    “Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows,”
    I’m re-reading Terry Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men” Tiffany’s little brother was stolen by the queen of the fairies, and she’s gone after him. As Tiffany is the only real thing in the pale imitation that is the fairie woods, the shadows – literal and metaphorical – run away from her.
    Jesus met the woman at the well and she went away just as Samaritan and female as she was before.
    I am saving this quote. I’m sure I’ll find a use for it :)
    If so many people misinterpret the Biblical text;
    I don’t think it’s really “so many”, just a very loud minority. Otherwise GLBT rights wouldn’t have got as far as they have.
    By setting up this dichotomy between reality and a particular interpretation of the Bible, man’s opinions are made equal to those in Scripture. The Christian way of thinking is that a person should come to the Bible to learn how to live and to have their thinking changed — that’s the conflict I’m referring to.
    That’s a very modern interpretation, and not universal to all Christians. I’m Catholic. Our “way of thinking” is that the Bible is the starting point, but it’s complicated and more than any one person could understand, especially if that’s not the primary focus of their life, so we’ve also got centuries of research and study done by people who *did* make it the primary focus of their lives. We don’t each of us separately have to go through the thought process Fred did; we can look at our history and see that other people had the same issues, came to similar conclusions, it was discussed thoroughly, and now it’s officially Sacred Tradition. So yes, “man’s opinions” can be equal to scripture, if it’s an informed opinion based on study and research.
    That’s why the Holy Spirit is required to guide us into all truth
    That’s the argument the anti-Catholics who’d show up on alt.religion.catholic used to use, trying to explain why they thought having a Sacred Tradition was wrong: “Don’t listen to your priests who tell you what to think, read the Bible *yourself* and listen to the Holy Spirit who will tell you to think the way *I’m* telling you to think.” Counter arguments of “well, I *have* read it, and I still disagree with you, so maybe you’re listening to yourself and not the Holy Spirit” tended to be met with the equivalent of a playground “la la la, I’m not listening, you’re still wrong.”
    If you believe in divine intervention, don’t you have to believe that God could change a person’s sexual desires?
    When He’s the one who made them that way in the first place?
    But re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?
    No.
    If Jesus says Scripture can’t be broken, that not the smallest stroke of a pen will pass away until all if fulfilled, if Paul says that all Scripture is God-breathed … how could God more directly say that the Bible is perfect?
    Simple: He didn’t. The Bible is an imperfect record of Scripture. The map is not the territory. If the Bible was really protected by God from inerrancy, then we’d never have the sorts of typos that made it into print. Or was it really OK to commit adultery in 1631?
    A friend of mine who has told me it is a choice and whom I’ve spent a considerable amount of time discussing these things would disagree with you.
    If you’re bisexual, it could be a choice. Maybe. In the same sense that if I find myself attracted to someone out of reach, I can choose to ignore that attraction, but I really don’t think the initial attraction is going to go away. It’s not so much making a choice as having enough options that some can be ignored. If it truly is a choice for everyone, then I, for instance, could “choose” to be gay, and sorry, but women are just kinda meh for me. I know guys who feel the same way.
    Of course if you choose to read the Bible literally, you’re still left with the question of why a good and loving god would doom people to be born gay with no say in the matter if homosexuality is an abomination, as the Bible does unambiguously state
    Does it, though? Homosexuality as an orientation was not a concept known back then. Male-male sex does not always equal homosexual orientation; prison sex is the first thing to come to mind. As Izzy put it so well, that’s having sex just because there’s an available hole to use, and abomination is as good a word as any for that.

  • Launcifer

    Counter arguments of “well, I *have* read it, and I still disagree with you, so maybe you’re listening to yourself and not the Holy Spirit” tended to be met with the equivalent of a playground “la la la, I’m not listening, you’re still wrong.”

    What was that comment in Small Gods about Vorbis listening to the echoes of his own thoughts rather than to Om? I rather fear that it applies in the case.

  • Spearmint

    The baffling thing about J is that unlike Scott or ChallengerGrim, he’s actually funny and intelligent some of the time.
    Just not this week, apparently.
    I need to start tracking it with the lunar cycle and see if there’s a correlation- I think he may be a were-troll.
    As Izzy put it so well, that’s having sex just because there’s an available hole to use, and abomination is as good a word as any for that.
    Wait, what?
    Sex has a lot of uses. Sometimes it’s cementing a long-term relationship with someone you love who you’re sexually attracted to.
    Other times it’s for fun, or for comfort in a difficult situation. Like… oh, I dunno, prison. Abominating it just because it’s not the Disney OTP kind of sex seems petty and cruel to me. Not everyone has the luxury of cultivating sexual relationships with people of the optimal gender, or with other people, period.
    Is masturbation an abomination because your hand is “just an available hole”? As long as everyone in the sexual encounter fully consents to it in all its ramifications (which in prison sex is a huge if, obviously, but not necessarily untrue), I don’t think we should be knocking it.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    Homosexuality as an orientation was not a concept known back then…

    But there were likely people who had romantic and sexual desires for people of their own gender, even though their cultures didn’t think to labels these desires as homosexuality. And I would label prison sex as about power and domination like any other type of rape, not about sexual pleasure. Many homophobes seem to think that homosexuality is defined by the act rather than by the desire – I would say that a straight person who has a one-time gay encounter is still straight.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    If I refused to participate in any activity that didn’t provide me absolute certainty and zero ambiguity, I’d be reduced to chucking rocks and predicting where they might land, which might pall after a while.

    Come on, hapax, you know this isn’t what I mean by “objective truth”. When have I ever campaigned for “absolute certainty and zero ambiguity” ? I’m an atheist, after all, remember ? I don’t even believe that the Sun will rise tomorrow with absolute certainty !

    But that doesn’t mean that every interpretation is up for grabs. … If I were eloquent enough, and clever enough at couching my argument to appeal to other’s deepest hopes and fears, I could probably convince any number of people that my interpretation was best. … Nonetheless, I would expect that most people would not find my interpretation helpful, or convincing.

    Wait, hadn’t you just convinced them, in your previous paragraph ?
    In any case, it seems like your approach to interpreting the Bible differs from Fred’s. Fred is saying, as far as I can tell, “take a look at what you know to be true today, from your life experience, scientific consensus, secular morality, and other such sources. If your reading of the Bible contradicts that, you’re reading it wrong”. You, on the other hand, are saying, “take a look at as many literary sources as possible, including the Bible itself. Find some consensus among them. If your reading of the Bible matches this consensus, you’re doing it right”. Fred also uses extra-Biblical texts and literary analysis, but for him, all those texts are still secondary sources of wisdom, whereas for you, they are primary.
    Thus, for example, it would be virtually impossible for Fred to conclude that unicorns exist, by reading the bible. We know (for a certain value of “know”) that unicorns don’t exist and never did; thus, if your reading of the Bible leads you to conclude that there are unicorns hopping all over the place, then you’re reading it wrong. However, if all the Biblical, extra-Biblical, and theological sources concluded that the Bible really does imply the literal existence of unicorns, then you would conclude that they did exist, and still do, despite having never met anyone who’d seen one.
    (Note: I picked the silly “unicorns” as a non-controversial made-up example, but I’m sure you can see some parallels to less silly topics).

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    The New Atheist movement is a not a term for atheists but a movement made up of atheists who claim that they can present a non-theistic world view that is in every way as good and applicable as a theistic one, which naturally brings them into constant conflict theists since they are claiming that religion is useless.

    This doesn’t make sense to me. If I didn’t believe that my worldview was “in every way as good and applicable as a theistic one” (or, perhaps, even better), then I’d convert on the spot. Why would I keep believing in something I know to be wrong and false ? Again, this seems like a rather old idea to me.

  • Jeff

    [[Or that the novel celebrates polyamorous homoerotic ephebophilia.]]
    Is it wrong that now I want a version that does?
    =========================
    [[Only someone who has no understanding of what an atheist (note I am not capitalizing it) is would ever, ever, ever refer to it as a religious belief.]]
    Atheism is, though, a belief about religion. To that extent, it defines someone as much or as little as Mormon, Methodist or Chasid.

  • ako

    But there were likely people who had romantic and sexual desires for people of their own gender, even though their cultures didn’t think to labels these desires as homosexuality.
    That’s definitely the case. There’s some really solid historical evidence on this front – some of the individual “This historic figure was gay!” cases are debatable, and there’s less evidence for people being exclusively inclined towards their own gender (which is less likely to show up in historic records; the people making the records wouldn’t have been looking for it, so it would have been harder to see, and for most of history, the pressure to marry for procreation regardless romantic feelings would have been huge), but men falling for men and women falling for women has been shown to happen around the world and throughout history.

  • mmy

    @Jeff: Atheism is, though, a belief about religion. To that extent, it defines someone as much or as little as Mormon, Methodist or Chasid.
    .
    No atheism isn’t a belief about religion. It is a non-belief about god(s). It is, for example, possible to be an atheist Buddhist. Since Jain believe that every soul/spiritual body is equal then in the sense that most people understand god Jains are atheists.
    Further, just because I have a belief about something doesn’t make me a SOMETHING. I believe dowsers are scam artists. That does not make me a dowser.

  • Izzy

    Emcee: Not a problem, and I wasn’t responding to your post when I said that. I’ve personally caught a bit of flak for not making that sort of thing sufficiently clear, in the past.
    Tonio: True, though it could just be that Bryan’s a more passive-aggressive style of bigot whereas J’s more of an in-your-face jackass.
    Spearmint: Hm, good point. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that there’s anything wrong about sex purely for physical release, as long as both people consent. I don’t get why anyone would do it with a partner who they didn’t at least find physically attractive, but I don’t think it’s inherently bad. Just not something you should be doing with your friends, or with anyone who doesn’t know what they’re getting into: prison (assuming consent), a desert island, or answering a “horny and desperate” Internet ad are situations where that can work, but it’s pretty rare.

  • Ursula L

    Atheism is, though, a belief about religion. To that extent, it defines someone as much or as little as Mormon, Methodist or Chasid.
    Not really. Atheism is one belief about one fact – whether or not god/ess/e/s exist. It has nothing to do with what conclusions you draw about morality, what you think is right or wrong, whether or not you attend worship services (e.g., atheists attending Unitarian churches) or whether or not you identify as ethnically belonging to a particular religion (e.g., someone self-defining as a Jewish atheist or Catholic atheist, because they were raised by families belonging to those faiths.)
    Calling yourself Mormon, Methodist or Chasid has a lot more to do with who you are. It defines what texts you consider sacred. It defines where you worship if you worship. It defines what sources you consider authoritative in deciding what is right or wrong. It is a cultural identifier, as well as an identifier of religious belief.

  • http://jamoche.livejournal.com Jamoche

    @Spearmint: Other times it’s for fun, or for comfort in a difficult situation. Like… oh, I dunno, prison. Abominating it just because it’s not the Disney OTP kind of sex seems petty and cruel to me. Not everyone has the luxury of cultivating sexual relationships with people of the optimal gender, or with other people, period.
    As long as everyone in the sexual encounter fully consents to it in all its ramifications (which in prison sex is a huge if, obviously, but not necessarily untrue), I don’t think we should be knocking it.
    Is masturbation an abomination because your hand is “just an available hole”? As long as everyone in the sexual encounter fully consents to it in all its ramifications (which in prison sex is a huge if, obviously, but not necessarily untrue), I don’t think we should be knocking it.
    The operative word is “use”, not “comfort”. There can be consensual comfort sex in just about any situation, sure, but it’s the “huge if” I’m talking about here. (Presumably your hand is consenting.)

  • hapax

    Come on, hapax, you know this isn’t what I mean by “objective truth”
    In all honesty, no, I don’t. I’d love a definition. Everytime we’ve gone ’round this mulberry bush, though, you eventually bring up some equivalent of building bridges or aiming artillery, so I thought that would be an acceptable example for you.
    You, on the other hand, are saying, “take a look at as many literary sources as possible, including the Bible itself. Find some consensus among them. If your reading of the Bible matches this consensus, you’re doing it right”. Fred also uses extra-Biblical texts and literary analysis, but for him, all those texts are still secondary sources of wisdom, whereas for you, they are primary.
    I… honestly don’t know to answer this. I cannot find any correspondence whatsoever between what I posted and your characterisation of it. I can’t even match up your usage of “primary source” to anything I’ve ever heard of before, let alone the idea that the meaning of a text is something that’s up for a vote.
    Out of sincere curiosity, what is *your* approach to difficult texts, if you are seeking meaning beyond the surface ? (I don’t necessarily mean religious meaning; the question could equally be applied to a novel that changed your beliefs about something, or an essay that inspired you to take some action, or a poem that moved you to tears). Because I can’t see anything in your characterization of my approach (or Fred Clark’s, for that matter, although I can’t speak for him) which wouldn’t be more applicable to referencing a repair manual or decoding a foreign-language cookbook.

  • Fraser

    Jamoche: “The operative word is “use”, not “comfort”. There can be consensual comfort sex in just about any situation, sure, but it’s the “huge if” I’m talking about here. (Presumably your hand is consenting.)”
    One of the best put-downs I ever read (in response to a man who’d asked a sex advice columnist why buying his date a $50 dinner didn’t get him laid) was “Wow, with that attitude I bet your penis cringes every time it sees your hand coming.”

  • Passing Anthromorphist

    The best seafood I have ever had was the time I got to pick sea urchins right off the rocks at low tide and smash them open with a hammer. The orange/yellow roe was dipped briefly in boiling water for safety’s sake (we were a few miles from town) and served on Ritz crackers. Ambrosia!
    While the urchins’ friends and relations watched in disbelieving horror and are traumatized to this very day….

  • Anton Mates

    Bryan,

    I’m not sure how I can answer it more directly at all. If Jesus says Scripture can’t be broken, that not the smallest stroke of a pen will pass away until all if fulfilled, if Paul says that all Scripture is God-breathed … how could God more directly say that the Bible is perfect?

    Quite easily. For instance, God could actually manifest before you and say that to you, or dispatch an angel or something–some sort of message which is unambiguous, direct, and originates outside the Bible so you don’t need circular reasoning to accept it. You yourself believe that God has done such things, so it’s not like he couldn’t.
    Of course, even as circular assertions of Biblical perfection go, the three you mention aren’t all that strong. Paul’s line is pretty much irrelevant to your claim, since (as I assume you believe) Paul isn’t God. And when Jesus asserts the infallibility of the law/the prophets/scripture, that’s not at all the same as asserting the infallibility of your particular version of the Bible. After all, your Bible contains an entire New Testament that didn’t exist when Jesus supposedly said these things. Nor do we know how similar your Bible’s Old Testament is to whatever version of the Tanakh that Jesus considered authoritative; even in his time there were sharp disagreements between various factions of Jews over the nature of the “true” text.

    On the translation issue, we translate from better and more numerous source documents than any other piece of ancient literature, many of which are not questioned at all.

    I’ve seen this claim before, but it always blows me away. Do you really think that we don’t “question” ancient literature? I promise you, everyone understands that our copies of The Gallic Wars and the The Republic are chock-full of transcription errors, and that their authors are not infallible narrators of the events they claim to record. (This despite the fact that The Gallic Wars, for instance, chronicles much more plausible and widely-attested events than does much of the Bible.)
    Nobody out there’s operating on a “Homer said it, I believe it, that settles it” principle. (Well, maybe Schliemann.)

    It isn’t like we translate from the NIV which came from the KJV which came from the Vulgate etc. It’s not a chain. We go back to the sources(and better ones with modern findings) from which those versions were translated.

    No, we don’t. Even the oldest texts we’ve found are not the originals, nor do we know they were the specific sources of any of the later translations we have. (Statistically they probably weren’t, just as a matter of the incompleteness of the historical record.) And all of them disagree with their closest contemporaries to some degree. It’s still a chain.

    If, as the Bible says, we are created for the purpose of glorifying, worshiping, and enjoying Him forever, then nothing compares with the value of this unquestioning obedience.

    Why? What if the purpose we’re created for is stupid or evil? What leads you to think that a creator’s purpose defines the value of the lives of its creations?

  • http://jamoche.livejournal.com Jamoche

    While the urchins’ friends and relations watched in disbelieving horror and are traumatized to this very day….
    “O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,?
    “You’ve had a pleasant run!?
    Shall we be trotting home again?’
    ?But answer came there none–?
    And this was scarcely odd, because?
    They’d eaten every one.

  • Anton Mates

    Oh, and as hapax points out, taking John 10:35 as an endorsement of Scripture’s literal infallibility implies that Jesus believed that a bunch of other humans were actually gods. I’m not sure how well that fits into your interpretation of the Bible, Bryan.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    In all honesty, no, I don’t. I’d love a definition.

    We’ve been over this before, but sure. I personally don’t believe that I can know anything with 100% absolute certainty, other than possibly for the fact that I exist, and that I appear to be experiencing an external world through my senses — with the exception of trivial things like “this statement is true”, which are true by definition. So, while I’m fairly certain that the Sun will come up tomorrow, I’m open to the possibility that it will not. In fact, one of the problems I have with various religions is that they claim to know, with absolute certainty, certain things that are either unfalsifiable or very likely to be false, such as “Yahveh exists” or “The Earth is 6000 years old”. I use the term “objective” to mean, “empirically verifiable and independent of one’s faith” (again, with the exception of trivial statements such as “this statement is true”). Thus, the statement “gravity exists” is objectively very likely (though not 100% certain) to be true; even if you passionately and sincerely believe it is false, I would not recommend jumping out of a 12th-story window. Contrast this with religious truths, which are true in the poetic sense, as you have previously defined it, but not in the objective sense — since faith is required in order to experience them.

    I cannot find any correspondence whatsoever between what I posted and your characterisation of it.

    You said:

    No, I am interpreting the Bible through the same tools I use to understand any textual source — linguistic analysis, historical context, comparison with similar texts, identification of sources, styles, genres, themes, etc.

    This sounds to me as though you’re treating all these texts as being separate from your life experience, empirical evidence, scientific consensus, present-day morality, etc. — firstly, because you did not list any such things in your list of tools, and secondly, because you seemed to be arguing against my claim that some Christians use the Bible as merely a secondary source. If my interpretation of your words is wrong, please elaborate. You also seem to resent the idea that the meaning of a text is something that is “up for a vote”, but you do seem to treat the hypothetical “consensus of Twain scholars” as somewhat authoritative, so, again, I’m not sure what else you could’ve meant.

    Out of sincere curiosity, what is *your* approach to difficult texts, if you are seeking meaning beyond the surface?

    I can’t really answer this question, because I don’t “seek meaning beyound the surface” in the same way that (as far as I can tell) theists do (setting instruction manuals and textbooks aside, for the moment). I don’t believe that any book or essay is imbued with supernatural (or quasi-supernatural, if you prefer) properties that will, as I know a priori, guide me toward a better life. Instead, I see fiction books and stirring essays as a means of communication, from one human (the author) to another (myself). Thus, while I can apply some measure of literary analysis to a book (though, obviously not as much of it as a professional such as yourself could), I don’t see any book as authoritative.
    Incidentally, while I have been deeply moved by poetry and prose before, I have also been moved by things like calculus and physics and algorithms. There’s a lot of beauty in nature and in human invention, if you know where and how to look.

  • Spearmint

    prison (assuming consent), a desert island, or answering a “horny and desperate” Internet ad are situations where that can work, but it’s pretty rare.
    Or ships at sea, or an army in the field, or boarding school, or a really small town…
    I dunno, I feel like there’s a spectrum ranging from convenient hole – optimal possible sexual partner. Being the wrong gender is obviously a suboptimal trait, but not the only one; I don’t have a very intense sexual drive, but if I felt the need to be with someone constantly I think I’d rather be in a relationship with a nice girl who didn’t turn me on than an abusive guy who did. And I’m pretty far toward the heterosexual end of the Kinsey scale.
    The consent of the other person makes for a sharp cutoff, but even then it’s really a cutoff on their optimality spectrum, not necessarily on yours. (Er, not that it’s okay to rape people. But obviously for some people it’s not a turn off, so that’s a cutoff on a moral spectrum, not the optimality spectrum).
    Why? What if the purpose we’re created for is stupid or evil? What leads you to think that a creator’s purpose defines the value of the lives of its creations?
    Also what if the book is lying about the purpose? This is what I never understand about “The Bible is inerrant because it says so!” arguments. I mean, I never lie and you can trust that assurance because like I just explained, I never lie, but somehow no one wants to buy this bridge I’ve been trying to sell.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Spearmint: Hm, true. I certainly agree with the notion of a spectrum: I think most things operate on one. I think what’s important in all the situations you describe is that both parties–ideally, at least–are on the same page: what King describes, in Shawshank Redemption, as “an arrangement between two fundamentally heterosexual men”, or women, or a homosexual man and woman, or whatever. Nobody’s going in thinking that Billy actually would be having sex with him if there was a pretty girl around.
    I think there’s a thing about the default assumption of a situation that comes into play here: the stuff it’s more-or-less okay to take for granted about a situation, where it’s the responsibility of the differing person to speak up. The default assumption in my culture is that you’re having sex with someone because you find them at least physically attractive. It *isn’t*, notably, that you want to have a relationship or be exclusive; if you’re not friends beforehand, it isn’t even that you’ll talk to each other afterwards. My culture’s pretty unrestricted in terms both of what sexes are around and what sexualities are accepted, it doesn’t equate sex with love or commitment (and doesn’t have massive life-changing consequences for unintended pregnancy, which probably helps), and contains a lot of mobility and a lot of opportunity to meet strangers. Changing any of these variables would probably change the default assumptions.
    …if that made any sense. Off to dinner now.

  • Will Wildman

    Also what if the book is lying about the purpose? This is what I never understand about “The Bible is inerrant because it says so!” arguments. I mean, I never lie and you can trust that assurance because like I just explained, I never lie, but somehow no one wants to buy this bridge I’ve been trying to sell.

    One of my favourite fan-theistic ideas is that some scripture is not merely incorrect, but intentionally divinely-inspired to be incorrect so that people will have to think for themselves in order to grow. Sort of like a theist saying to an atheist “God sent me here to convert you” and the atheist replying “How do you know he didn’t send me to convert you?”
    Admittedly, there would have to be some excellent justifications for such divine behaviour, but the number of contradictions in scripture kind of implies that such a thing is plausible.

  • hapax

    Hmmm. Okay, I really don’t want to seem like I’m quarreling with you, Bugmaster, so if you (or anyone else) starts to get irritated with this, I’ll be glad to drop it. Mostly, I appreciate you force me to clarify my thoughts. I apologize in advance for what I expect will be a lengthy wall o’text.
    I personally don’t believe that I can know anything with 100% absolute certainty
    Okay, I agree with this absolutely. And I have always said the same with regards to the existence of any supernatural entity, let alone the God I worship, let alone any relevant texts or interpretations thereof. In fact, I’d go further, and say that I am relatively certain that I am wrong — perhaps even critically wrong — about any number of aspects of that entity, as you’d expect when a finite being dares to speculate about a (possible) infinite One.
    Thus, the statement “gravity exists” is objectively very likely (though not 100% certain) to be true; even if you passionately and sincerely believe it is false, I would not recommend jumping out of a 12th-story window.
    And we’re back to this again. If it would make my post more sensible to you for me to have said “chucking myself out of a window” rather than “chucking rocks”, please feel free to make the substitution.
    This sounds to me as though you’re treating all these texts as being separate from your life experience, empirical evidence, scientific consensus, present-day morality, etc. firstly, because you did not list any such things in your list of tools
    Okay, that was my poor phrasing. I was subsuming those under the “etc.” as a given.
    and secondly, because you seemed to be arguing against my claim that some Christians use the Bible as merely a secondary source.
    Well, I can’t speak for ALL Christians — I’m sure that you’ll find “some Christians” who say all sorts of damfool things. But to my understanding, “tools” are secondary to the primary text they are used to interpret.
    If you asked me how tall a tree is, would the measuring tape be primary, and the tree itself “merely secondary” to the tool I used to study it? If you answer “yes”, then I guess we are using the words “primary” and “secondary” in very different ways, that I don’t know how to bridge.
    You also seem to resent the idea that the meaning of a text is something that is “up for a vote”, but you do seem to treat the hypothetical “consensus of Twain scholars” as somewhat authoritative, so, again, I’m not sure what else you could’ve meant.
    I mean that there is no one, true, “right” meaning that can be arrived at, by vote or any other means. It’s not like a math problem, with only one (or sometimes two) correct answer, and all the others are wrong.
    The “consensus of Twain scholars” was meant as a stand-in for what someone earlier (I apologize to whoever posted it for losing your name, because what you said was quite to the point) described in the Roman Catholic tradition, where those with time, expertise, interest, and dedication devoted themselves to careful analysis of the text using the tools of the historian, the linguist, the literary critic, and also reason and experience, to suggest interpretations that were likely to be most helpful to the body of the faithful.
    The “authority” of their interpretation does not derive from either their expertise or the number of people who agree with them, but with the degree to which the interpretations that they arrive at using these tools are actually useful, inspiring, and in accord with those to whom they are presented.
    I don’t believe that any book or essay is imbued with supernatural (or quasi-supernatural, if you prefer) properties that will, as I know a priori, guide me toward a better life.
    Ah. Well, again we are in accord I don’t believe that supernatural properties reside in texts either (or in any objects, with a very limited number of exceptions under very specific circumstances, that aren’t really relevant to this discussion.)
    Like you, I see them as a means of communication, from one Person to others. However, since I see Scriptures (actually, most Scriptures, although I am most … attuned, maybe? … to the Scriptures from the Jewish and Christian tradition, I emphasize these) as a communication from any number of people, individually and as a community, repeated and re-repeated, probably garbled in the process, a communication about their communication with a particular supernatural Being, the … residual? Or derivative, perhaps? … authority of that original Contact remains.
    Or so it seems to me, at any rate; since by dint of hard effort and care, I feel that through the text, I can catch a reflection, an echo, that helps shape and strengthen and channel any attempts on my part to make contact on my own.
    But all that’s on the personal level.
    The issue comes up that these are texts that have served a similar function (as well as many others) for millions of individuals, in thousands of communities, over millennia. Much of their “authority” — in this context — comes from the way that they serve as a common referent for all of those individuals.
    But since these ARE all individuals — there is no such thing, really, as “the Christian interpretation”, any more than there is “the mood of the American public” — it is useful, even essential, to try and reduce the ratio of “signal to noise.” And it seems logical to proceed once again with all the tools at our disposal to clarify the text as much as possible. This involves not only relatively simple errors as the mistranslation of “auroch” for “unicorn” mentioned above, but such basic conceptual understandings as genre, theme, and context.
    And, working with the assumption that the original writers (as much as anyone could be said to be “original” with such a heavily redacted text) were NOT just a pack of “primitive screwheads” (or whatever phrase you used), but human beings fundamentally similar in intelligence and basic human experience to ourselves: yes, if my understanding of a particular passage leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason and experience, I am indeed probably reading it “wrong.”
    Incidentally, while I have been deeply moved by poetry and prose before, I have also been moved by things like calculus and physics and algorithms. There’s a lot of beauty in nature and in human invention, if you know where and how to look.
    This is something I definitely agree with. I just don’t think that ALL beauty is to be found in nature and human invention — or rather, that such infinite beauty as is there, points to a Beauty behind it.
    But that’s where you start throwing things at me again, and I really can’t blame you. :-)

  • Lonespark

    Nobody out there’s operating on a “Homer said it, I believe it, that settles it” principle.
    “Snorri recorded it; that’s good enough for me!”

  • Tonio

    No atheism isn’t a belief about religion. It is a non-belief about god(s).

    Most of the prominent “new atheists” seem to fit that description, but they also harshly criticize religion. They became well-known not long after 9/11, and the experience Sam Harris describes may be typical, where the shock of that event helped solidify and strengthen the misgivings he already held about both god-belief and about religion. In my experience, it’s rare to find a non-atheist who harshly criticizes religion, but it’s more common to find people who believe in a god but who say they aren’t religious. And it’s more common also, I’ve found, to find atheists who don’t criticize religion all that much.

    One of my favourite fan-theistic ideas is that some scripture is not merely incorrect, but intentionally divinely-inspired to be incorrect so that people will have to think for themselves in order to grow. Sort of like a theist saying to an atheist “God sent me here to convert you” and the atheist replying “How do you know he didn’t send me to convert you?”

    Reminds me somewhat of the claim by some creationists that the earth and the universe were created old as a test of faith. The idea you cited would be a great premise for a novel, but as an explanation it seems too complicated.

  • Lee Ratner

    Madgastromer, we lost some of our lively vitality when we stopped performing elaborate rituals in fancy vestments and became more stripped down.;).

  • ako

    One of my favourite fan-theistic ideas is that some scripture is not merely incorrect, but intentionally divinely-inspired to be incorrect so that people will have to think for themselves in order to grow. Sort of like a theist saying to an atheist “God sent me here to convert you” and the atheist replying “How do you know he didn’t send me to convert you?”
    I once saw a joke-theory that all of the immoral stuff in the Bible wasn’t a test of faith, but a test of morals. A way to see which humans had the courage to stand up for moral principles in the face of threatening authority, and which ones were ready to go along with it. People who looked at it and went “That’s not right, and I’m not worshiping any God that treats people like that” would be the ones worthy of Heaven. (The person coming up with the theory was mostly talking about atheists, but that presumably includes “God is good, so he can’t want that” interpretations as well.) The people who accepted it and rationalized it purely because someone big and powerful who might hurt them for disobeying was telling them to do something immoral, were the ones who’d be judged unworthy.
    Although, if they were eternally damned for it, that would just raise the same problem (I can see “You’re not ready for Heaven yet – go to your room Purgatory until you’ve learned your lesson!” but I’m not good with eternal damnation of anyone).

  • Ursula L

    Reminds me somewhat of the claim by some creationists that the earth and the universe were created old as a test of faith.
    I don’t understand that argument at all.
    If God is unreliable in Creation, then God is unreliable. So why rely on what God has to say in the Bible, or God’s promises for salvation, or anything else associated with God? It isn’t a test of faith, but a proof against faith, that one should not have faith in one who would deliberately lie to you as a test.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/gdwarf GDwarf

    What this statement really says is you want a God in your image. That your morality is more valuable/esteemable than God’s.

    Potentially.
    I feel that morality can be derived from base principles. Now, obviously, at some point you reach a limit as to how “basic” those principles can be, but that’s true of everything outside of mathematics.
    I can justify my morality using some pretty simple logic. If God(s) cannot justify theirs, then why should I consider theirs superior to my own?
    God is, in this case, no different from any other person I talk to. If they can defend their stance then I’ll accept what they say. If they can’t, then I won’t.

    Some would say it is unloving for God to condemn that attitude — but in fact that is the only loving thing He can do, and that’s why I’m being so direct about this.

    God’s apparently omnipotent. By definition God always has an infinite number of solutions to every problem.

    I believe in inerrancy, so I’d want it to be exactly the same thing.

    And yet the Bible contradicts itself and our understanding of the universe fairly often. I’m not going to bring up one of those lists, I’m tired of seeing them after having to reference them so much on other websites. Instead, I’ll use my favourite example: “The firmament” is a pretty specific (and complex) word. It parses as, roughly, A solid, hemispherical, sky that keeps the vast ocean of space from flooding the entire planet. It also implies that the stars are lanterns hung from the solid sky.
    That’s the only definition of the word. It refers to a Babylonian (and Jewish, and Egyptian) cosmology.
    Genesis opens with a mention of the firmament.
    Unless NASA’s punched hundreds of new holes in the sky, causing world-wide flooding, I’d say genesis is in error.

    There’s a lot more evidence for what I believe than ‘the Bible says so’, but it all comes back to the fact of faith in God(not in the Bible first); but to believe in God in the sense the Bible speaks of it requires believing in the Bible, because otherwhise God lied to us.

    Or humans lied/were mistaken. ‘Cause that’s an option too.
    Also, of course, is the option that God did indeed lie or was mistaken.
    None of those options are impossible, after all. At *best* you’ve got only God’s word saying that God doesn’t lie. If that’s all the assurance you need then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. After all, I’m a deity and I promise that I don’t lie.

    What I think is missing here is that for God to say ‘Because I said so’ is the best reason in the universe their could possibly be. God telling you to do something for your benefit isn’t nearly as good a reason as telling you to do it for His benefit, since the glory of God is the greatest good in the universe.

    If nothing else, then, I’d refuse to worship a being so narcissistic that it feels that it’s own ego is more important than the totality of existence.

    @ Launcifer: There is really no such thing as proving the bible, in the sense that nobody can be argued into belief.

    Au contraire. Every belief that I consciously hold I was argued into. Atheism. Pro-equality. Pro-human-rights. Skepticism. etc. I wasn’t born believing any of these things and when growing up I repeatedly changed my mind about some of them (others nosso much, no one ever argued me out of the middle two on that list, say, but I have seen the arguments against them.) such as Atheism. I was raised Christian; was even confirmed. Was “argued into” atheism.
    If you cannot debate people into supporting your belief then your belief is, I’d say, flawed.

    Bah, I don’t like the moniker “New Atheist”. There’s nothing new about atheism; it’s been around for quite some time. True, coming out as an atheist is less of a suicidal act than it used to be, but other than that, there’s really nothing shockingly novel about atheism.

    Nor do I. It’s the oldest faith there is, if one accepts implicit atheism.
    Further, “New Atheists” are, generally, about the same as the old ones, only without our current Voltaire.

    If I refused to participate in any activity that didn’t provide me absolute certainty and zero ambiguity, I’d be reduced to chucking rocks and predicting where they might land, which might pall after a while.

    Er, sorry for the fictional-you’s sanity, but there’s this whole “Quantum Mechanics” thing that might interfere with even that…
    As you note, everything in life has various levels of ambiguity, and nothing is totally free of it.
    Of course, reading is your brain’s interpretation of a pretty crude abstraction of another person’s brain’s interpretation of something. To claim that something written is free of ambiguity is to claim that we all are identical in every matter of thought. The Borg can make this claim, I can’t.
    In other news: I capitalize atheism, or not, mostly based on the company it’s keeping in a sentence or paragraph. So if I’m listing “Christianity, Hinduism…” and so on, then Atheism gets capitalized. If it’s on its lonesome then I usually leave it lower case, mostly due to laziness.

    The New Atheist movement is a not a term for atheists but a movement made up of atheists who claim that they can present a non-theistic world view that is in every way as good and applicable as a theistic one, which naturally brings them into constant conflict theists since they are claiming that religion is useless.

    Er, that would be the argument of…pretty much every atheist that I know. If I felt that atheism was inferior to other beliefs then I wouldn’t admit to being an atheist (except as a sort of personal-shame thing) nor use “atheistic” arguments in debates and so on.
    That’s not to say that I’d stop being an atheist if I felt it was inferior, one can’t turn belief on and off like a light, but I’d hardly support it, would I?

    Passing Anthromorphist

    I’ve got a new dream-job…

  • Tonio

    A way to see which humans had the courage to stand up for moral principles in the face of threatening authority, and which ones were ready to go along with it.

    It isn’t a test of faith, but a proof against faith, that one should not have faith in one who would deliberately lie to you as a test.

    In a way, both embody the same concept, where all of existence is a highly elaborate test, even though they postulate different things being tested.

  • ako

    In a way, both embody the same concept, where all of existence is a highly elaborate test, even though they postulate different things being tested.
    Yeah. The whole idea I mentioned is interesting as a joke/thought experiment, but not something I particularly believe in or endorse.

  • Bryan Swartz

    So much to respond to, so little time.
    Izzy: “Nope, not accepting the Bible as an authority. Not a Christian. If your arguments for a particular belief system are based entirely on that belief system, that…is circular logic. Good luck with that.”
    My arguments for my belief system are not based entirely on the system. I haven’t here engaged in an apologetic defense of Christianity. I have engaged in a defense of a more literal interpretation of the Bible than Fred uses, and demonstrated the flaws in his approach. As you do not accept the authority of the Bible, the ‘homosexuality is/isn’t sin’ discussion is not the one you need to concern yourself with.
    For you, it’s a case of do I accept God’s grace and salvation and all that comes with it. Until you answer yes to that question, the rest is moot.
    ” But your basic argument seems to be that we’re living in a twisted crapsack world run by, basically, a DC Comics villain with unlimited cosmic power, and that we should shut up, bend over, and learn to get used to it. ”
    Not at all. We do live in a twisted world, but we twisted it. Far from being a villain, God has graciously given us a way out. We by nature reject that way.
    “I’m content with things most of the time and get over it when I’m not; I have a good job, good friends, and either get laid regularly or am happy with not doing so; I enjoy many hobbies and even have occasional moments of what I consider transcendence and spiritual insight. ”
    If this life is all there is, you’re fine. I’m totally convinced that isn’t the case, and I pray you realize that before it’s too late.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/gdwarf GDwarf

    Not at all. We do live in a twisted world, but we twisted it. Far from being a villain, God has graciously given us a way out. We by nature reject that way.

    …The nature God gave us is one that works its hardest to corrupt and twist everything?

  • Will Wildman

    If this life is all there is, you’re fine. I’m totally convinced that isn’t the case, and I pray you realize that before it’s too late.

    Because why? Because if this life isn’t all there is, God will condemn us to eternal torment for not agreeing that being gay is evil?

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Bryan: I’m also convinced that this life isn’t all there is. However, the beings I worship do not bear an unfortunate resemblance to Darkseid, so I’m not too worried about what comes afterwards.
    Also, you may take both your condescending prayers and your equally condescending opinions on what I “need concern [myself] with” and stick them where the sun don’t shine.
    I’m going to bed. I’ll respond to the rest of this later, in the unlikely event that the rest of the board hasn’t kicked your ass by the time I return tomorrow.

  • Bryan Swartz

    [quote]Your apparent position with regard to the Bible suggests that they only have merit insofar as they support the Bible, given that the Bible is the Prime text and must be referred to – ad given primacy – during anysuch discussion.[/quote]
    Not at all. Individual interpretations have no value in and of themselves. Every person’s responsibility is to check all teaching against the Bible. That means don’t trust me, Billy Graham, Fred, or anyone else if they conflict with what it says. Acts 17:11 commends unbelieving Bereans for their ‘noble character’ in questioning none other than the Apostle Paul and comparing his teaching to the Scripture.
    “Which means He either created us to serve some other purpose, or He was sitting around one Eternity and said “You know what would be great? Independent minds sublimating themselves in my glory. I should invent free will, then command them not to use it.” ”
    No, it means that he created us to serve him because he wanted to, not because he had to. Note that this is not drudgery. Many have argued that it’s the most horrible thing they can imagine, this whole obedience thing. It isn’t misery. It’s the greatest form of joy possible in this life. If we were created for a great purpose, we are happiest when we live in harmony with that purpose. Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden. Take my yoke(a symbol of service and obedience) upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Etc.
    “Feel free to provide backup for any of that.”
    Will, same question I asked Izzy. What kind of backup are looking for?
    “I guess you think Jesus was a big ol’ hypocrite, then.
    After all, he wanted people to follow in his example — and HE BROKE THE RULES. A lot. So: either he was a complete hypocrite, or he had a different interpretation of what it means to fulfill the law than you do.”
    No he didn’t break the rules. Feel free to cite examples, I’d be happy to explain them.
    “Also, according to Christian thought, the Bible was written by divinely inspired humans. So, a secondhand creation.”
    No it wasn’t. As I’ve already cited, it is God-breathed.

  • Tonio

    The whole idea I mentioned is interesting as a joke/thought experiment, but not something I particularly believe in or endorse.

    I wasn’t suggesting that you were endorsing it. My point was that such thought experiments take off from what I perceive as the central assumption of philosophy – that life has some sort of inherent meaning. Are there any organized or established philosophies that don’t start with that assumption, that take no position on whether there is such inherent meaning?

  • Bryan Swartz

    “So I take it you believe purely on the basis of your Biblical reading, and in denial of your senses and the sensory evidence of other human beings, that gays really do choose to be gay, that gay healing camps really do change people to be heterosexual, and that the world is flat?”
    It isn’t in denial of my senses. My experience with homosexuals is that like others who commit acts that almost everyone says as wrong, their behavior is a choice. Their desires are not. There is nothing sinful about a perverse desire: what is sinful is acting upon it.
    And no, I don’t believe the world is flat.
    ” Many people concluded based on the Bible that unicorns therefore existed. Were they correct in doing so? ”
    No, and that’s not what I’m saying. I agree with the Chicago Statement, which basically says that Bible is inerrant in it’s original writing: translations are not necessarily so.
    The key doctrines are repeated so many times in so many ways and forms that the translation issue is a non-concern with them. The details are another matter, and being divisive/dogmatic over them is wrong and I stand against it.
    “That strongly resembles the claim by RTCs that one has to have faith in order to understand the true meaning of scripture.”
    I don’t know what an RTC is and therefore am uncomfortable with the label. But the statement is totally accurate as a synopsis of my views. Both Jesus and Paul taught this.
    “Again, that presumes binarism, with no room for the possibility that some or all religions may have some degree of truth. ”
    Not at all. I believe all religions probably do have some degree of truth. Many of them have a ton of it. On the important point though, how man can have peace with God, the Bible is clear that there is only way. A claim of exclusivity can result in only two results: it’s true and other ways are wrong, or it’s false which means nobody should believe it.
    “That sounds like another version of the Just World Fallacy.”
    Which is what, by your definition?
    “It assumes that sources are in competition with one another for credulity. It also treats reason and experience as another source instead of as a means of evaluating sources.”
    As to the second, that’s exactly the dichotomy Fred said up. The first seems like a truism to me. How can you make a decision with multiple sources to choose from without deciding which is more credible. If a bum and Stephen Hawking each lecture you on physics, how do you decide who to believe?

  • Leum

    My arguments for my belief system are not based entirely on the system. I haven’t here engaged in an apologetic defense of Christianity. I have engaged in a defense of a more literal interpretation of the Bible than Fred uses, and demonstrated the flaws in his approach. As you do not accept the authority of the Bible, the ‘homosexuality is/isn’t sin’ discussion is not the one you need to concern yourself with.

    There are (at least) two flaws with this.
    The first, and most serious, is that people in power who view consider the Bible authoritative tend to work towards legislation that discourages what they consider sinful. That is to say, if a lot of people think the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin, I will suffer as a consequence. So I have to care. And if I can argue against the proposition and can do so without being forced to throw out what they consider to be a text inspired by God, that makes it a bit easier.
    The second, and far less important, is that a lot of us are here because, even though we aren’t Jewish or Christian, we’re still fascinated by religion and authority. We enjoy discussing whether, from the perspective of the Bible certain things are or are not permitted and why. Even though it doesn’t make much difference in our day-to-day lives. Because we find this stuff interesting

  • P J Evans

    A way to see which humans had the courage to stand up for moral principles in the face of threatening authority, and which ones were ready to go along with it.
    I have heard that some rabbis believe that that was what was going on when Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac.
    And that Abraham, by not saying something like ‘WTF do you mean, asking me to kill my own child’, failed the test.
    (I am now wondering if that’s where we slid into the mirror universe.)

  • Bryan Swartz

    “The problem with arguing with people like Bryan (which reminds me of hitting oneself in the head with a hammer) is that he cannot afford to recognize a main feature of the argument, i.e., that there is a difference between the Bible and any individual reading of the Bible. That when people say the Bible is inerrant, they inevitably mean that their reading is inerrant. This seems go a little too far for all but the most self-satisfied, arrogant twits. So, they refuse to recognize the point.”
    I haven’t said this. I do not believe my reading of the Bible is inerrant. Let me go one further. My beliefs are constantly in a state of nuanced change at least. I believe many things i wasn’t brought up believing in the church. I guarantee I am wrong about a number of things.
    The key doctrines are clear though. If they aren’t, then again the Bible lies, since Jude 3(contend earnestly for the truth) and Jesus(you shall know the truth) — that’s know, not suspect — were full of it.
    “When He’s the one who made them that way in the first place?”
    He didn’t make them that way. Sin is a corruption of what God made perfectly. God allowed evil, but he is not it’s author.
    “Is masturbation an abomination because your hand is “just an available hole”?”
    Yes. Sex outside of marriage is sin. Now again, if you don’t accept the Bible this means nothing to you, but since we are here discussing the biblical worldview …
    ” For instance, God could actually manifest before you and say that to you, or dispatch an angel or something–some sort of message which is unambiguous, direct, and originates outside the Bible so you don’t need circular reasoning to accept it. You yourself believe that God has done such things, so it’s not like he couldn’t.”
    Sure, but it could still be dismissed just as easily as some dismiss the bible. Let me give you an example. In 1995 I was a junior in high school. My father had acute pancreatitis, and the doctors soon told my mom to tell her kids her father would be dead within days.
    I still visit him every week. No doctor has ever been able to give me a medical explanation for his recovery. But I assure you, most non-believers have no problem assuming their must be one. No matter how God says something, in the Bible, directly, audibly, with a miracle, whatever — there will always be a naturalistic explanation given by most who don’t believe in the supernatural.
    “Paul’s line is pretty much irrelevant to your claim, since (as I assume you believe) Paul isn’t God.”
    Peter referred to Paul’s writings as Scripture, and Paul said he received his teaching directly from God.
    “when Jesus asserts the infallibility of the law/the prophets/scripture, that’s not at all the same as asserting the infallibility of your particular version of the Bible. After all, your Bible contains an entire New Testament that didn’t exist when Jesus supposedly said these things. ”
    Sure, but it does affect the OT — which is so extensively quoted in the NT that it’s validity to the NT writers is pretty much beyond reasonable dispute.
    “What if the purpose we’re created for is stupid or evil?”
    And behold, it was very good.

  • Will Wildman

    The Just World Fallacy is the idea that bad things only happen to people who have done something wrong, and good things always happen to people who do right. 1:1 correlation, and no innocent person ever suffers / no crime is ever unpunished.

    On the important point though, how man can have peace with God, the Bible is clear that there is only way.

    Sheep and goats. Game over, insert coin.

    No he didn’t break the rules. Feel free to cite examples, I’d be happy to explain them.

    Keeping the sabbath and not associating with the unclean of society both leap to mind.

  • MercuryBlue

    Many have argued that it’s the most horrible thing they can imagine, this whole obedience thing. It isn’t misery. It’s the greatest form of joy possible in this life.
    My instinctive response to any expectation of my obedience is ‘fuck off’. Even when I know damn well I’ll be better off if I obey than if I don’t; even when whatever I’m expected to do is something I’d already been planning to do. I am reliably informed that this has been the case since I was a couple days old.
    Assuming for purposes of argument that God created me and that God wants me to obey him joyfully, why did he make me instinctively rebellious?

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Oh, and as hapax points out, taking John 10:35 as an endorsement of Scripture’s literal infallibility implies that Jesus believed that a bunch of other humans were actually gods. I’m not sure how well that fits into your interpretation of the Bible, Bryan.”
    Not at all — though going down this rabbit trail would take quite some time and involves explanations of Greek that are beyond my education.
    “This is what I never understand about “The Bible is inerrant because it says so!” arguments. I mean, I never lie and you can trust that assurance because like I just explained, I never lie, but somehow no one wants to buy this bridge I’ve been trying to sell.”
    You shouldn’t believe the Bible is inerrant because it says so. The point is though, if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it. If it isn’t(i.e. if Genesis is bunk) than Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, he was a liar, which means he can’t save you and the Bible might make for a good literature study but you shouldn’t believe any of it. The ‘good moral teacher’ argument or the ‘take this but leave that’ arguments about the Bible are the ones which are indefensible.
    On the ‘firmament’ issue, this is one of those translational issues. Literally it means expanse, or ‘a waste and emptiness’. Solid spherical shell is a very incorrect description.
    “If you cannot debate people into supporting your belief then your belief is, I’d say, flawed.”
    This assumes a level of human humility, objectivity, and knowledge that I totally disagree with. If my experience in human discussions(with people from various beliefs and walks of life) has taught me anything, it’s that the phrase I’ve made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts has near-universal application.
    “Because if this life isn’t all there is, God will condemn us to eternal torment for not agreeing that being gay is evil?”
    No, hell has nothing to do with that. It does have to do with not trusting in Jesus.
    “you may take both your condescending prayers and your equally condescending opinions on what I “need concern [myself] with” and stick them where the sun don’t shine. ”
    I’m sorry you think I’ve been condescending. I disagree, but to be clear, I don’t think I’m better than you. I’m quite prepared to state that I’m an evil, corrupt person, far worse than many. I’ve done many disgusting, absolutely indefensible things in my life.
    “The first, and most serious, is that people in power who view consider the Bible authoritative tend to work towards legislation that discourages what they consider sinful. ”
    In my opinion this is wrong and totally against the teaching of I Corinthians 5. Accordingly, I am now a former conservative. I am now a libertarian. It’s wrong IMO for Christians to force the rest of the world how to live(as noted conservative evangelical Ruth Graham once wisely said).
    “We enjoy discussing whether, from the perspective of the Bible certain things are or are not permitted and why.”
    I’m with that, but you seem to be ignoring what I was responding to. Izzy said he didn’t care what the Bible said about it. So he wasn’t interested in the perspective of the Bible.

  • Will Wildman

    “Because if this life isn’t all there is, God will condemn us to eternal torment for not agreeing that being gay is evil?”
    No, hell has nothing to do with that. It does have to do with not trusting in Jesus.

    Then this raises two questions: why is it important to agree that being gay is evil, and why is it appropriate to subject, for example, gay people to eternal torment?

  • Bryan Swartz

    “The Just World Fallacy is the idea that bad things only happen to people who have done something wrong, and good things always happen to people who do right. 1:1 correlation, and no innocent person ever suffers / no crime is ever unpunished.”
    Not 1:1 correlation. “The rain falls on the just and unjust alike”. Bad things do only happen to those who have done something wrong, which is everybody. I.e., fairness/unmitigated justice means everyone goes to hell. That’s why we need grace.
    “Sheep and goats. Game over, insert coin.”
    I don’t see the relevance of this parable to what I said. Please explain.
    “Keeping the sabbath and not associating with the unclean of society both leap to mind.”
    In both cases, the Pharisees had distorted/added to the rules. Their rules were not the rules that God had handed down. He broke the rules of the Pharisees sure: but he didn’t break the rules of God.
    “My instinctive response to any expectation of my obedience is ‘fuck off’. ”
    Mine too. Paul dealt with this extensively in Romans. It’s part of our sinful nature.
    “Assuming for purposes of argument that God created me and that God wants me to obey him joyfully, why did he make me instinctively rebellious?”
    He didn’t. As said above, it is a corruption of what God made perfectly.

  • Bryan Swartz

    Thank you all for what has been a most stimulating discussion so far.

  • Bryan Swartz

    Interestingly enough, at the church I attend today we had a great discussion of that thing Fred says(accurately, when looking at the big picture) evangelicals don’t have: sexual ethics.
    I confess I have some unholy enjoyment imagining the reactions of some here to what was said.

  • MercuryBlue

    There is nothing sinful about a perverse desire: what is sinful is acting upon it.
    Why would God give us desires we’re not meant to act upon?
    There are of course compelling reasons not to act on all our desires. Other people are people too, so we should think about their desires before we act on ours. Everything has an opportunity cost, and best not to do anything that’ll close a door we’ll probably want to walk through. So forth and so on. But fulfilling most desires do no harm to anyone, or do no harm to anyone provided certain precautions are taken, for instance legally acquiring money with which to buy a book instead of stealing the book, or making sure of the full, informed, and ongoing consent of everyone involved in fulfilling a sexual desire.
    Saying it’s all right that I want to have lesbian sex but I’m not allowed to actually have lesbian sex because it’s lesbian sex which is wrong really does sound like saying that it’s all right that I want to eat jalapeno poppers but I’m not allowed to actually eat jalapeno poppers because they have jalapenos which are wrong.
    “Is masturbation an abomination because your hand is “just an available hole”?”
    Yes.
    Found Bryan’s problem.

  • Will Wildman

    I don’t see the relevance of this parable to what I said. Please explain.

    The parable indicates that in final judgment, recognition of Jesus is not relevant compared to taking actions in accordance with love for humanity (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, those things). The Bible is therefore potentially useful, but in no way necessary.

    “Keeping the sabbath and not associating with the unclean of society both leap to mind.”
    In both cases, the Pharisees had distorted/added to the rules. Their rules were not the rules that God had handed down. He broke the rules of the Pharisees sure: but he didn’t break the rules of God.

    Dude, keeping the sabbath is in the Ten Commandments. Are those not God-approved anymore? Was there a recall I’m not aware of?

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Then this raises two questions: why is it important to agree that being gay is evil, and why is it appropriate to subject, for example, gay people to eternal torment?”
    It’s important to teach and obey the commands of God(see, for example, the Great Commission) for those who are Christians. But it’s important to keep it clear that this isn’t part of the gospel(i.e., what you have to know/believe to be a Christian). When someone becomes a true Christian, their heart begins to change, orienting towards God’s commands. Love for the truth and obeying that truth is a fruit of this.
    It’s appropriate to subject any rebellion, of which all humans are guilty, to eternal torment because there is nothing a human can do to pay for their guilt. Revulsions against this idea usually say it’s unfair, but to say that is to be unaware of how evil sin is. It is an offense against a being of infinite holiness, and therefore demands an equally infinite punishment. Ignoring it would make God less than just.

  • Will Wildman

    I don’t think Bryan can be a Poe; he’s simply not interesting enough. This reads very much like the well-worn thoughts of a person who has run in the same circle for so long that he’s forgotten what a square looks like.

    It’s appropriate to subject any rebellion, of which all humans are guilty, to eternal torment because there is nothing a human can do to pay for their guilt. Revulsions against this idea usually say it’s unfair, but to say that is to be unaware of how evil sin is. It is an offense against a being of infinite holiness, and therefore demands an equally infinite punishment. Ignoring it would make God less than just.

    ‘Being of infinite holiness’ strongly implies ‘being of infinite mercy’. Under such a circumstance, eternal torment is unthinkable. If you’re okay with a definition of holiness that doesn’t correlate with mercy, do let me know.
    I’d also be curious to know what the origin of evil is, in your system. Obviously not God. Presumably not primal human nature, because humans are the masterwork of a perfect being. We’re left with some external source. I’d be fascinated to hear what it is.

  • MercuryBlue

    The point is though, if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it. If it isn’t(i.e. if Genesis is bunk) than Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, he was a liar, which means he can’t save you and the Bible might make for a good literature study but you shouldn’t believe any of it. The ‘good moral teacher’ argument or the ‘take this but leave that’ arguments about the Bible are the ones which are indefensible.
    I notice you haven’t addressed my comments on this subject from earlier. I haven’t studied the World Cup; I haven’t even looked up who’s playing. So any statements I make about who’s playing when, for example my saying US played Spain today, are doubtless wrong. Does that mean I’m automatically wrong on any other subject, such as my saying episode 2×20 of Supernatural has callbacks to episode 1×01? (It does, by the way. If you like I’ll find screencaps to prove it.)
    None of the authors of the Bible ever studied astrophysics or evolutionary biology. We can’t expect anything they say on either subject to be accurate. That doesn’t mean they’re automatically wrong on the history of the Jews or on what it takes to achieve salvation.
    And the way I’m reading this, you think “love your neighbor as yourself” is only true if “to lie with a[nother] man as with a woman is an abomination” and “God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and called the firmament Sky” are both true. Which boggles me.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Why would God give us desires we’re not meant to act upon?”
    Sex in and of itself is a wonderful thing. We are meant to act upon it — within the proper boundaries like everything else. Whether it is masturbation or fornication with someone we are not married to or homosexual acts, these are perversions of the gift. That’s what is sinful.
    “The parable indicates that in final judgment, recognition of Jesus is not relevant compared to taking actions in accordance with love for humanity (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, those things). The Bible is therefore potentially useful, but in no way necessary.”
    First of all, if your interpretation of it is correct, then the Bible is useless, because it would contradict with the verses I mentioned and therefore neither passage can be trusted. Matthew 7:21 is a key text on this. Those who are saved are those who do the will of God: you cannot do the will of God without coming to him without faith in Jesus, because without faith it is impossible to please him. The parable does seem to teach salvation by works but only if it is divorced from the rest of the Bible’s teaching on the subject. Take the parable of the good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. Salvation comes by being one of His sheep, but if you are one of his sheep, you will follow. One doesn’t happen without the other.
    “Dude, keeping the sabbath is in the Ten Commandments. Are those not God-approved anymore? Was there a recall I’m not aware of?”
    Actually, there was a recall, but that’s not my point here. Keeping the sabbath is in the Ten Commandments, but the Pharisees added restrictions not mentioned there. They put things like healing under the category of labor, which Jesus refuted.

  • Bryan Swartz

    Out of time for tonight, but I will respond MercuryBlue. Sorry if I missed something, had a lot of catching up to do.

  • MercuryBlue

    Sex in and of itself is a wonderful thing. We are meant to act upon it — within the proper boundaries like everything else.
    What are the proper boundaries, what reasons are there for everything within the boundaries to be permissible, and what reasons are there for everything without the boundaries not to be permissible?
    Far’s I’m concerned, the only unbreakable boundary is ‘fully informed consent’. Everything without that boundary–children, animals, and unconscious people can’t consent, people who don’t know what they’re getting into haven’t consented (unless they trust whoever they’re with enough to be sure that saying ‘surprise me’ won’t result in an unpleasant surprise), people in an altered state of consciousness aren’t necessarily clear on what ‘consent’ means, people on the wrong side of a power imbalance are at risk of being coerced (whether they know they’re being coerced or not), so forth and so on. Everything that passes the fully-informed-consent test is permissible because there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. That way, as long as everybody respects everybody else’s personal boundaries (for instance, not trying to have gay sex with somebody whose religion forbids gay sex), everybody goes home happy. And with masturbation, there isn’t even any need to do any version of the ‘hey, I wanna, do you wanna?’ dance, because the only consent necessary is your own.

  • Spearmint

    “Snorri recorded it; that’s good enough for me!”
    Surely not, given all the concern about the Christianification of the Prose Edda. XD
    Gadgastromer, we lost some of our lively vitality when we stopped performing elaborate rituals in fancy vestments and became more stripped down.;).
    Aw, c’mon, we totes perform elaborate rituals in fancy vestments.* They just… involve fewer goats.
    *Also the Catholics have better vestments. But one can’t have everything.
    Unless NASA’s punched hundreds of new holes in the sky, causing world-wide flooding, I’d say genesis is in error.
    OMG that’s what happened in New Orleans! Pat Robertson was right!
    As you do not accept the authority of the Bible, the ‘homosexuality is/isn’t sin’ discussion is not the one you need to concern yourself with.
    As long as people who do accept the authority of the Bible use it as an excuse to hurt gays and lesbians, their interpretations are a concern for everyone, just like interpretations of the Koran that say blowing up civilians counts as jihad are a concern for everyone. Your right to tell us to get out of your sectarian sandbox ends when you start flinging sand into our eyes.
    He didn’t make them that way. Sin is a corruption of what God made perfectly. God allowed evil, but he is not it’s author.
    So… you’re saying he’s an incompetent designer rather than a malicious one? I feel vastly reassured.
    I’m gonna try this one on my boss the next time I forget to put error handling into a computer program I wrote and it crashes. “I allowed an array-out-of-bounds exception, but I’m not its author!” We’ll see how well that goes over.
    Yes. Sex outside of marriage is sin.
    Er, technically the Bible says nothing whatsoever about masturbation. It’s against using the pull-out method to avoid impregnating your brother’s widow when you’re supposed to be providing him with an heir, but there’s no prohibition against masturbation.
    Hopefully this information will vastly improve your life. :)
    The point is though, if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it. If it isn’t(i.e. if Genesis is bunk) than Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, he was a liar, which means he can’t save you and the Bible might make for a good literature study but you shouldn’t believe any of it.
    Or Jesus could, I dunno, be wrong? His information is only as good as its source, which in his case is his dad, a guy with a vested interest in convincing people he created the cosmos.
    Or Jesus could be selectively lying- if indeed the only way to avoid Hell is to believe in Jesus, but Yahweh isn’t in fact the creator/all-powerful/all-knowing/loving/whatever, one could argue Jesus has a moral obligation to lie about Genesis so Yahweh will look like a powerful, competitive alternative to Jupiter, Ba’al Hadad et al. Everyone else’s gods claim to have created the universe; Yahweh is going to look like a schmuck if Jesus doesn’t make the same claims for him, even if he knows them to be false. If people fail to convert, then everyone burns for eternity, so the stakes are pretty high in the comparison shopping game.
    Mind you, I do think the whole thing is bunk, but there are more possibilities than “All Garbage” and “Every word of Genesis is literally true.” Plus, you know, people can also think the Tanakh is all literally true and Jesus is a liar. None of these options are mutually exclusive.

  • Spearmint

    First of all, if your interpretation of it is correct, then the Bible is useless, because it would contradict with the verses I mentioned and therefore neither passage can be trusted.
    Wait. The first and second Genesis accounts conflict. The multiple accounts of Jesus’s death all conflict. Doesn’t this mean the entire Bible is untrustworthy, by your reasoning?

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    Madgastromer, we lost some of our lively vitality when we stopped performing elaborate rituals in fancy vestments and became more stripped down.;).
    Aw, such a shame! ;)
    Aw, c’mon, we totes perform elaborate rituals in fancy vestments.* They just… involve fewer goats.
    Now that’s really a shame. Goats are TASTY!
    Nor do I. It’s the oldest faith there is, if one accepts implicit atheism.
    How so? Seriously, the oldest cultures we know of all seem to have worshipped something. Even prehistoric people seem likely to have done so, given what we’ve found.
    I keep hearing arguments like this, that atheism is the oldest faith, or that atheism is the natural state of people. And nobody has ever given me any credible evidence for it. I could see arguing that atheism is the future of humanity, that it’s a more advanced state of belief than religion (I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I can understand the argument), but the oldest? Seriously?
    As you do not accept the authority of the Bible, the ‘homosexuality is/isn’t sin’ discussion is not the one you need to concern yourself with.
    As long as people who do accept the authority of the Bible use it as an excuse to hurt gays and lesbians, their interpretations are a concern for everyone, just like interpretations of the Koran that say blowing up civilians counts as jihad are a concern for everyone. Your right to tell us to get out of your sectarian sandbox ends when you start flinging sand into our eyes.
    I think the point Bryan was trying, and apparently largely failing, to make was that we shouldn’t worry about why teh gey is sinful, we should be worried about our soooooouuuuuuuls.
    And since Bryan can’t be bothered to respond to my points, I’m going to stop reading his. He’s obviously not interested in a real conversation, he just wants to regurgitate his points at us, and can’t handle anything that’s off that track. And I agree that he’s not nearly entertaining enough to be a Poe.
    I do wonder, often, if J isn’t a Poe.

  • Spearmint

    I do wonder, often, if J isn’t a Poe.
    Or whatever the atheist version is. A Lovecraft?

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    Or whatever the atheist version is. A Lovecraft?
    BWAHAHAHAHA! I love it!
    J.P. Lovecraft?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/righthonmouse The Right Hon’ Mouse

    Just to play devil’s advocate here (no pun intended), I am pretty much in agreement with the whole “to be yoked to the purpose you were ultimately created for is the highest possible joy” thing. That’s what I believe in, and I came to that conclusion independently: it wasn’t dogmatised into me. It just seems logical and natural to me, and the thought of it makes me feel called to something whose source seems to be outside this physical world. So I can totally grok Bryan on that one.
    The problem (from the POV of your worldview) is, the more I pursue this belief and what it suggests, the more it seems that I’m sensitised to ideas like “Love is the fulfillment of the law, [and] when love is perceived as a violation of the law, something has gone horribly amiss”. The more I explore the concept of what it is to be one with God, the more things like “love those who have hated you, dwell with those who have sinned, and p.s. judging people is not the point” seem like better ideas than laying down judgment as to who’s saved and who isn’t.
    Who’s right? Bryan, or people like me and Fred?
    We can’t know, really. I like to think we’re right, because it’s the more loving way and I believe that love is the nature of God. Ultimately, it’s not for me, or anyone, to judge. But I do think the judgments of whether you’ll go to hell for being [insert unclean thing here] need to be put aside in favour of spending one’s energies on the suffering we do know is true, including the suffering people go through for being convinced that they can’t live their lives in loving union with someone they’re sexually attracted to.
    Which is what Fred seemed to be talking about all along, really.

  • ako

    Those who are saved are those who do the will of God: you cannot do the will of God without coming to him without faith in Jesus, because without faith it is impossible to please him.
    So God doesn’t actually care about people helping others or showing compassion if it’s not accompanied by belief? Because people who don’t have faith in Jesus clearly do help others (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit sick people and prisoners, etc.). God only wants those things if they’re done by people holding the right beliefs?

  • Spearmint

    Who’s right? Bryan, or people like me and Fred?
    From my atheist’s perspective at least, it makes no difference at all.
    Suppose it is true that “to be yoked to the purpose you were ultimately created for is the highest possible joy”, and that said purpose involves hurting other people because God hates teh ghey. Suppose we would all be happier and more fulfilled if we voted against gay marriage legislation, because in doing so we fulfilled God’s Plan.
    It doesn’t matter.
    No one has the right to be happy at the expense of someone else’s humanity. No one has the right to order you to oppress someone else, even if they did create you for the express purpose of carrying out that order. If God is on the side of love, you’re doing what he wants, and if God is on the side of hatred, you have no business following his orders.
    Whether or Fred or Bryan is right, there’s only one moral course of action, and it’s the same one.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Bryan Swartz said:

    No he didn’t break the rules. Feel free to cite examples, I’d be happy to explain them.

    DID YOU EVEN READ THE POST? The very post we’re all commenting on? Examples are cited RIGHT THERE.

    In both cases, the Pharisees had distorted/added to the rules. Their rules were not the rules that God had handed down.

    Please, if you’re going to pull something out of your ass, at least wipe it off before you present it.

    As I’ve already cited, [the Bible] is God-breathed.

    Uh huh, and several people have already pointed out how your “citations” don’t hold water. Fail.

    …if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it.

    Repeating an assertion does not make it true. And clearly it isn’t true, because there’s more faith, goodness, clear-mindedness, and, well, godliness in the words of Christians like hapax, Karen, and Fred, who don’t subscribe to this assertion of yours.

    If my experience in human discussions(with people from various beliefs and walks of life) has taught me anything, it’s that the phrase I’ve made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts has near-universal application.

    Wow, pot, meet kettle.

    I’m sorry you think I’ve been condescending.

    I’m sorry that you fail to see that you’re continuing to be condescending. And I’m sorry that you don’t know the difference between a proper apology and a weaselly fake.

  • Amaryllis

    It’s late, but why not join the party…
    Bryan: Every person’s responsibility is to check all teaching against the Bible.
    You’re still being circular here. The issue isn’t whether to read the Bible, but how. If the question is “what does the Bible mean by that?” then it does no good to say, “check it against the Bible.” A closed system is a pretty airless, static thing: there’s no room for the Breath that “renews the face of the earth.”
    Neither is it every person’s responsibility to start from scratch. Not when we have the help of, to quote hapax paraphrasing (I think) jamoche, those with time, expertise, interest, and dedication [who] devoted themselves to careful analysis of the text using the tools of the historian, the linguist, the literary critic, and also reason and experience, to suggest interpretations that were likely to be most helpful to the body of the faithful.
    that Bible is inerrant in it’s original writing: translations are not necessarily so.
    Even if one concedes that point (which I don’t), we don’t have the originals, and most of us couldn’t read them if we did. What we have are translations of copies.
    The key doctrines are repeated so many times in so many ways and forms that the translation issue is a non-concern with them. The details are another matter, and being divisive/dogmatic over them is wrong and I stand against it.
    And yet you seem pretty dogmatic over a topic that Fred contends is in fact a detail. Who decides what’s key and what’s detail?
    The Bible is not God. It’s not Jesus, either. When St. John said, “In the beginning was the Word,” he didn’t mean that there was a scroll floating around the universe before the universe existed.
    If you don’t care for the map metaphor, maybe you’d prefer to think of the Bible as a portrait, whose subject is the Word of God. The portrait is not the Person; it just illustrates some things about that Person, as experienced by humans with human understanding and human limitations in a particular historical context.
    In fact, the whole thing about the Bible is that it doesn’t claim to be “timeless.” It’s very much a historical record (not, for the moment, concerned about how literally true the history is; I am not Michael Murphy). Nothing in it comes off as static or indefinite; it’s very much centered around time and place, with the understanding that time and place are real, and various. “This happened, in the third year of the reign of King David,” or, “Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus while he was imprisoned in Rome,” and that kind of thing.(I made those up, of course; it’s to late to look up any actual verses.)
    And yet, what’s expressed through all this specificity is “Divine revelation embedded in historical relationships” (Eric Gritsch). Culminating in (to mix my quotes) the Incarnation, Eliot’s point of intersection of the timeless with time.
    And groping after a shadow of comprehension of that impossible union, that gift half understood, is far more interesting, and far more to the point, than going around in circles trying to determine the one Real True List of Rules.
    And now it’s even later, and that’s as far as I’ve read. Good night!

  • Leum

    So God doesn’t actually care about people helping others or showing compassion if it’s not accompanied by belief? Because people who don’t have faith in Jesus clearly do help others (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit sick people and prisoners, etc.). God only wants those things if they’re done by people holding the right beliefs?

    The worst evangelical tract I can recall reading (and I truly hope I misremember) either implied or stated outright that non-Christians who did good things were actively offending by trying to be good without His aid.

  • http://www.faithmanages.com/ tls

    The point is though, if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it
    Hrm… I swear Fred’s written about this before. *performs Google-fu* Ahh, yes…

    This house-of-cards faith is a particularly brittle and fragile belief system that insists, emphatically, that all of it must be true or else none of it is true. Faith is, for these people, a pass-fail course. Get a 100 percent and you pass. Anything less than that, and you fail.[From this post.]

    My faith is not shaken by the idea that the Bible is a document written by men, compiled by men, translated by men, and interpreted by men, and that this explains why there are so many different denominations of Christianity that disagree on so many points. I neither expect nor require inerrancy in this book that men, in all their glorious imperfection, have shaped, and yet I still find it important.
    Or, put another way: as far as I’m concerned, the Bible is, essentially, the pirate’s code.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/susancm Cactus Wren

    @ShifterCat, re:Elsie Dinsmore: Yeah, that’s just about what happened, except that she ran to her father “sobbing violently” in guilt and contrition about what a wicked girl she’d been, because she stepped into the meadow (to retrieve an arrow for a disabled friend). And in the whole thing there was a strong subtext that if she had been killed by the snake, everyone’s attitude would – CORRECTLY – have been, “Oh, dear, Elsie has been killed! Isn’t it sad that she was such a wicked and self-willed and disobedient little girl! If only she had been good and remembered to obey her father, she would be alive today!”
    (The Elsie Dinsmore books, if you’re morbidly curious, are available through the Online Books Page.)
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    @Bryan Swartz:

    You shouldn’t believe the Bible is inerrant because it says so. The point is though, if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it. If it isn’t(i.e. if Genesis is bunk) than Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, he was a liar, which means he can’t save you and the Bible might make for a good literature study but you shouldn’t believe any of it. The ‘good moral teacher’ argument or the ‘take this but leave that’ arguments about the Bible are the ones which are indefensible.

    This is the Poisoned Well of C. S. Lewis: EITHER every word attributed to the man Jesus is to be accepted as true and right and good, OR every word attributed to the man Jesus is to be rejected as false and wrong and evil. Where the well-poisoning comes in is when you and Lewis suggest, if only by implication, that I as a skeptic necessarily regard “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as the word of “the devil from hell”, or regard “Do unto others” as no more valid or useful a precept than “I am a poached egg”.
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
    @Spearmint (quoting Bryan):

    Yes. Sex outside of marriage is sin.
    Er, technically the Bible says nothing whatsoever about masturbation. It’s against using the pull-out method to avoid impregnating your brother’s widow when you’re supposed to be providing him with an heir, but there’s no prohibition against masturbation.

    Actually, the Bible never says that sex outside of marriage is a sin, either. It says that certain specific kinds of sex outside of marriage are sins: specifically, sex with a close relative or sex between any man (married or not) and a woman who is married to another man. That is the biblical definition of adultery. Sex between a married man and an unmarried woman is not adultery, and in fact can be easily rectified by buying her from her father.

  • Mark Z.

    “Also, according to Christian thought, the Bible was written by divinely inspired humans. So, a secondhand creation.”
    No it wasn’t. As I’ve already cited, it is God-breathed.
    Bryan:
    You are God-breathed. (That would be Gen. 2:7.) Are you infallible? Do you perfectly express God’s exact intent?
    Yeah, yeah, Garden of Eden, radical depravity of human nature, you live in a Fallen world, etc. But we’re God-breathed in origin, so it would seem the Divine Breath doesn’t preserve things in a pure and incorruptible state for all of time. She’s far more interesting than that. And the Bible lives in that Fallen world too.
    So what does “God-breathed” even mean? There’s nothing about that phrase in 2 Timothy that obviously says “and therefore infallible and the only source of Really True Truth”. Could Paul not have said that, if that’s what he meant? (I’m sure Greek philosophy had come up with a word for Really True Truth by then.) Instead, he reaches for the metaphor: “God-breathed”. And he expands this by talking about how useful it is. Teaching, correction, training in righteousness! It slices, it dices! What he doesn’t say is “it’s completely true”. How can a text be useful for teaching and training if it’s not entirely true? Ask a Zen master, or a Talmudic scholar, or even a history professor.

  • Anton Mates

    Bryan,

    Sure, but it could still be dismissed just as easily as some dismiss the bible. Let me give you an example. In 1995 I was a junior in high school. My father had acute pancreatitis, and the doctors soon told my mom to tell her kids her father would be dead within days.
    I still visit him every week. No doctor has ever been able to give me a medical explanation for his recovery. But I assure you, most non-believers have no problem assuming their must be one.

    Well, yeah. It’s well known that doctors are not infallible–I assume you don’t think they’re gods!–and often give diagnoses that turn out to be wrong. And people survive acute pancreatitis pretty often. What reason do you have to think that there isn’t a medical explanation for this?

    No matter how God says something, in the Bible, directly, audibly, with a miracle, whatever — there will always be a naturalistic explanation given by most who don’t believe in the supernatural.

    Er, that’s a bit of a jump. Doctors thought your father would die and he didn’t, which is great. But don’t you think it would be a teensy bit more miracle-seeming if, say, an angel had ghosted down through the ceiling and reached into your father’s abdomen and said “BE THOU HEALED IN THE NAME OF CHRIST!” and he’d instantly sprung out of bed hale and healthy? Lots of atheists would convert on the spot, given a display like that.
    All of this is rather irrelevant, though. You asked how God could give a more direct attestation of the Bible’s infallibility, I gave one example. Whether or not it would convince the proverbial willfully blind strawman atheist doesn’t really matter; the majority of the people you’re talking to on this very thread do believe in the supernatural, and they still don’t think the Bible is literally true from end to end.

    “Paul’s line is pretty much irrelevant to your claim, since (as I assume you believe) Paul isn’t God.”
    Peter referred to Paul’s writings as Scripture, and Paul said he received his teaching directly from God.

    Peter isn’t God either, nor do you have God’s direct testimony that Peter’s writing on the subject is infallible. And of course Paul can’t be used to confirm the infallibility of his own writings. You do understand that that would be circular, right?

    “when Jesus asserts the infallibility of the law/the prophets/scripture, that’s not at all the same as asserting the infallibility of your particular version of the Bible. After all, your Bible contains an entire New Testament that didn’t exist when Jesus supposedly said these things. ”
    Sure, but it does affect the OT — which is so extensively quoted in the NT that it’s validity to the NT writers is pretty much beyond reasonable dispute.

    Again, the writers of the NT are clearly quoting some version or versions of the Tanakh. How closely that version resembles what you call the OT is entirely up in the air.

    “What if the purpose we’re created for is stupid or evil?”
    And behold, it was very good.

    …wrote someone, somewhere, at some time. What if they were wrong?

    Not at all — though going down this rabbit trail would take quite some time and involves explanations of Greek that are beyond my education.

    Hmm…”theous” seems pretty straightforwardly interpretable to me. And what makes you think that the correct interpretation of this passage requires a grasp of Greek (which of course is only relevant because this is a Greek translation of Jesus’ supposed words) beyond your education, but that the correct interpretations of other passages do not?

    The point is though, if you reject the inerrancy of the Bible you have to reject ALL of it. If it isn’t(i.e. if Genesis is bunk) than Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, he was a liar

    What? Why? If the Bible’s not inerrant then you don’t know who Jesus said he was, because you don’t know exactly what he said in the first place. Perhaps (and from the gospels themselves I think this is most probable) he never claimed to be divine. Perhaps he did claim to be divine but was simply incorrect; great moral teachers are allowed to be wrong, especially about unprovable claims like that. Perhaps he correctly claimed to be divine, but never claimed that Genesis was 100% literally true. Lots of possibilities, and I see no reason based on available evidence to conclude that Jesus was a conscious charlatan.

  • Andrew Glasgow

    If supporting gay marriage means going to hell, then I’ll do a Huck Finn and say, “Fine, then I’ll go to hell!”

  • Mark Z.

    It says that certain specific kinds of sex outside of marriage are sins: specifically, sex with a close relative or sex between any man (married or not) and a woman who is married to another man.
    Strictly speaking, the Bible doesn’t say that that’s a sin. It says that it’s a crime, because that part of the Bible is the civil law of the ancient Hebrews.
    Whether or not that makes it a sin is open to interpretation, but personally, I don’t think God watches my sex life with the civil law of the ancient Hebrews in one hand and a notepad in the other.

  • ako

    Er, that’s a bit of a jump. Doctors thought your father would die and he didn’t, which is great. But don’t you think it would be a teensy bit more miracle-seeming if, say, an angel had ghosted down through the ceiling and reached into your father’s abdomen and said “BE THOU HEALED IN THE NAME OF CHRIST!” and he’d instantly sprung out of bed hale and healthy? Lots of atheists would convert on the spot, given a display like that.
    For one thing, it would give a reason to attribute it to a specific deity.
    If I saw enough evidence to conclude something unquestionably supernatural was going on, that would not, in of itself, convince me it was an act of a specifically Christian God. If there were obvious additional indicators (like angels shouting about Jesus), it would strongly point towards a particular deity, but if there’s not “I DID IT!” signal, it seems reasonable to indicate the full range of causes. Not just Jesus, but Vishnu, Erzulie, Amaterasu, Loki, sufficiently advanced aliens, genies, elves, and pretty much anything you could name. Even if you get to the point where you can assume there’s a deity, that doesn’t automatically lead to Christianity.

  • JE

    This doesn’t make sense to me. If I didn’t believe that my worldview was “in every way as good and applicable as a theistic one” (or, perhaps, even better), then I’d convert on the spot. Why would I keep believing in something I know to be wrong and false ? Again, this seems like a rather old idea to me.

    basically, there has for years been a kind of understanding that you shouldn’t try to use religion to answer material questions and you shouldn’t try to use materialism to anwer religious question. It’s never applied on a personal level, but on a societal level there’s an understanding that religion should stay away from questions like “where did people come from?” and atheists should leave questions like “what is the nature of good and evil?” the the religious. New Atheists don’t just believe that a non-theistic world view is sufficient for them but publicly challenge religions monopoly on what has generally been considered religious questions

  • ako

    It’s never applied on a personal level, but on a societal level there’s an understanding that religion should stay away from questions like “where did people come from?” and atheists should leave questions like “what is the nature of good and evil?” the the religious.
    But what if you’re an atheist who wants to not be evil?

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    or regard “Do unto others” as no more valid or useful a precept than “I am a poached egg”
    And indeed, I’ve said this before, but that poached-egg analogy? It’s failing to love his neighbours. Horribly failing to love his neighbours; the-other-travellers-in-the-story-of-the-Good-Samaritan level failing to love his neighbours. Talk like that to show off your rationality, and you’re stepping over a bleeding body and priding yourself on the cleanliness of your hems. It’s reducing ‘lunacy’ – which is to say, mental illness, a brutal, agonising class of diseases that work dreadful harm upon the innocent and desperately need understanding and compassion if we’re ever going to help each other out of the valleys of darkness- to a cheap crack, a cruel, inane caricature. In the name of a religion that was all about embracing the sick and the outcast, he stoops to ignorant parodies of the sick and the outcast. As far as I’m concerned that fatally injures Lewis’s standing as a moralist right then and there.
    –
    Far’s I’m concerned, the only unbreakable boundary is ‘fully informed consent’.
    What about cheating? Does that come under your heading? Because there are, at least, plenty of circumstances where cheating isn’t okay. You might make the case that if you’re in a relationship you need both parties’ fully informed consent for any sex engaged in outside the relationship (though I’d make an exception for masturbation, because someone who objects to their partner masturbating? You’ve got bigger problems in the relationship than sex). But what’s your view?
    –
    Personally I’ve never found ‘what is the nature of good and evil?’ to be a very useful question. ‘What should I do?’ is more valuable.

  • Pius Thicknesse

    If anyone said anything to me anywhere I missed it since I’ve been under the radar for the last day or so.
    @Kit Whitfield:
    I would say that the answer to “What should I do?” generally falls under the heading of “don’t hurt others”, which seems to be a rather sensible thing to do.

  • Francis D

    Bryan,
    If it’s my responsibility to test the real world against the teachings of the Bible, what happens when they don’t match up (which they don’t). Do I work on the premise that the Bible was written down by humans, selected by humans, and translated by humans? Or do I work on the assumption that God’s creation and the laws of physics are a lie put in place to deceive humans and that God is therefore the Prince of Lies himself?
    For that matter, just because the Bible says that scripture is God Breathed (which doesn’t mean what you think it does – one of the uses of teaching and reproof is pointing out that no human source is perfect), how does this make it different from the Necronomicon* which claims to be Inspired by Cthulu? You can not use a source to demonstrate its own validity.
    And finally, to join in the atheist chorus, J – are you trying to be the equivalent of a crazy street preacher? Get off my side.
    * Yes, I know that the Necronomicon was invented by H.P. Lovecraft. Your point?

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    how does this make it different from the Necronomicon* which claims to be Inspired by Cthulu?
    And the Illiad was dictated by a Muse (Calliope, I think), and Muses are goddesses.
    Many works down through the ages have had their creators claim them as divinely inspired. I’m with Pius: What makes the Bible different from any of the rest of them?
    (Mind, as a polytheist, I don’t think it is different. But clearly some people around here do.)

  • Jos

    Sex in and of itself is a wonderful thing. We are meant to act upon it — within the proper boundaries like everything else. Whether it is masturbation or fornication with someone we are not married to or homosexual acts, these are perversions of the gift.
    [Citation needed]
    Personally, if gay sex is a ‘perversion’ of the gift of sex, why did God create or allow to evolve the desert grassland whiptail lizard (Aspidoscelis uniparens), an all-female species of lizard that reproduce by having lesbian sex? Or is gay sex not a perversion if it’s the only option available?
    Or is God just not concerned with animals that aren’t humans?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/gdwarf GDwarf

    On the ‘firmament’ issue, this is one of those translational issues. Literally it means expanse, or ‘a waste and emptiness’. Solid spherical shell is a very incorrect description.

    No…The Bible’s pretty clear that God creates a solid sky, puts the oceans beneath it, and puts the rest of the water above it. That’s a firmament, that’s the only definition of firmament that there is. Firmament has never meant “a waste and emptiness”.
    As cosmologies go it’s not a bad one: It describes night/day and weather pretty nicely, and can even account for the rotation of stars if done right (a full spherical firmament, instead of the standard hemisphere, that rotates around the flat Earth.) But it’s easy enough to prove false now.
    The Bible is full of stuff like this. Pi = 3 (Fractions weren’t in use by the Biblical writers at that time, IIRC.) Insects have 4 legs, Two (or Seven) of every animal fitting onto a rather small boat, Jesus is given two different geneologies (Which are both for Joseph and which both *don’t matter* because, genetically, he’s apparently not Joseph’s son) etc.
    Does this mean that all of the Bible is wrong? Nah. There probably was someone named Jesus, the general history of the Judaic people is probably recorded pretty correctly (They invaded various nations, were themselves invaded, etc.) and it may be the case that it’s correct about spiritual issues.
    Flaws in the paint don’t make a building unsound. Likewise, errors in things other than religion don’t have any impact on the soundness of the Bible as a spiritual resource.
    Now, I have other issues with it as a source of faith, but the fact that it’s demonstrably not inerrant isn’t one of them.

    How so? Seriously, the oldest cultures we know of all seem to have worshipped something. Even prehistoric people seem likely to have done so, given what we’ve found.
    I keep hearing arguments like this, that atheism is the oldest faith, or that atheism is the natural state of people. And nobody has ever given me any credible evidence for it. I could see arguing that atheism is the future of humanity, that it’s a more advanced state of belief than religion (I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I can understand the argument), but the oldest? Seriously?

    Implicit atheism is a lack of belief due to never having considered the possibility of any deity before.
    It seems reasonable that, since no one is born with a religion, at some point far enough back the first person capable of having a belief in a deity was born (this might also count as the first human, depending on your definition) but until they came up with that idea they’d be an implicit atheist.
    Potentially all animals other than humans could count as implicit atheists, too, but that might be pushing things a bit.

  • Ursula L

    Bryan,
    One thing you need to know about Slacktivites. If there is one moral precept and statement of religion that you could get us all to agree on, it is Huck Finn’s “Fine then, I’ll go to Hell.” The firm belief that the right thing to do is the humanly right thing to do, and that either God won’t damn you for it or it is better to be damned for it than not do it.
    As long as you’re framing your arguments with the assumption that not going to Hell is the most important goal, you’re arguing against the moral validity of your own faith.
    And, to go back to one of Fred’s original points – do you own more than one outfit of clothing? If so, you’re as much in violation of the Bible as anyone in a loving relationship with someone of the same sex.
    More so, because you’re keeping something for yourself that you’ve been commanded to give to the poor and needy, and are not loving your neighbor as yourself, while the people in same-sex marriages are still being loving.
    One outfit. If you’re going to insist on “literally” interpreting the Bible, come back when your closet is empty and you’ve no more clothing than what is currently on your body.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Hmmm. Okay, I really don’t want to seem like I’m quarreling with you, Bugmaster…

    Quarrel away !

    Okay, that was my poor phrasing. I was subsuming those under the “etc.” as a given.

    Fair enough.

    I’m sure that you’ll find “some Christians” who say all sorts of damfool things.

    Well, yes, but in this case “Some Christians” includes Fred, IMO, and he does seem pretty smart…

    If you asked me how tall a tree is, would the measuring tape be primary, and the tree itself “merely secondary” to the tool I used to study it…

    Well, actually yes, sort of. When you are measuring the tree with that tape, you’re assuming that your tape is fairly trustworthy, regardless of what the height of the tree is. Even if the tree had a big sign on it, saying “yar, this tree be 10 cm tall, matey”, you’d still (presumably) trust your tape over the sign — especially if the tree was tall enough to cover you completely with its shade. When you measure that tree, you’re treating it as any other kind of object; you may like that tree very much, or you might hate it, but for the purposes of measuring its height, there’s nothing really special about it.
    Keep this analogy in mind, I’ll return to it. Meanwhile:

    I mean that there is no one, true, “right” meaning that can be arrived at, by vote or any other means… The “authority” of their interpretation does not derive from either their expertise or the number of people who agree with them, but with the degree to which the interpretations that they arrive at using these tools are actually useful, inspiring, and in accord with those to whom they are presented.

    These paragraphs seem contradictory regardless of which way I read them (this is, admittedly, quite an accomplishment, heh). If any interpretation of a text is as good as any other — as long as it’s properly inspiring — then there’s absolutely nothing special about Mark Twain scholars. Their interpretation of the text is just as valid as mine, as long as it inspires me properly. Thus, if I believe that Tom Sawyer was a purple unicorn, and this belief gives me great joy and happiness, then my interpretation of the text is just as good as that of a Mark Twain scholar, who insists that Tom Sawyer was a little human boy.
    I have no problem with this statement, per se; I think it’s a little odd, but then, I think most religious beliefs are odd anyway, so one more can’t hurt. However, in this case, there’s not really any need for literary analysis. As long as reading the Bible makes you happier and more inspired, why reach for other source — since you already know what its true (in the poetic sense) meaning is ? In addition, there is no “accord” of any kind to be had, since your opinion is the only one that matters. And yet, you seem to place a high value on the opinions of “the historian, the linguist, the literary critic”. Why ?

    Like you, I see them as a means of communication, from one Person to others

    You kind of snuck that capital-P “Person” in there, but, in my case, I mentioned that I see books as a form of communication between human people. This distinction is important, because, as far as I can tell, your capital-P Person (assuming it exists) does not communicate in any way that is remotely similar to the way humans communicate. It cannot (or, perhaps, it does not choose to) audibly speak, or chat on IM, or publish a book; it doesn’t even have body language. In fact, a special kind of faith is required in order to receive its communications in any way. This is what I meant earlier, when I said that I do not pore over the “deeper meaning” of books in the same way that you do. From my perspective, books are the works of humans — perhaps, very smart and talented humans, but humans nonetheless. Thus, any given book can only contain as much wisdom and truth and inspiration and so forth as a regular human can provide. Your scriptures, it seems, aspire to much more than that; they are tools for establishing “a reflection, an echo, that helps shape and strengthen and channel any attempts on [your] part to make contact”.
    Remember your tree-and-tape analogy, that I discussed above ? Well, it seems like, from your perspective, certain objects (such as telephone poles, perhaps) are mundane and therefore easily measurable with that tape. However, other objects, such as that tree, are really special, and therefore must be treated with a kind of reverence that leads you to conclude they are very very tall, even if your tape tells you they are relatively short.
    I would argue — speaking less metaphorically for the moment — that if we analyzed the Bible using the same tools that we use to analyze other works of fiction, we would find it sorely wanting. From a purely technical standpoint, the book is very poorly edited, poorly paced, and quite often inconsistent. The first half of it reads like an alternate history novel crossed with a snuff film. The second half seems to have very little to do with the first half (good thing, too), but it still comes through as rather anvilicious in many places. Furthermore, while its protagonist (insofar as it has one) seems to be rather concerned with love and kindness, he accepts things like slavery and misogyny as status quo. This would actually be a nice touch in a better-written book, demonstrating that the protagonist is a human being with serious flaws; however, in the Bible, the protagonist is supposed to be some sort of a flawless Mary Sue, which casts the author’s own views into doubt. And, of course, the story doesn’t really have a decent beginning, middle, and ending, as most good books do, which gives it a rather unfinished feel. Plus, there’s that one chapter that seems to have been written under the influence of some seriously toxic mushrooms…
    So, this is what I would conclude if I applied the usual literary analysis tools to the Bible. I am fully aware that very few Christians, if any, would come to the same conclusion. They don’t use the ordinary measuring tape to measure this particular tree; they have a special tape for that.

    And, working with the assumption that the original writers… were NOT just a pack of “primitive screwheads”…

    In this case, it would seem rather odd for you to claim, as you seemed to have done, than modern people (yourself included) have a better understanding of Moses’s words than the “human beings fundamentally similar in intelligence and basic human experience to ourselves” who happened to be standing right there next to him when he spoke to them.

    This is something I definitely agree with. I just don’t think that ALL beauty is to be found in nature and human invention…

    Well, from my point of view, there exists nothing but nature, and it’s wonderful enough as it is, so I see no need to look for some super-nature behind it. I mean, when you’ve got mantis shrimp, what more do you need ?

  • Tonio

    Cactus Wren, good point about the well poisoning. The false dichotomy that Lewis presents makes the huge assumption that the Gospels were accurate accounts of what Jesus said and did. No allowance for the possibility that Jesus might have been partially or mostly misquoted, either through quoter error or through the quoters’ own agendas.

    If there is one moral precept and statement of religion that you could get us all to agree on, it is Huck Finn’s “Fine then, I’ll go to Hell.” The firm belief that the right thing to do is the humanly right thing to do, and that either God won’t damn you for it or it is better to be damned for it than not do it.

    Yes. Morality is about how we treat one another. When one’s goal is to follow rules for their own sake, or to avoid hell or to placate authority, one implicitly rejects morality.

    How can you make a decision with multiple sources to choose from without deciding which is more credible. If a bum and Stephen Hawking each lecture you on physics, how do you decide who to believe?

    I would listen to both, because it’s possible that the bum is an out-of-work physicist. Credibility is not a comparative or competitive concept, where the accuracy of one source proves the inaccuracy of other sources.

    on a societal level there’s an understanding that religion should stay away from questions like “where did people come from?” and atheists should leave questions like “what is the nature of good and evil?” the the religious. New Atheists don’t just believe that a non-theistic world view is sufficient for them but publicly challenge religions monopoly on what has generally been considered religious questions

    Um, I don’t know if that understanding is as universal as you describe. I encounter many, many people who argue that without gods or certain events deemed as miracles, morality wouldn’t exist, or that it wouldn’t have any meaning. Even someone as intelligent as Francis Collins argues that evolution is insufficient to explain morality, and knowing that I’m not nearly his intellectual and scientific equal shouldn’t stop me from pointing out that he’s using the argument from incredulity in that case.
    My own stance is that questions of morality need not depend on gods or miracles one way or the other. That dependence wrongly takes the focus away from how humans treat one another. I would hope that people of many religious or non-religious stances can agree about morality being how humans treat one another, even if they don’t agree on what constitutes moral treatment.

  • Amaryllis

    Pausing in my slog cubicle-wards (too soon to be out of me bed, too soon to be back at this bus-queue caper… on a Monday morning) to observe that a hapax-Bugmaster sparring match is always a treat– carry on, please!
    And, of course, the story doesn’t really have a decent beginning, middle, and ending, as most good books do, which gives it a rather unfinished feel.
    Well, it is unfinished. We’re unfinished. Time and the World are still unfinished. We may have some ideas about where this plot is going, but we seem to be a long way from denouement still.
    Mildly tangential, I just finished reading a novel with a rather irritating ending in which the protagonist met his author, and suddenly everything that went before suddenly rang false to me. I can only hope the resolution of our story, if there is one, creates the opposite effect; that when and if we meet our author, everything becomes more real and more meaningful instead of less so.

  • Tonio

    Bad things do only happen to those who have done something wrong, which is everybody.

    That suggests that the existence of suffering itself is a punishment on the entire human race. There seems to be no great moral distinction between that and, say, claiming that a tree falling on a couple’s house is the result of one spouse being unfaithful or the other spouse embezzling.

    I just don’t think that ALL beauty is to be found in nature and human invention — or rather, that such infinite beauty as is there, points to a Beauty behind it.

    That implies that beauty exists as more than just a concept. (Maybe that was the object in Marsellus’s briefcase.)

  • Lonespark

    The mantis shrimps is cute.
    Kit, is that bit about Lewis written out on your blog anywhere? Cuz if it is, I should bookmark it.

  • Will Wildman

    That suggests that the existence of suffering itself is a punishment on the entire human race. There seems to be no great moral distinction between that and, say, claiming that a tree falling on a couple’s house is the result of one spouse being unfaithful or the other spouse embezzling.

    It also doesn’t address what exactly is going to be different for the people who sin more. Bryan asserted that eventually you pay for your sins, such as lying, even if they get you ahead in the short term. However, since he’s also established that every sin is effectively infinite in its wrongngess, the person who lives an excellent but non-Jesus-infused life is equally infinitely damned as the person who lies, cheats, steals, and kills indiscriminately, and both suffer accordingly. Incidentally, the people who are forgiven and saved still appear to have horrible things rain on them as much as everyone else. What’s that in Bryan’s worldview; 1d10 splash Sin damage?

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Kit, is that bit about Lewis written out on your blog anywhere? Cuz if it is, I should bookmark it.
    No, but I might write it into a blog post later, since it’s something I seem to need to keep pointing out; it would save some trouble to be able to link to it rather than repeating myself. Watch this space, I guess. :-)

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Incidentally, if I do turn the Lewis thing into a blog post, I remember I got into a debate with someone here about it. Does anyone remember which thread? My googling doesn’t seem to turn anything up, and it would be useful to remind myself what I said previously…

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    At work; will try and make this quick.
    My arguments for my belief system are not based entirely on the system. I haven’t here engaged in an apologetic defense of Christianity. I have engaged in a defense of a more literal interpretation of the Bible than Fred uses, and demonstrated the flaws in his approach.
    Right, except, when I pointed out that your “more literal interpretation” is everything I don’t want about Christianity, you switched into apologetic defense mode. So…you have, in fact, been engaged in that.
    As far as accepting *your* God’s grace and salvation…there are many things I’d accept first, and most of them I will not describe on this blog. Certainly not before coffee.
    Not at all. We do live in a twisted world, but we twisted it.
    Right, and if I was saying that the world was a horrible place because of war, famine, etc, I might accept that argument.
    I’m not. Follow along.
    I’m saying that a universe which was created and populated with sentient life-forms for the explicit purpose of unquestioningly obeying the dictates of said creator, without being given any justification for said dictates, is a horrible place. Period. Mankind has nothing to do with that: you said yourself that, in your worldview, God made the universe that way.
    (And I’m with The Right Hon’ Mouse insofar as I think we each do have a role to play, and that playing said role as best we can is a good thing–blah blah cosmic purpose, blah blah True Will blah blah–but there’s a wide difference between that and “you were put here to do what I say, because I say so”.)
    You have flagrantly ignored that angle. You have ALSO ignored the bit where I said that I *have* had moments of what I consider actual spiritual contact with something larger, and that I *don’t* think this life is all there is.
    Other points:
    * Pointing out that you suck does not make me think you’re any less condescending. You’re just passive-aggressive about it. I mean, I agree with you insofar as I also think you suck, but to paraphrase my earlier link, I’m An Asshole But At Least I Admit It guy is not actually less of an asshole for admitting it.
    * “I’m sorry you think” is not an actual apology.
    * I’m female. Not a big deal–this is the Internet–but might as well clarify that.

  • Spearmint

    Loki
    Unless your Dad is an asshole, it seems unlikely Loki would bother to heal him. But the general point stands.
    Bad things do only happen to those who have done something wrong, which is everybody.
    Wait, what about fetuses? Didn’t you just claim they deserve to be aborted?

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Also what Ursula says.
    Bryan, the God you describe is a petty, megalomaniacal dickhead with all the grandeur and purpose of a three-year-old making Play-Doh figurines and then squashing them.* There’s no grace or wisdom in that…thing…you claim is good; still less is there anything I’d equate with Ultimate Good.
    If you’re right…well, I don’t know, in the end. I may be coward enough to fall on my knees at the certain prospect of eternal torture: only human and all that. But I’d hate myself for doing it, and I still wouldn’t think it was any way to run a universe.
    *Which there’s nothing wrong with an actual three-year-old doing.

  • Will Wildman

    Wait, what about fetuses? Didn’t you just claim they deserve to be aborted?

    I would have touched on this one earlier, and various forms of humans-making-humans-suffer that Bryan would seem to be justifying, but I’m guessing he’ll reply that only God gets to make us suffer for our sins.
    Although now that I think about it, that implies that we shouldn’t have any forms of punishment or judicial action at all, since it’s up to God to hammer our unrighteousness. But Bryan’s not big on consistency; his claim that turning anti-gay is a natural response to becoming a true Christian (by the way, Bryan, you mentioned not knowing what RTC stands for: it’s Real True Christian, full of sarcasm, and you are one) consequentially indicates that the way to get rid of homosexuality isn’t to ban it, but to convert people until they understand why they’re wrong. From his own perspective (“accepting gay people is a result of not being Christian”) he’s attacking the symptom instead of the disease-of-not-being-an-RTC.

  • Spearmint

    Also, yeah, C. S. Lewis is such a douchebag. On the other hand, given the grasp of linguistics and historiography displayed in Narnia, it’s not entirely surprising he doesn’t understand the concept of unreliable historical documents. On the other other hand, he’s a frickin’ medievalist and Tolkien’s BFF, so how the hell he could not GET this is a mystery mankind may never solve.
    …such a douche. I lost patience with him about halfway through Out of the Silent Planet, but really you could pick any book of his and find a glaring example of his doucheness. Or several. And that includes the books like Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Screwtape Letters that I don’t viscerally loathe.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Also, what is it with guys named some variety of “Brian” on this blog? I think we’re at zero-for-two now: if we get a third in the Trinity of Passive-Aggressive Conservative Asshats, it’s gonna start seriously wigging me out.
    I guess Brian (Brianne? Brien?) the Third would have to be, like, rabidly pro-war or something. Or anti-environment.

  • Bryun

    I think the ocean definitely needs more oil in it. The Bible says that you shouldn’t eat shrimp and if we fill the ocean with oil then we won’t have anymore shrimp and filthy sinners will have to stop their shellfish eating ways.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    I love you people. In a pure and true yet very very sinful way.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    The worst evangelical tract I can recall reading (and I truly hope I misremember) either implied or stated outright that non-Christians who did good things were actively offending by trying to be good without His aid.
    Posted by: Leum
    ————————
    The worst tract I ever read (Jack Chick) had a trio of missionaries returning from Africa. Two (Husband and Wife) had spent thier time (Several years) running a hospital (healing the sick), providing food (feeding the hungry), running a hospice (comforting the dying), and provided jobs and shelter to widows and orphans. “We were so busy, preaching the word had to take second place”. The other had dropped off Bibles over the weekend. Of course, the plane crashes, and the Husband and Wife are thrown into Hell for not personally accepting Jesus as thier savior and then preaching the word. The Bible salesman goes to Heaven.
    Jack Schick, denying what Jesus said since 1987 at least.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hummingwolf Hummingwolf

    Because C.S. Lewis is getting mentioned here, it’s time to link to an extended quotation of what he actually thought of inerrancy. (Short version: he’s certainly not in agreement with Bryan Swartz.)
    http://hummingwolf.livejournal.com/317980.html

  • Tonio

    we fill the ocean with oil then we won’t have anymore shrimp and filthy sinners will have to stop their shellfish eating ways.

    If the accident had involved a tanker filled with extra virgin olive oil, then there wouldn’t be anything sinful about the shrimp. Throw a few hundred cases of fresh basil, and we could dip breadsticks the size of Tennessee into the Gulf.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @Hawker
    The Bible salesman goes to Heaven.
    When I think of Bible salesmen I think of this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDd_ryixqyA
    One of my very very very favorite movies.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hummingwolf Hummingwolf

    Actually, for those who (understandably) don’t particularly want to go to my LiveJournal, here are two paragraphs:

    The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naïvety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not “the Word of God” in the sense that every passage, in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God; and we (under grace, with attention to tradition and to interpreters wiser than ourselves, and with the use of such intelligence and learning as we may have) receive that word from it not by using it as an encyclopedia or an encyclical but by steeping ourselves in its tone or temper and so learning its overall message.
    To a human mind this working-up (in a sense imperfectly), this sublimation (incomplete) of human material, seems, no doubt, an untidy and leaky vehicle. We might have expected, we may think we should have preferred, an unrefracted light giving us ultimate truth in systematic form–something we could have tabulated and memorised and relied on like the multiplication table. One can respect, and at moments envy, both the Fundamentalist’s view of the Bible and the Roman Catholic’s view of the Church. But there is one argument which we should beware of using for either position: God must have done what is best, this is best, therefore God has done this. For we are mortals and do not know what is best for us, and it is dangerous to prescribe what God must have done–especially when we cannot, for the life of us, see that He has after all done it.

    There’s more in the LJ entry if you want context.

  • Spearmint

    Of course, the plane crashes, and the Husband and Wife are thrown into Hell for not personally accepting Jesus as thier savior and then preaching the word. The Bible salesman goes to Heaven.
    Is it possible Chick just has Heaven and Hell mixed up? I feel like most of his tracts will make perfect sense if you simply assume he means one wherever he says the other.

  • Bryun

    Actually you’re wrong, Tonio. Jesus made that one olive tree wither and die, which is proof that God hates olives as much as He hates shrimp. You’re probably one of those filthy perverted olive eaters.
    That’s why Jesus turned the water into wine and not martinis.

  • alfgifu

    Kit, I remember disagreeing with you about the Lewis thing, some time ago (though if that is the disagreement you’re remembering then I’m terribly flattered). I can’t remember which thread it was on, and I’m at work and don’t have time to pick back and find it. If that is what you were talking about, I don’t think the discussion went anywhere in particular.
    I think I said that I was surprised at how much you took against Lewis for that one instance, and that the ‘poached egg’ passage was part of a series of war time broadcasts so the context lends itself to extreme overstatement of a position as a sort of gallows humour.
    Your reply (if I remember it rightly) was that the context shouldn’t make any difference, because the ‘poached egg’ phrase is so inherently wrong that it invalidates Lewis as a moral teacher whenever and however it was made.
    Does that sound right? Perhaps I should add that I still don’t quite get why the phrase/argument evokes such a vehement response from you. I’ve spent years fighting my own depression. I’ve seen a loved one struck down by Alzheimers. But I just don’t get that visceral revulsion. Why not speak lightly of mental illnesses, occasionally, to show they’re not the boss of us? Even if it’s done ignorantly or carelessly, why does one careless moment make so much difference?
    I think this again every time I see you bring the point up, but I’ve only posted it here because you made a specific reference to the earlier conversation. The strength of your language when talking about this gives the impression that this is a painful subject for you, and since I don’t share the same gut reaction, it seemed a bit unfair to argue the point.

  • Tonio

    “We were so busy, preaching the word had to take second place”.

    If I was a first-time visitor to Slacktivist and didn’t know about Chick’s puerile publications, I might wonder if Hawker’s summary was made up or greatly exaggerated. The idea that people who focus on alleviating the suffering of others should be punished…that’s beyond evil. I picture Chick taking baskets of food to starving villages in Africa or Asia, but handing out the food only to people who accept Jesus.

  • sarah

    Jumping in for a second before I read the rest of the thread, so this might be off-topic.
    [[Bryan: Here's the thing though. If, as the Bible says, we are created for the purpose of glorifying, worshiping, and enjoying Him forever, then nothing compares with the value of this unquestioning obedience.]]
    Actually, I think that’s from the Westminster Catechism. And I’m not Reformed. And man, unquestioning obedience? God gave me a brain for a reason.
    [[Amaryllis: And yet, what's expressed through all this specificity is "Divine revelation embedded in historical relationships" (Eric Gritsch). Culminating in (to mix my quotes) the Incarnation, Eliot's point of intersection of the timeless with time.]]
    This made me happy, because I wrote my senior thesis on the Four Quartets and the intersection of time and timelessness.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    I would say that the answer to “What should I do?” generally falls under the heading of “don’t hurt others”, which seems to be a rather sensible thing to do.
    Posted by: Pius Thicknesse
    ————————
    “Don’t hurt others without good cause” covers my ethics. If I save you from falling over a cliff and dislocate your shoulder, I’ve hurt you but prevented a greater hurt.
    There’s more to it than that, of course.

  • Tonio

    Jesus made that one olive tree wither and die, which is proof that God hates olives as much as He hates shrimp. You’re probably one of those filthy perverted olive eaters.

    That’s what I get for making bread dip using Diseased Whore Olive Oil instead of Extra Virgin. When I screwed, I mean, unscrewed the bottle, I heard “brown chicken brown cow” music.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hummingwolf Hummingwolf

    Oh! and I just remembered Andrew Rilstone’s essay on C.S. Lewis and the “trilemma” of Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. There’s a copy of the essay: Fool, Charlatan or Evangelist? C.S Lewis, Josh McDowell, and the “Trilemma”. The lines “I am not arguing for the truth of Christianity…It does not amount to logical compulsion” ought to stand as epigrams to McDowell’s misleading book. Sadly, however, Lewis did in fact use the phrase “poached egg.”
    People curious about what else Rilstone (obviously a Lewis fan, though lately he’s been posting more about Dr. Who) had to say about Lewis should see
    http://www.andrewrilstone.com/search/label/C.S%20Lewis

  • Jeff

    [[Further, just because I have a belief about something doesn't make me a SOMETHING. I believe dowsers are scam artists. That does not make me a dowser.]]
    No but it does define you, at least to a certain extent, as a skeptic.
    I think we’re getting back to the “labels” discussion we had last week re TVTropes. I’m not saying that “atheist” is the sum total of who you are, just that it makes up some portion, large or small, of the person we know as mmy.
    ————————–
    [[It has nothing to do with what conclusions you draw about morality, what you think is right or wrong, whether or not you attend worship services]]
    Good point.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Might have been us, Alfgifu, I’m afraid my memory is weak!
    Why not speak lightly of mental illnesses, occasionally, to show they’re not the boss of us? Even if it’s done ignorantly or carelessly, why does one careless moment make so much difference?
    I’ve got no problem with somebody who’s actually engaged with mental illness, either fighting it in themselves or supporting others who have it, making jokes on the subject. Heck, gallows humour can get you through a day, and I reckon if you’re fighting the good fight you pretty much get to make whatever jokes you like. (And I hope your own fight with depression is going okay.)
    If you’re setting yourself up as a moral teacher who’s interested in proving a completely different point, and you carelessly make a joke at the expense of mentally ill people – not mental illness, mentally ill people – because you’re so excited about your dodgy logic that you can’t be bothered to look into what ‘lunatic’ actually means in the real world – then you ain’t fighting the good fight. You’re on the other side, spreading the misconceptions that lead to mentally ill people being laughed at or stigmatised.
    Lewis’s little crack wasn’t about showing that mental illness ‘isn’t the boss of us’. To him, mentally ill people are Them.
    He had a big soapbox, and was banging a big drum. He was setting himself up as a great moral teacher. To fall down on compassion in such a serious way is a moral sin.
    He was also setting himself up as a great theologian. He was making an argument that Jesus couldn’t possibly have been mentally ill without doing a scrap of research into what ‘mentally ill’ actually involved. That’s incredibly lazy, to the point of being a sin against logic.
    So basically, he sinned against both thought and feeling, which are the basis of human connection. If it were the one-time slip of a generally kind and understanding man it wouldn’t be a big deal, but he was bombastic and stereotyping a lot of the time, so I don’t think that’s what it was. I think that’s about how interested in empathy he felt any obligation to be while still considering himself a moral teacher. So it makes me mad because I think that little comment, in the context of his general aspect, seems to defile the concepts of compassion, logic, teaching and morality. Which is quite an achievement in a single sentence.

  • Z

    I will never understand how people can claim not to be homophobic while simultaneously claiming that gay sex and homosexuality are evil soul-destroying God-insulting sins. That level of doublethink is just beyond me.

  • Robyrt

    Urgh. Got about halfway through the comments before I realized this thread was taking up way too much of my time… Here are some quick thoughts from a slightly different Christian perspective.
    On obedience to God: God does not command unquestioning obedience, as should be obvious from the Bible’s litany of questioners. Because God is good, his commands are to do good – I think Micah 6:8 has already been quoted – so to obey him is also to follow the best parts of your nature. If your response to “Be merciful” is “I don’t follow orders!” there’s really not much to say beyond that.
    On interpretation: Not all of the rules in the Bible immediately make sense, although most of them do. In this case, it makes sense to ask as Fred does, “What if I’m reading this one wrong?” and see if there is an alternate explanation that agrees with reason and experience. It is also rational to obey the rule as you see it without a convincing explanation, trusting that a source this reliable will turn out to be right once we are older and wiser.
    On Biblical inerrancy: I’d say I believe this. That doesn’t mean my interpretation of the Bible is flawless, or that God dictated the King James Version with a bullhorn, or that admitting a historical error in our best guess of the text shatters the foundation of the Christian faith. What it means is that if you believe the Bible says something which is manifestly at odds with reality and common sense, you’re reading it wrong and there exists an alternate interpretation.
    On Fred’s original post: I like the gist of it, but the idea that we can reject parts of the Bible we don’t like is completely and totally wrong. The proper response to “Why doesn’t anybody pay attention to the usury prohibitions?” is not “I’ll go with common sense over the Bible,” it’s “I must be reading that part wrong.” As was pointed out earlier, the usury prohibitions have just as much nuance and context as the homosexuality prohibitions, it’s just they don’t get quoted so often.

  • Spearmint

    In fairness, to C. S. Lewis practically everyone was “Them.” He’s nastily self-righteous in a really unpleasant, jeering sort of way, like a more erudite EllenJay.

  • Spearmint

    @Robyrt: how would you be able to tell the difference between the text being at odds with reality because it’s errant and the text being at odds with reality because you’re reading it wrong?
    Or do you just take inerrancy on faith?

  • Z

    On Fred’s original post: I like the gist of it, but the idea that we can reject parts of the Bible we don’t like is completely and totally wrong. The proper response to “Why doesn’t anybody pay attention to the usury prohibitions?” is not “I’ll go with common sense over the Bible,” it’s “I must be reading that part wrong.” As was pointed out earlier, the usury prohibitions have just as much nuance and context as the homosexuality prohibitions, it’s just they don’t get quoted so often.
    The “I’ll go with common sense over the Bible” option leads to doing what common sense says. The other option leads to altering one’s interpretation of the Bible until it matches one’s common sense and then doing what common sense says. The former looks to me like it gets to the same result faster.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    In fairness, to C. S. Lewis practically everyone was “Them.” He’s nastily self-righteous in a really unpleasant, jeering sort of way, like a more erudite EllenJay.
    Also my opinion. I just get madder at him when he chooses some subjects than others, and the more vulnerable the subject, the madder I get.

  • Tonio

    If your response to “Be merciful” is “I don’t follow orders!” there’s really not much to say beyond that.

    I don’t know of anyone who would respond like that. For me, the issue is the specific reason and motivation to be merciful. It’s the distinction between mercy because one cares about others and mercy because one seeks to placate authority.
    On a related issue, “love thy neighbor” could be read as saying that one should feel love for everyone, and I don’t know if it’s possible for one to make one’s self feel that way. But it also could be read as saying that one should treat others with love despite how one feels about them.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    If your response to “Be merciful” is “I don’t follow orders!” there’s really not much to say beyond that. //
    I don’t know of anyone who would respond like that.
    What, you’ve never encountered an Internet Contrarian? ;-)

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    My response to “Be nice!” is very often “Why should I?”
    This is largely because the person telling me to be nice is telling me not to argue too strenuously with a bigot, or to let slide things to which I feel it’s necessary to object, but sometimes it’s just because I’m having fun being catty and don’t see why I should go easy on the person in question.
    That said, I don’t have any objection to mercy as an abstract concept, nor to someone saying that mercy is, in general, a good idea. What objections I do have aren’t generally that I don’t follow orders, but either that I don’t want to give a free pass to X attitude or Y action, or that you are harshing my buzz, Captain Bringdown.

  • Spearmint

    I don’t feel that reinforcing oppression by not challenging bigots really qualifies as “mercy,” in a broader sense. Mercy tempers the sentence, it doesn’t provide a carte blanche for people to continue offending.
    Not punching them through the internet is mercy. (Also physics.) Letting them continue saying evil shit and thinking its okay is like refusing to put out a fire.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156e68de75970c transformingseminarian.blogspot.com

    Thank you for this reflection. It’s very timely for me. On Saturday, my wife was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
    Yes, that Diocese. In fact, that bishop.
    Meanwhile, I’ve been working through a “New Testament in a Year” project on my personal blog. Wouldn’t you know it, the schedule happened to fall upon covering Romans 1 on the entry that was made “live” just today. That is to say, I had to wrestle with what to say about Paul’s list, including the item on homosexuality, this very weekend. Although I have several commentaries on Romans at my disposal, I was concerned that they would be no help, as I obtained all of them in an earlier part of my life, when I would have been more conservative than I am now on such matters (I expect that I’m still to the right of you, Fred, but that’s still WAY left of some of my close friends).
    Thankfully, I was able to find support for a position that closely matches what Fred has here. I”m very glad for the timely reinforcement.

  • mst3kharris

    What, you’ve never encountered an Internet Contrarian?
    I know I haven’t. *cough*

  • http://briervineyard.blogspot.com Kirala

    Tonio: But it also could be read as saying that one should treat others with love despite how one feels about them.
    This.
    Spearmint: In fairness, to C. S. Lewis practically everyone was “Them.”
    In fairness to Lewis, he grew up in a culture where snobbery and prejudice were as rampant and codified as any point in human history. And he has a very important difference from Ellenjay: his authorial self-insert (as I see Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength) is portrayed with very little sympathy as a self-important, glib fool. That is to say, that while Lewis was a prejudiced snob and often ignorant, he was aware of the fact and didn’t celebrate it. (And serves as a nice reminder that even though one may be adhering carefully to the most moral code one knows, one can still be wrong. Morality and ethics need to be constantly reevaluated.)

  • Will Wildman

    The “I’ll go with common sense over the Bible” option leads to doing what common sense says. The other option leads to altering one’s interpretation of the Bible until it matches one’s common sense and then doing what common sense says. The former looks to me like it gets to the same result faster.

    There’s no guarantee that they do come to the same result. It’s entirely possible to come up with a third course of action during your consideration of why the Bible says what it does.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a5ec953d970b Cat Meadors

    I’ve developed the working theory that certain factions have to believe in the “literal” interpretation of Genesis, because otherwise God’s a jerk. If humans have been around for half a million (ish) years, and God just got around to telling them what to do to avoid eternal fiery torment 2k years ago? Really, not cool.
    (What was he doing for 99.6% of human existence then? “Huh, seems awfully quiet up here. Hey, that Hell sure is hoppin’! Oh, yeah, knew there was something I meant to do. Hey son, off to Earth with you, do a little redeeming of humanity while you’re down there, ‘k?)
    And because I haven’t linked to it in at least a few days, here’s your weekly dose of No Longer Quivering. This entry is about testing the spirit of Quiverfull interpretations of the Bible, using the methods the Bible says you’re supposed to use to figure out if something is a correct interpretation of God’s will or not. I think it dovetails quite nicely with what Fred is saying. Also, it’s kind of a neat example of opening a box with a crowbar that’s inside of it, which I always appreciate.

  • Tonio

    What, you’ve never encountered an Internet Contrarian? ;-)

    I meant someone for whom “I don’t follow orders!” would be a serious response and not a snarky comeback.

  • Will Wildman

    (What was he doing for 99.6% of human existence then? “Huh, seems awfully quiet up here. Hey, that Hell sure is hoppin’! Oh, yeah, knew there was something I meant to do. Hey son, off to Earth with you, do a little redeeming of humanity while you’re down there, ‘k?)

    This is a point on which two things become useful and possibly necessary – hell/heaven being set in Eternity, which means the concept of time as we recognise it doesn’t apply, and the Harrowing of Hell that Jesus is said to have done while he was dead. Which would mean that, from the perspective of a righteous person who died hunderds or thousands of years prior to Jesus explaining the rules, they would arrive in Hell (at the same ‘time’ as everyone else, I suppose) and Big JC would burst through the walls like Kool-Aid Man to break them out during his three days dead, even though on Earth he wouldn’t even be born for centuries after the hypothetical-righteous-person died.

  • Jeff

    Dang. I hit Post without meaning to.
    I meant to add that I think that mmy and Ursula L have valid points, and back off my earlier comments (except that atheism IS a part of the whole person, although it does not define the whole person).
    =====================
    [[Nobody out there's operating on a "Homer said it, I believe it, that settles it" principle. (Well, maybe Schliemann.)]]
    Yeah, but he was RIGHT!
    ======================
    [[My father had acute pancreatitis, and the doctors soon told my mom to tell her kids her father would be dead within days.]]
    Definitely a Just World believer. If someone else’s father had cancer and died from it, they just weren’t SINCERE enough in their prayers. Gack.
    =========================
    [[You might make the case that if you're in a relationship you need both parties' fully informed consent for any sex engaged in outside the relationship]]
    “Fuly informed consent” implies the f.i.c. of ALL parties involved.
    ========================
    [[Mildly tangential, I just finished reading a novel with a rather irritating ending in which the protagonist met his author, and suddenly everything that went before suddenly rang false to me.]]
    “Stranger Than Fiction” wasn’t a novel, but had that same “twist”. I thought it was a good movie (I **HATE** Will Ferrell as a “comedian”, so to like this movie was an accomplishment.)

  • Tonio

    Will, I’ve heard of the Harrowing of Hell concept, but I don’t remember seeing it any where in the NT. But I don’t see how Eternity would result in time not passing in either heaven or hell. I had always taken “eternity” to mean that time would have no end.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a5ec953d970b Cat Meadors

    @Will Wildman – there are lots of ways around it. But that harrowing thing? Not in the Bible. If you’re the kind of Christian who says look, eternal torment for anyone who doesn’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior, you don’t get to write fanfic about what Jesus did while he was dead and call it literalism.

  • Will Wildman

    “Stranger Than Fiction” wasn’t a novel, but had that same “twist”. I thought it was a good movie (I **HATE** Will Ferrell as a “comedian”, so to like this movie was an accomplishment.)

    “The Truman Show” dovetails these by being a movie in which the main character (played by an otherwise-irritating comedian) meets an author who has scripted his life and is also anviliciously a god-metaphor. “I am the Creator… of a television show that has brought hope to millions.” I quite liked it, although more recently I’ve realised that my vague feelings sometimes that I’m secretly a character in a scripted life-show are more likely related to perspective-wiring problems in my head than to actual behind-the-scenes machinations or coincidence.

  • Will Wildman

    I’ve heard of the Harrowing of Hell concept, but I don’t remember seeing it any where in the NT. But I don’t see how Eternity would result in time not passing in either heaven or hell. I had always taken “eternity” to mean that time would have no end.

    Indeed, it’s definitely Bible-fanon (I haven’t looked up its origins). And Eternity in this sense doesn’t mean time doesn’t pass, but that time is not restricted and linear. There is no then or later, there’s just an unending Now. It’s always Hell O’Clock, it was Hell O’Clock when Jesus died, and it was Hell O’Clock thousands of years prior to that.
    I find the concept of Hell itself completely incompatible with the omnipotent omnibenevolent God concept, so it’s really just an interesting thought-exercise on temporality, for me. I also love the mental imagery of Jesus doing the bust-through-the-wall Kool-Aid Man thing.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    In fairness to Lewis, he grew up in a culture where snobbery and prejudice were as rampant and codified as any point in human history.
    I’m really tired of that defence. There are decent people in every generation, and there’s no excuse for not being one of them. If you choose to be like the worst members of your era, history will judge you and it’ll serve you right.

  • Spearmint

    In fairness to Lewis, he grew up in a culture where snobbery and prejudice were as rampant and codified as any point in human history. And he has a very important difference from Ellenjay: his authorial self-insert (as I see Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength) is portrayed with very little sympathy as a self-important, glib fool.
    I would be prepared to cut him some slack for that except for how he’s a bigger dick than everyone else writing at the exact same time. Tolkien had an all male cast and gave us Eowyn; Lewis gave us “Battles get ugly when girls fight.” And so forth. I’ll grant you that he’s at least self-aware enough to loathe himself, so he’s a bit ahead of Ellenjay, but that doesn’t really do anything to ameliorate his vindictiveness, it just means he’s not a hypocrite.
    And I’m reluctant to treat anyone who seems primarily motivated by hatred as a great theologian, even if it’s a hatred they extend to themselves.

  • Lori

    I’m really tired of that defence. There are decent people in every generation, and there’s no excuse for not being one of them. If you choose to be like the worst members of your era, history will judge you and it’ll serve you right.

    How does this statement differ fundamentally from “There have always been people who were able to escape poverty without government aid. That shows that it can be done. Therefore anyone who doesn’t do it can’t expect sympathy for their failure.”?
    I’m not in favor of making excuses for people’s bad attitudes toward others, but I’m also not crazy about hammering people for not being exceptional.

  • Tonio

    I had taken The Truman Show as an allegory for separating from controlling spouses or parents. In fact, I wondered if the Creator comment was intended as a subtle joke, since I didn’t see any religious allegorical elements in the rest of the movie.

    And Eternity in this sense doesn’t mean time doesn’t pass, but that time is not restricted and linear. There is no then or later, there’s just an unending Now.

    I’m not familiar with that as a theological concept. I had the impression that in heaven or hell, one would be aware of the passage of time.

    more recently I’ve realised that my vague feelings sometimes that I’m secretly a character in a scripted life-show are more likely related to perspective-wiring problems in my head than to actual behind-the-scenes machinations or coincidence.

    Only Gene Weingarten would dare to be this dour in a humor column. I’m curious to know why Gene thinks that contemplating the lack of meaning would produce madness, since one could simply give one’s life meaning instead of wanting inherent meaning.
    consider what is perhaps the prototype for all jokes in the English language:
    “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!”
    This classic joke uses the twinned tools of absurdity and non sequitur to amusingly lay bare the final paradox of life. The central comfort of our existence — the notion that life has meaning — is a lie, a pathetic self-deception to which we cling because to confront the truth would be to descend into madness. The chicken crosses the road for the same “reason” we walk through our days on Earth: no reason at all.
    You’re welcome…

  • Spearmint

    Further thought, which I’m stealing from Ursula le Guin’s great C. S. Lewis bashing essay:
    I think it’s telling how people treat their villains. Tolkien, and Shakespeare, and probably every good author ever, grey up their villains as well as their heroes. No reader of Tolkein hates Gollum; you’re not meant to, and in fact it’s through Gollum that the quest succeeds. The shadow lies across every human heart- cutting it out isn’t treated as either possible or desirable. In LoTR Sauron is a cypher rather than a character, but if you read his backstory he comes out looking greyer too.
    Lewis never does this. He’ll slag off his protagonists, but the villains are all unmitigated evil. There’s no goodness or ruined virtue in Jadis- Aslan has mercy for Edmund, a once and future good guy, but there’s no concept that there should be mercy for her. She’s the Other; she’s only there to be hated, battled and defeated, never redeemed.
    It’s an evil attitude and not a very Christian one.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    How does this statement differ fundamentally from “There have always been people who were able to escape poverty without government aid. That shows that it can be done. Therefore anyone who doesn’t do it can’t expect sympathy for their failure.”?
    Er … because social and economic status are totally, totally different things from moral character?
    Besides which, Lewis had access to what he would have considered the moral equivalent of government aid. He had Christianity. He also had the whole history of human scholarship from which to learn: he was an educated man. If he couldn’t make anything better of it than what he did, he’s not the disadvantaged guy who failed to bootstrap. He’s the privileged kid who gets awarded the moral equivalent of a gentleman’s C.
    I’m also not crazy about hammering people for not being exceptional.
    If you set yourself up as exceptional, those are the standards you get judged by. Lewis set himself up as a theologian and a moralist. That means his morals are on the table. You appoint yourself as teacher in How To Be Good, you’d better be qualified.
    Besides, Lewis wasn’t just a bit parochial. He was forcefully hateful. That’s exceptionally bad, even in a bigoted era. It’s personal, not political.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Ursula le Guin’s great C. S. Lewis bashing essay:
    Ooh, is there a version online?

  • J

    *How does this statement differ fundamentally from “There have always been people who were able to escape poverty without government aid…*
    Hugely. I for one will simply murder the next person who lectures me on Joseph Ratzinger’s non-Nazism. He was a member of a Nazi party, therefore he is a Nazi. No, I am not in the slightest interested in his youth or conscription. He has never cut anyone any slack for anything he found upsetting about *their* past (except, of course, if they were right-wing, pro-junta priests in that or this Latin country, in which case I guess there’s nothing for him get to upset about so forget it was ever mentioned), therefore he gets the same from me: He was a Nazi. He is a Nazi. He should be treated as a Nazi forever.

  • Leum

    I will never understand how people can claim not to be homophobic while simultaneously claiming that gay sex and homosexuality are evil soul-destroying God-insulting sins. That level of doublethink is just beyond me.

    I read an article awhile back pointing out that you never hear Christians say, “We welcome murderers/child molesters/liberals* into our congregation! We hate what they did, but still love them, and as long as they’ve repented, we have no problem with having them around.**” One of the points made was that this is, in part, because it’s considered so beyond the pale to actually advocate criminalizing homosexuality publicly that they daren’t.
    *Sorry, couldn’t avoid a bit of snark
    **In a brief moment of fairness/impressed Leum: A local church had a significant amount of property stolen several years ago, and basically said, “We’d like our property back, but have no intentions of pressing charges.”

  • Will Wildman

    I had taken The Truman Show as an allegory for separating from controlling spouses or parents. In fact, I wondered if the Creator comment was intended as a subtle joke, since I didn’t see any religious allegorical elements in the rest of the movie.

    I think that’s it: the argument of the movie could be taken as “If there is a God controlling our destinies, why is that necessarily any better than a controlling parent/spouse? If we had a choice between the scripted world where everything is forced to be What’s Best For Us, and a world where life was more random and dangerous but victory and kindness were real, isn’t it better to choose the latter?”

    He’s the privileged kid who gets awarded the moral equivalent of a gentleman’s C.

    Kit, your command of language and metaphor makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

  • Tonio

    It’s an evil attitude and not a very Christian one.

    I say this with prior knowledge that I might get slammed as an elitist by conservatives…I see part of emotional maturity as learning to not just tolerate but ultimately appreciate the shades of gray. Life isn’t about pure good versus pure evil.

  • Jeff

    [[He'll slag off his protagonists, but the villains are all unmitigated evil.]]
    I wouldn’t say that. Aslan comes off as pretty grey, especially in Prince Caspian. Wait, what?

  • J

    *I read an article awhile back pointing out that you never hear Christians say, “We welcome murderers…”
    I hear that constantly: Churches LOVE soldiers. And, what is more, they consider soldiers–even ones who have been in combat–to have done nothing requiring any sort of forgiveness or atonement. Soldiery is, obviously, a manly, awesome activity: Not something to *ever* be ashamed of. Doesn’t even matter HOW you soldier. Remote drone operator who spends his tour in an air-conditioned bunker outside of Vegas, bombing suspicious-looking Pashtun wedding parties? Welcome brother!
    I also doubt churches would have the slightest problem with Blackwater employees, prison guards, principals who beat their schoolchildren, etc.
    It’s only people with the temerity to lick or write about or photograph people rather than torturing and murdering them that ever incur religions’ wrath.

  • Will Wildman

    He was a Nazi. He is a Nazi. He should be treated as a Nazi forever.

    I’m no fan of the current Pope and make no claims about his reform, but hypothetically it is possible to reform. Punishing people forever for mistakes they made in the past, regardless of their remorse or repentance, is the sort of thing that puts Tim LaHaye into a fit of giggles. So while the Pope may not deserve any slack, the general rule seems like a bad idea.

  • Spearmint

    Ooh, is there a version online?
    Sort of. It’s a 1977 review of The Dark Tower from The New Republic, which was subsequently reprinted in a collection of her essays.
    You can read all of it from Google Books for free, if you think that’s kosher. Le Guin has a massive (and probably legitimate) hate-on for Google Books, so if you’re concerned about authorial consent, you may want to skip the link, but I’ll provide it here for anyone who thinks this qualifies as fair use:
    Click on the top page with the “Dark Tower” heading. It’s the next three pages or so.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Shut up, J.
    I mean, I sort of agree. But by the same logic…you were a dick. You are a dick. You should be treated as a dick forever. So shut up. And go away. And shut up.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @J-
    Hugely. I for one will simply murder the next person who lectures me on Joseph Ratzinger’s non-Nazism. He was a member of a Nazi party, therefore he is a Nazi. No, I am not in the slightest interested in his youth or conscription. He has never cut anyone any slack for anything he found upsetting about *their* past (except, of course, if they were right-wing, pro-junta priests in that or this Latin country, in which case I guess there’s nothing for him get to upset about so forget it was ever mentioned), therefore he gets the same from me: He was a Nazi. He is a Nazi. He should be treated as a Nazi forever.
    You could carve a swastika on his head to give him a uniform that he can’t take off….

    oh and also….STFU.

  • Tonio

    the argument of the movie could be taken as “If there is a God controlling our destinies, why is that necessarily any better than a controlling parent/spouse?…”

    That argument hadn’t occurred to me. I didn’t realize Christoph could be taken as a god-figure until the Creator scene.

  • http://blog.trenchcoatsoft.com Ross

    @J: Here is a place I drive by from time to time.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/evanh/2786970660/
    The mind boggles.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    And also, stop Godwinning the goddamn thread.
    I’m always torn on Lewis. I think he tells a very good story when he doesn’t let the Christianity-specific bits overwhelm the narrative, I think he does have some genuinely valuable and awesome insights, and…I also think that some of his views were really unpleasant and offensive, even for his time. I don’t so much mind the black-and-white approach to villains–it’s not something I always want, but there’s nothing wrong with variety–but the gender politics occasionally grate like whoa, among other things.
    A bit like Kipling, actually: there are moments where he’s got some really awesome and moving stuff, and then, to paraphrase Yahtzee, we get the hot spicy racism. (And he’s also, um, not keen on women who choose not to have children, for some reason.) Generally I go with the thing where enh, even a stopped watch can be right twice a day and so forth.

  • Spearmint

    I see part of emotional maturity as learning to not just tolerate but ultimately appreciate the shades of gray.
    And to recognize them even in our enemies. I agree.
    Aslan comes off as pretty grey, especially in Prince Caspian. Wait, what?
    iknorite? Who the hell waits to be summoned by his little priestess before agreeing to help win a battle?
    He was a member of a Nazi party, therefore he is a Nazi.
    I would hesitate to give bad choices made by children the same moral weight as choices made by adults, or bad choices made by fellow travelers the same weight as those made by leaders. Demanding that a German child of that era refuse to join the HJ is demanding that they be exceptional, and as Lori points out, that’s not a fair demand. No one is required to be a saint.
    They are required not to enable pedophiles to continue molesting children, however.

  • J

    *I would hesitate to give bad choices made by children the same moral weight as choices made by adults…*
    Good for you. But the Vatican doesn’t.

  • Spearmint

    The thing about Kipling is he isn’t vindictive about his racism and sexism. He’s racist and sexist, but he isn’t all “You are inferior you must be made to suffer!!11!!!1″
    So you occasionally get stuff like “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” The closest Lewis ever gets is, “You’re almost as good as a boy!” which doesn’t have quite the same moral weight.

  • Spearmint

    But the Vatican doesn’t.
    What? They only excommunicated the adults, not the girl.
    I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think every church official in that story needs to be raped up the ass with a large, pointy cactus, so they can experience firsthand the joys of having something inside you that’s killing you. But it doesn’t support your argument.

  • J

    *What? They only excommunicated the adults, not the girl.*
    No, they did that too. It’s not mentioned in the story, but rest assured: They hate her too. Probably because A.) she had the temerity to be raped by a non-priest and B.) by having the abortion, she robbed the priesthood of two potential additional sex partners.

  • Erl

    No one is required to be a saint.
    Though it would be an understandable requirement for the pope. We’re allowed to demand exceptional leaders.

  • Tonio

    So you occasionally get stuff like “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

    I’ve never read Kipling, and for years I thought his ancestry was Indian and not British. So when people described the racism in his writing, I thought this referred to anti-European racism.

  • J

    *No one is required to be a saint.*
    Except in terms of sex, erotic literature, failure to snap-to with our support for endless desert wars and the eating of delicious but forbidden foods. In such cases, religions all seem to require us to be saints.

  • Ursula L

    No, they did that too. It’s not mentioned in the story, but rest assured: They hate her too. Probably because A.) she had the temerity to be raped by a non-priest and B.) by having the abortion, she robbed the priesthood of two potential additional sex partners.
    Do you have a cite for either the girl being excommunicated or your reasons for their hate?
    Particularly for the excommunication, as that would be a matter of record.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @J-
    Listen asshole. We get it. You hate organized religion and to you every single solitary negative thing that has been done in the name of religion or by someone who is religious is to blame for the entire concept of a higher power and you believe that everyone who believes in any sort of God is some sort of enemy and that you must do whatever it takes even if that means being a bigger asshole than they are to stop it. We get it. You aren’t changing our minds. You aren’t doing anything but being a pain in the ass that spews diarrhea from his mouth. There is no reason for you to read anything here or participate in the conversation because your mind is so completely and utterly closed to any view other than your own and you are so incredibly prejudiced against anyone that thinks differently that you are wasting your time and our time. Just shut up and go away.
    Why the hell do you come here? What is the point? You obviously think everything that Fred believes is a bunch of bullshit. Why the hell do you keep reading? Just shut the hell up and go away already.

  • J

    I have to admit it was second-hand, albeit really, really good second hand: A friend of mine living in Salvador, Bahia told me they excommunicated her. Best I can now find is that the church excommunicated ‘the girls’ family’.
    Not that it fucking matters, really: Oh noes! The Circle of Dresswearing Childfucker Wizards said we can’t come to their Weekly Extremely Bland Crackerfeast anymore! How will we ever go on?!?!?

  • Spearmint

    Why the hell do you come here?
    Well, probably so he can provoke you to do what you just did. :/
    Deep breaths, Jase.

  • hapax

    Indeed, it’s definitely Bible-fanon (I haven’t looked up its origins)
    I Peter 3: 18-20 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.”
    I read an article awhile back pointing out that you never hear Christians say, “We welcome murderers/child molesters/liberals* into our congregation! We hate what they did, but still love them, and as long as they’ve repented, we have no problem with having them around
    Er, *I* hear that all the time. (Well, except for the “liberals” part.) My congregation (and I know we’re not alone) has an active prison ministry, and we encourage the members to continue participating when they’ve served their time.
    As for child molesters — that’s a tough one, since pedophilia is often a disease as well as a crime, and a very very difficult one to cure, and many congregations have active children’s ministries (day care centers, summer schools, etc.). “Repenting”, for the safety of the most vulnerable, needs to be a bit more active than saying “whoops,my bad.”
    That being said, my sister’s church did welcome a “child molester” into their congregation — he came to the priest, volunteered the status of the disease, and offered to provide a monitor, stay a certain distance from all children, etc. — he just wanted to be part of a church community, and had been turned away from his home congregation. Unfortunately, after a couple of months of membership, his past was leaked to a local news station, which immediately sent camera crews to the church, his place of work, his home — as a result, he lost his job and his lease, and he left town without leaving word.
    As my sister said, “I never thought I’d feel sorry for and angry on behalf of a child molester”…
    I mean, it’s *obvious*, no?

  • Spearmint

    Also J:
    Stop embarrassing us in front of the theists, please. I’m starting to think you need to find Jesus.

  • hapax

    Whoops. That last line was supposed to go beneath the 1 Peter cite.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @Spearmint-
    Well, probably so he can provoke you to do what you just did. :/
    I don’t think that’s entirely the case. Occasionally he will participate in a conversation in a meaningful way. When this happens I don’t have a problem with him being here.
    Other times he brings up random crap way out of left field like whether he should get some Nintendo DS. His tendancy to change the topic of conversation to whatever he wants to talk about is mildly annoying but seeing as how we often veer widely off topic that’s ok too.
    …but the rest of the time he’s like this and damn tired of it. I wish Fred would ban his ass already and be done with it. He banned that Scott guy and I wasn’t around back then but Scott doesn’t sound nearly as bad from the stories I’ve heard.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    oops, that should say Nintendo DS game…. brain is working faster than my fingers.

  • Anton Mates

    Kirala,

    And he has a very important difference from Ellenjay: his authorial self-insert (as I see Mark Studdock in That Hideous Strength) is portrayed with very little sympathy as a self-important, glib fool. That is to say, that while Lewis was a prejudiced snob and often ignorant, he was aware of the fact and didn’t celebrate it.

    Trouble is, I don’t think Studdock is his self-insert. Studdock is, at best, an insert of Lewis’ younger self, from back when he was nominally atheist and one of those effete liberal academics the later Lewis hated so much. Lewis’ self-insert is either Ransom*, who by this point has reached extraordinary heights of Mary Sueness, or Cecil Dimble, who’s presented as a near-infallible moral and factual authority whom fools like Studdock and MacPhee inexplicably fail to treat as omniscient.
    *Ransom was always a blend of Lewis and Tolkien, so far as I can see. In That Hideous Strength I think he’s a bit more Tolkien.

  • Will Wildman

    New theory: J is actually an evangelist refining a method of conversion whereby atheists feel such self-loathing-by-association that they will join a church just to no longer be categorised with him. Sadly, since we’re both carbon-based, there’s no way I can ever be dissimilar enough from him for my comfort.

  • Raka

    Erl: No one is required to be a saint.
    Though it would be an understandable requirement for the pope. We’re allowed to demand exceptional leaders.
    Demanding an exceptional leader is one thing; demanding one that has been infallible for their entire life is quite another. I much prefer someone capable of recognizing mistakes and learning from them, rather than a person with an apparently-perfect record. And I’m not even willing to call membership in the Hitler Youth a “mistake”; the recruits had very little information to work with and very few options.

  • Tonio

    Hapax, did you intend the 1 Peter passage to explain the Harrowing of Hell and the idea of Eternity always being Heaven O’Clock or Hell O’Clock?

  • Raka

    J, you’re using a child’s very real suffering as raw material for your “everyone look at me trying to be clever!” bile. You’re fitting every negative stereotype of atheism like you’re going down a checklist. Please stop.

  • Raka

    Ignore what I just wrote about J and read Will Wildman’s comment twice. Same idea, but done better.

  • ohiolibrarian

    @Jason: Scott used to be our resident Libertarian. He got banned for persistent virulent hostility directed at our kind host.

  • Will Wildman

    You’re fitting every negative stereotype of atheism like you’re going down a checklist.

    I would think negative stereotypes of atheism would include things like “There’s no such thing as morality because there is no god, therefore my causing your suffering is irrelevant.” J often strikes me as a fundamentalist (has anyone ever tried codifying what an atheist-fundamentalist philosophy would look like?) in that he does claim objective morality exists, and that everyone who doesn’t think like him is opposed to it.
    On a more basic level, he fits the really prototypical definitions of evil, such as ‘treating people as things’. We may not need to get any more technical than that.

  • Spearmint

    New theory: J is actually an evangelist refining a method of conversion whereby atheists feel such self-loathing-by-association that they will join a church just to no longer be categorised with him.
    This is a good theory. It’s certainly working on me.
    Ransom was always a blend of Lewis and Tolkien, so far as I can see. In That Hideous Strength I think he’s a bit more Tolkien.
    Okay, now you have me wondering if there’s any Tolkien/Lewis out there. See what you have done to me, Internets?
    Demanding an exceptional leader is one thing; demanding one that has been infallible for their entire life is quite another.
    Trufax. This is why I was pretty ‘meh’ about the Hitler Youth thing, but I think they need to chuck his ass out over the protecting pedophiles thing. That was on-the-job fail, and totally beyond the pale.

  • Spearmint

    Scott was actually more annoying than J by virtue of greater ubiquity and not being a were-troll. J has good weeks, Scott was a pain in the ass all the time.
    Still, J really needs to lurk moar. I vote we lock him in with Sayel in lurkerland and let them fight to the death.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Being a fairly grudge-holding, slow-to-forgive person myself, I rather wish J would go away: the times when he actually tries to participate in a conversation are vastly outnumbered by the times when he’s flailing around in an attempt to derail the thread or just being an ass. I’m reminded of a dog running up to offer you a drool-covered ball in the hopes that you’ll forget the malodorous crap he took on your best shoes.
    The difference being that dogs can’t help it, and are cuter.
    On the Pope, I agree with Spearmint. I have plenty of real reasons to dislike the authority of the Catholic church in general and Benedict in specific: policies and comments on homosexuality, on female ordination, on contraception and abortion, on other religions, on covering for child molestation, etc etc. (Plus the fact that Benedict himself looks like he might shoot Force lightning at me any second.) I don’t think there’s any need to say that something he did as a child, under a certain amount of duress, makes him evil forever.

  • Tonio

    (Plus the fact that Benedict himself looks like he might shoot Force lightning at me any second.)

    I also noticed the Palpatine creepiness of his eyes. But I thought that my saying so would sound offensive, partly because I’m not Catholic and partly because he can’t help that aspect of his appearance.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    On J: I don’t think Fred is going to ban him. You have to do more than just be annoying to get banned from here, and J isn’t over the line. I’m with Spearmint, Jason; it’s not worth getting worked up about. If he’s getting under your skin that much, just killfile him.
    –
    On Lewis: in the Narnia series, considering how free he is with the divine judgements against anyone who has a habit that even slightly irritates him, from being the wrong colour to sleeping with the windows open, I think his self-insert position is God.
    And I also agree with Spearmint. Kipling is racist but not hateful; Lewis comes across as racist, sexist and generally prejudiced because he’s hateful. Some people discriminate against others because they’ve absorbed the values of their time; some people are bullies looking for victims who choose as to pick on people the values of their time have designated as safe targets.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @Izzy-
    when he’s flailing around in an attempt to derail the thread
    …but even those are part of his bigotry towards religion. We were talking about religion one day and he started posting some ridiculous nonsense about how female orcs in WoW are sexy looking and then wanted people’s opinions on whether video game orcs were getting more sexy looking complete with example photos.
    Several of us asked him what the hell that had to do with anything and his reply was something along the lines of “I wanted to talk about something less ridiculous than religion.” THEN GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

  • Lee Ratner

    Certain people seem to need a category of ideological evil to always fight against and once they decide what their opponent is, whether it would be socialism, capitalism, religion in general or a specific religion in particular; they go all out agaisnt that ideology and anyone associated with it. During the Cold War, he had people go all out against communism and presented everybody who lived under a Communist nation as a rapid-ideologue prepared to invade the glorious, capitalist West. I’m sure that the Communist countries had their equivalents but the Vietnam War gave them a better factual basis for this. In the War Against Terror, we have the people who see Muslims as a unified mass of fanatics wanting to Talibanize the world and of course we have the Islamists on the other side.* Athiests like J are this with religion, they see all religion as bad and not worth it and fight against it like a strident Cold Warrior standing firm against the Communist hordes.
    *Speaking of which, any idea how to debate these people? I currently read Yaacov Lozowick’s blog. Dr. Lozowick was the long-time director of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial/museum complex in Jerusalem, and currently maintains one of the more important pro-Israel blogs. If the name sounds familiar its because he published a book called Right to Exist that saw widespread publication and is common in most bookstores and libraries. Generally I find Dr. Lozowick’s posts to be insightful but some of his commentators are more than little bigoted in thier feelings towards Islam, basically having what can best be described as Yellow Peril type fears over Muslims. I keep trying to debate and remind them that their are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and that most of them don’t want to live under Taliban levels of theocracy themselves let alone impose it on the rest of the world but this isn’t really to any avail. Usually I just get a bunch of “facts” shoved in my face whenever I try. Should I just ignore them or is there anything I can do to get them to understand that Muslims aren’t going to come and impose most harsh theocracy on them.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Seriously, Jason buddy, killfile is probably your friend in this situation. You aren’t going to get J to change his ways, Fred is probably not going to ban him because he’s patient that way and you have to go really, really far to get banned, and it doesn’t seem worth the stress. A little few little clicks and the problem goes away.

  • Spearmint

    I thought that my saying so would sound offensive, partly because I’m not Catholic
    Now, now. The Sithiness of Pope Benedict is a great truth of the human condition, not an insight limited to any one faith. :D
    I think his self-insert position is God.
    LMFAO. It’s funny ’cause it’s truuuuuuuuue.
    P.S. I posted a link to that essay for you. Dunno if you saw it in amidst the Pope-bashing.
    Several of us asked him what the hell that had to do with anything and his reply was something along the lines of “I wanted to talk about something less ridiculous than religion.”
    Basically J is a jackass. News at 11.

  • Patrick J McGraw

    Since Izzy beat me to the punch is describing Bryan’s concept of God as basically being Darkseid, I thought I’d go to a different source for quotes to describe his “unquestioning obedience is the BEST Thing EVAR!!!” theology:
    “Reason begets doubt; doubt begets heresy.”
    “Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.”
    “Thought is no substitute for zeal.”
    “The Emperor asks only that you obey.”
    “The rewards of tolerance are treachery and betrayal.”

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Jason: Oh, I agree. Dude is not exactly enlightened on either sexual or racial relations either, from what I recall, and…yeah, best part of him clearly ran down his daddy’s leg.
    That said, he’s a troll, he’s probably not going to get banned, and it’s best to treat him like the shouty smelly drunk frat guys on public transport: roll your eyes, mutter a couple of things in his direction, and don’t let it ruin your day. It is, I admit, on the tough side.
    Tonio: Hey, I’m petty. ;) Besides, if dude goes around saying that entire classes of people are inferior human beings for things they can’t help, like being born female or gay, I don’t feel too bad saying that things he can’t help creep me out a lot.
    Spearmint and Kit make good points on Kipling. I never got a lot of hate from Lewis, but I’m not in one of the groups he clearly dislikes, I haven’t read some of his more problematic books–Narnia-minus-Last-Battle is what I’m mostly familiar with–so there’s probably a lot I’m lucky enough not to have felt. (I also have a weird, and probably pretty damn condescending when I think about it, reflexive tendency not to expect much in terms of enlightened attitudes from most famous people who lived and died pre-1960-or-so. Totally contradicts what I know of actual people, like my grandparents and my mentor, too. Hm.)

  • Andrea

    Completely off-topic:
    “Ditto the business about insects having four legs and hares chewing cud, I suppose?”
    While hares don’t chew cud, specifically, rabbits, at least, do a similar thing: eating one of their two types of poop (their cecotropes), in order to re-digest it to get another round of nutrients out of it, due to their woefully inefficient digestive systems. Which is sort of like chewing cud, but with the added bonus of the rabbit sticking her face down by her anus and eating directly from the source.
    I say this not to prove anyone wrong or to stir up trouble, but because I have a rabbit living in the main room of the second floor of my house, and I make fun of her for the poop-eating sometimes. You’d never know it by how clean her fur stays, though.

  • Will Wildman

    Several of us asked him what the hell that had to do with anything and his reply was something along the lines of “I wanted to talk about something less ridiculous than religion.” THEN GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

    While totally accurate in content, this reaction is exactly what trolls want (as I’m sure you know). And the main difference between schoolyard bullies and internet trolls is that the bullies actually hurt people, while the trolls try to get people to hurt themselves. My preferred technique is to ignore them entirely, occasionally adding some variety by impassively informing them of how low my opinion is of their actions. Of course, with impassivity being my status quo (and not always beneficial at that) this is easier for me than most, and possibly not the best behaviour to practice either.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Patrick: Oooh, 40K. I like it!

  • Spearmint

    Speaking of which, any idea how to debate these people?
    I think the best strategy is just to wait for them to die. “You can’t reason a man out of a position he wasn’t reasoned into” and so forth- some people are just beyond help. Even our honorable host seems to have zero ideas about how to convert RTCs back to sanity, and it’s like his life’s work. I doubt rabid Islamophobes are any more tractable.
    Did Frank Shaffer 2.0 ever come up with a strategy for dealing with America’s “fifth column of insane people”? Having helped create the monster one would hope he’d have special insights into how to destroy it. Then again, I suppose not everyone is as good at contingency planning as G1 Starscream (and isn’t that a sad statement in and of itself.)

  • Lonespark

    now you have me wondering if there’s any Tolkien/Lewis out there.
    There has to be, doesn’t there? I AM NOT GOING GO LOOK! Dammit, internet.

  • Spearmint

    I’m not in one of the groups he clearly dislikes
    You’re a smart, outspoken, non-monogamous woman. Take it from me, Izzy, he hates your guts.

  • Lonespark

    Fifth column of insane people? Dammit, most insane people are nuts in that way.

  • Lonespark

    I meant, most insane people aren’t irrational jackasses. Preview is my friend.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    You’re a smart, outspoken, non-monogamous woman. Take it from me, Izzy, he hates your guts.
    Yep. Plus you’re a pagan, plus you’re sexually assertive woman whom some men admire. The latter would turn him on, but you’d have to go into the wicked queen category, I’m afraid. Get up on that coach and start lashing the horses!

  • Robyrt

    For me, biblical inerrancy follows logically from believing the Bible is the capital-W Word of God and the best source of the knowledge necessary for salvation – at that point, it doesn’t make sense for an omnipotent God to only be able to create a distant echo of the Truth, or a few bits of Truth buried under layers of random other opinions. I’m not a big fan of circular reasoning, but “the Bible says the Bible is true” is a good sanity check: if characters were routinely questioning or ignoring the text, I’d be worried.
    On J: Why is everybody so worked up about this? This is the Internet; some amount of ill-mannered folk is expected, and a religion blog is probably the most acceptable place to bring up religion in every thread. I’ve certainly been a jerk online in the past, and I don’t consider myself an irredeemable scumbag, so I’d rather not assume that of someone I’ve never met. If worse comes to worst, you can just not read the posts. Then again, I am virtually incapable of holding a grudge so I’m probably not the best person to ask :-P
    On Bible fanfic: Anyone else read the Infancy Gospels? They are pretty hilarious.

  • Spearmint

    There has to be, doesn’t there?
    Well, now that I said it. The thing is it totally makes sense as a pairing… ARRGH! *clutches head* Dammit internets.
    Fifth column of insane people? Dammit, most insane people are [not] nuts in that way.
    Er, Shaffer’s potentially ablist wording, not mine.
    If it helps, the quote was in reference to a question about why 1/5 of the people polled in New Jersey believed Obama to be the Antichrist, so I think he meant ‘insane’ in the sense of ‘having measurable difficulty accurately perceiving reality” and not in the sense of “could be helped by medication.”

  • Tonio

    Besides, if dude goes around saying that entire classes of people are inferior human beings for things they can’t help, like being born female or gay, I don’t feel too bad saying that things he can’t help creep me out a lot.

    I see your point. I was saying that I had the reaction to his appearance before I knew his specific stances on gays or women.

  • pepito

    Hey Izzy, could I get some Turkish Delight over here?

  • Lee Ratner

    Spearmint, thats a very depressing strategy and something that I’m not sure would work. From America’s “fifth column of insane people”, we know that they have children and are very good at passing their ideology down to their children. Some children might reject it but others will buy it hook, line, and sinker. They also have the right to vote and they vote politicians that are either crazy or cynical enough to exploit their craziness in order to enforce some very bad economic policies with the resulting never, ending march of bad policies. Generally, the Islamicphobes remind of the more strident anti-Communists, the ones that simultaneously complained over how Communist dictatorship makes life miserable for those under it while also presenting everybody living under a Communist government as being a raving ideologue.
    The European countries seem to have found ways to reduce the power of the crazies in Europe after WWII but that involved some political rigging via the election, bans on certain forms of speech, and other forms of social engineering designed to have an anti-crazy effect. I understand that most European governments control what is taught in private schools to levels that many American progressives might find unpalatable. Germany bans homeschooling and Finland allows private schools but pretty much finds ways to pressure parents to send their kids to public schools. The Constitution kind of prohibits this sort of social engineering.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    There’s no goodness or ruined virtue in Jadis

    With all due respect to LeGuin, there’s some of that in the prequel.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Kit: Hee! I could be a pretty awesome wicked queen, I think: always thought Malifiecent was one of the better Disney villains. (Also always wanted to see her hook up with Jareth from Labyrinth, not least because she’d totally own his ass.*)
    But aww, the horses! My youthful reading of Black Beauty seems to be getting in the way of badass villainery here. Drat.
    *”You’re a morally-and-sexually-ambiguous figure of temptation to teenage girls. I command the powers of Hell. You’re wearing the collar, buddy.”

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Pepito: Aaaaas it happens…
    …well, yes, actually. ;) I actually live near the Vaguely International Food store in Harvard Square, so I have access to both the kind with nuts and without, plus some vaguely citrus-y and chocolate covered variants. Man, my destiny was pretty well laid out, wasn’t it?

  • Emcee

    Hey Izzy, could I get some Turkish Delight over here?
    Izzy is the White Witch?? Someone help me nail boards over this wardrobe, and keep those damn kids outta the house…

  • Spearmint

    it doesn’t make sense for an omnipotent God to only be able to create a distant echo of the Truth, or a few bits of Truth buried under layers of random other opinions.
    See, this? Is actually a good argument for Biblical inerrancy. The first one I’ve ever seen, actually, so well done Robyrt. It’s still circular, but at least it circles back to the premise of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, and not to something in the text.

  • redcrow

    …plus you once played Lesbian Cannibal Number Whatever. Clearly, you must secretly like to torture people (with a flamethrower?).

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    J is the kind of guy who gives us atheists a bad name.
    That said, though:

    Why the hell do you come here? What is the point? You obviously think everything that Fred believes is a bunch of bullshit…

    I technically also think that “everything that Fred believes is a bunch of bullshit”, yet I still come here for the Left Behind snark and the conversation. FWIW.

  • hapax

    Hapax, did you intend the 1 Peter passage to explain the Harrowing of Hell and the idea of Eternity always being Heaven O’Clock or Hell O’Clock?
    1 Peter is the direct and only canonical source of the Harrowing of Hell. There are some apocryphal sources that also refer to it.
    The concept of Eternity being Timeless (that is, outside of Time) isn’t Biblical, but there are plenty of passages that can sorta kinda be interpreted that way. It’s pretty much a commonplace of various strands of Late Antique philosophy, however.
    I really don’t want to get into the whole “C.S. Lewis Was Worse Than Hitler!” argument again, but for the person who requested Tolkien / Lewis slash, I thought that Micah Harris’s HEAVEN’S WAR graphic novel (sort of a Inklings / DA VINCI CODE mashup) had an interesting take on their complicated and difficult relationship.

  • Spearmint

    With all due respect to LeGuin, there’s some of that in the prequel.
    Not really. She’s totally evil in Charn too- it seems like she was always a Bad Seed even as a kid. (And the Jadis example is mine, not le Guin’s, so if it’s wrong I bear full blame. She was reviewing The Dark Tower at the time, not Narnia).

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    All this talk about witches and wardrobes reminded me of one of my favorite xkcd comics.

  • Will Wildman

    On the whole, wicked queens get a bad rap. Not that I’m all excited about the White Queen (although she was pretty magnificent in the movie) but compared to Aslan, I’m having a hard time characterising it as good-vs-evil. Ruthless totalitarian versus smug, apathetic demigod… I think I’d rather have Druid Santa in charge. At least he gives gifts that challenge you to grow as a person.
    I guess what I’m saying is that if you need a Grand Vizier, Izzy, I volunteer, though you should know in advance that I can’t grow the requisite Evil Facial Hair. The best I can do is a sort of coureur-de-bois scruffiness.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    But aww, the horses! My youthful reading of Black Beauty seems to be getting in the way of badass villainery here. Drat.
    Sorry, Izzy, there are no such choices in Lewis’s world. You want to get out of the horse-whipping, you need to age twenty years, get cosily domestic and give up abstract opinions. (Either that or get younger and go to a single-sex school – pre-pubertal and post-menopausal are okay, but the fertile years are out – but I suspect that might be beyond even your magic powers.) And you definitely have to give up the admiration of men: no adult woman in Narnia can be sincerely admired by a man for her fine qualities and force of character unless she’s casting some kind of evil spell. As I don’t think one could pry the admiration of Slacktivist men away from you with a crowbar …
    Well, sorry. Here’s the whip. Mind your step as you climb up. :-)

  • sarah

    @Bugmaster: That’s one of my favorite xkcd comics, too. (Yeah, I did go look through closets for Narnia when I was a kid.)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    @Spearmint:
    I don’t know, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry (but only a little) for Jadis. IMO she is presented as someone who is constantly afraid for her life — constantly (and, perhaps, irrationally so). Her haughty demeanor is a front to hide her fear; her constant lust for power is due to the desire to accumulate enough of it so she can finally feel secure… but there’s never enough.
    Actually, that’s what I liked about the first Narnia movie, as well — they made Jadis a lot more sympathetic (though in a different way). Plus, they gave her dual-wield. Can’t go wrong with that.

  • Spearmint

    Maybe we can just make J pull the sleigh?

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    I really don’t want to get into the whole “C.S. Lewis Was Worse Than Hitler!” argument again
    Er – did anyone say that? (J mentioned Nazism, but surely he doesn’t count?) I and others are saying he’s morally corrupt, which is a legitimate question to raise about a moral figure. It’s not like you to stereotype an argument to that extent.
    but compared to Aslan, I’m having a hard time characterising it as good-vs-evil. Ruthless totalitarian versus smug, apathetic demigod
    Ah, that’s where the inappropriate insertion of sadomasochism comes in. Nobody has physical presence in Narnia unless they also have power. Aslan has texture and scent and heat, the wicked queens have forceful physicality and beauty … but if you want Lewis to give you a body, basically you have to start topping someone. Which may be one reason why they seem much of a muchness. They’re basically the same type.
    Mind you, I’ve got nothing against sadomasochism. Except when you get it tangled up into a moral fable for children.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Aw, thanks, guys! Maybe I can give my horses padded armor or something? Also, must really work on that whole eternal-winter thing: perhaps have some sort of subconscious issue going on, which explains why I currently choose to live in Boston.
    For what it’s worth, I could totally see an interpretation where Charn was just sort of a crapsack world, and people raised there grew up to be pretty damn ruthless as a survival mechanism, and so forth.
    …or an interpretation where it’s Athas, and now I kind of have to run that game. Jadis could totally be an epic-level Defiler. With, like, an army of thri-kreen.

  • Spearmint

    IMO she is presented as someone who is constantly afraid for her life
    Yeah, but was that meant to evoke pity or contempt?
    I don’t hate her either- I always kind of felt Aslan won by cheating, in LWW. And I always loathed Lucy and Peter and liked Edmund, Eustace and Jill best of the kids. But I don’t think that was the reaction I was meant to have.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I and others are saying he’s morally corrupt, which is a legitimate question to raise about a moral figure

    Firstly, all of us are “morally corrupt” in one way or another. Secondly, since when is C.S.Lewis “a moral figure” ? As far as I can tell, no one died and made him Jesus, he’s just a fiction writer. I’m certainly not going to do anything or refrain from doing anything just because Lewis told me to.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Also: can I at least not wear white? Please? I mean, I get that I’ve got all the powers of winter at my command and a cold cold heart and all, but I’m…not really a Winter, y’know? Pale-skinned brunette-slash-redhead? I could totally do black, even a nice sinister purple–but not purple-and-green, because really, I am not Lex Luthor–but not so much with the pastels.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    @Izzy:
    Ok, I just imagined Jadis bossing around a posse of Thri-kreen. That was the most awesome thing I’ve imagined all week.
    Fun fact: some GMs agree that a Thri-kreen Soulblade would be able to quad-wield his psychic blade. This could be interpreted to mean that, with that one extra feat, such Soulblade could throw his blade eight times per turn. It’s basically a psionic MIRV, scything through the air and converging on a target, with Jadis laughing maniacally in the backround. And next turn, he can do it again !

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Secondly, since when is C.S.Lewis “a moral figure” ? As far as I can tell, no one died and made him Jesus, he’s just a fiction writer.
    Er – you are aware that he wrote a lot of theology as well, right?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Yeah, but was that meant to evoke pity or contempt?

    Well, I don’t know, I’m not a psychic necromancer so I can’t ask Lewis. Still, I had a feeling that even he pitied Jadis just a little. Redemption is a big theme in his books; he seems to be saying that no one is beyound redemption, as long as they open their eyes and their hearts and seek it honestly — not even Jadis. Her torment is largely self-inflicted, and you can’t help but pity someone like that. This said, blind obedience of his feline Jesus is another big theme in Lewis’s books, and I can’t quite endorse that…

  • pepito

    To tell the truth, Turkish Delight is not something I miss about living in the UK. It was always too rich for me.
    Having well-motivated villains makes such a difference in fiction. “Appetite for destruction” and “Power for power’s sake” type villains just seem to fall flat.

  • Spearmint

    For what it’s worth, I could totally see an interpretation where Charn was just sort of a crapsack world, and people raised there grew up to be pretty damn ruthless as a survival mechanism, and so forth.
    I get the impression that Lewis wouldn’t view this as a valid excuse, and would feel under these circumstances that you ought to die, preferably as a cute and lovable prepubescent who’s almost as good as a boy, rather than allow yourself to be compromised by learning how to survive under such harsh conditions (or the conditions of being a stylish young woman in 1950, for that matter).

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Bugmaster: That’s an image that needs to go on a poster of some kind. Maybe one of those black-light jobs.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Er – you are aware that he wrote a lot of theology as well, right?

    Yes, of course, and I found some of it quite enjoyable (but a lot of it was pretty dull), though he’s better known for his fiction. Still, all that theology is just one man’s opinion. I don’t think it makes Lewis into some sort of an authoritative moral figure — but then, I’m pretty biased, since I consider theology to be a branch of fiction, anyway :-)

  • Emcee

    Also: can I at least not wear white? Please? I mean, I get that I’ve got all the powers of winter at my command and a cold cold heart and all, but I’m…not really a Winter, y’know? Pale-skinned brunette-slash-redhead? I could totally do black, even a nice sinister purple–but not purple-and-green, because really, I am not Lex Luthor–but not so much with the pastels.
    You could probably totally rock a silver…maybe silver and smokey blue? You know, still sticking with the winter colors without the Winter colors…have to be the right cut, though. We don’t want you looking like a bad Dr. Who robot…

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Also: can I at least not wear white? Please? I mean, I get that I’ve got all the powers of winter at my command and a cold cold heart and all, but I’m…not really a Winter, y’know?

    I think you should wear a cheerful spring green and smile a lot. This way, when the heroes come to defeat you, they won’t know what hit them until they’re in the dungeon getting whipped. Through your spy-holes, you’d hear them whining to each other: “but she looked so niiiiiice !”

  • Spearmint

    Also: can I at least not wear white?
    Emerald green is also acceptable. Basically any color is okay if it can somehow be associated with a snake.
    …come to think of it, my snake is pink and yellow, so you could rock the Barbie wardrobe and still pass as long as you carried him around with you.

  • Kish

    I remember Scott once protested Fred criticizing L&J for treating the U.N. as the proto-One World Government, by asserting that “we all know that’s what a lot of liberals plan for it to be.” Also, he was just…more focused than J. Never catch him talking about orcs in WoW; if he wanted to derail a subject, it would be with the wonders of the free market.

  • pepito

    I’m thinking a leafless tree motif around the hem would be pretty awesome.

  • Emcee

    You could probably totally rock a silver
    Maybe something like this. (which I totally found by yahooing images with the phrase “silver dress of evil”)
    I think the leg wrap thingy could be made into a snake, so totally fits in with Spearmint’s thoughts, too…

  • Pius Thicknesse

    TBH I sort of see where J was coming from. In my younger days I was a bit more inclined to be quite dogmatically anti-Christian and to some extent anti-religious generally mainly due to my own issues which I shall not get into now.
    However, I’ve mellowed a great deal and I think oddly, reading Harry Potter has done quite a bit for that. The idea of actually-existing souls and spirits and ghosts in a fictional realm presented in a matter-of-fact way seems to have… I dunno, allowed me to play with the notion of supernaturalism of some kind without feeling compelled to accept it as part of my day-to-day life.
    So I obviously don’t believe in what I see are unphysical, supernatural entities, but I don’t feel the deep desire to manifest an out and out anti-religious bias in the most pissy-offy-way imaginable.
    But I still read and like Richard Dawkins, too. :P

  • Lee Ratner

    I never understood why Lewis was so against Susan being a fashionable young women. If humans were created in God’s image like the Bible tells us than shouldn’t humans honor this by talking care of our appearances so our bodies look the best? This includes wearing stylish clothing that accentuates the best features of a person’s body.

  • hapax

    and
    Sorry, Izzy, there are no such choices in Lewis’s world. You want to get out of the horse-whipping, you need to age twenty years, get cosily domestic and give up abstract opinions
    *isn’t* a stereotypical argument?
    Look, I get that a lot of people don’t like Lewis. I agree that he had all sorts of attitudes and ideas that were problematical and distasteful, He also had all sorts of ideas and attitudes that were tolerant and compassionate. Like the rest of us, he was a complicated man.
    Moreover, he didn’t present himself as a moralist or a theologian. (Well, he tried the latter briefly, and admitted himself soundly humiliated). If he claimed expertise in anything, it was as a medievalist and a literary critic. His religous writings were, for the most part, apologetics and devotions, which is a different genre altogether.
    Now, I don’t deny that plenty of people turned to Lewis and asked him his thoughts on various issues moral and theological. And he wasn’t sufficiently modest to refuse to answer. (This is hardly something that *I* can fault him for, however!) I don’t think it’s fair, however, to fault someone for being ascribed an authority he never claimed.
    Personally, I’ve read just about all of Lewis’s writings, and a great deal about him, because I find him a fascinating, complex, and very very human figure. Some of his ideas and writings I find entertaining. Some I find inspiring. Some I find useful. Some I find boring. Some I find ridiculous. Some I find erroneous. Some I find out-and-out repugnant.
    What I do not tend to find, is that they are evil. By which I mean, despite the unfortunate implications definitely existing in some of his works, I do not find those possibilities acted upon or used to justify evil deeds in either Lewis’s life or in those of his admirers.
    I can understand how others might find sufficient error and hurtfulness in his writings that they choose not to read ANY of his writings. I am just puzzled how any reference to — oh, Lewis’s strict definition of allegory — always inevitably brings up an accusatory “But what about Susan“? or “Oh, and did you know Lewis had sadistic sexual fantasies?”

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @Bugmaster-
    I technically also think that “everything that Fred believes is a bunch of bullshit”, yet I still come here for the Left Behind snark and the conversation. FWIW.
    yes, but…..
    a) you are generally polite and respectful
    b) you listen to what other people have to say and actually respond to their responses
    c) you post things that contribute to conversation and makes things more interesting
    d) I usually don’t want to punch you in the face (I think there was one flamewar where I came close to wanting to, but that might have been hf)…..(-;
    e) I actually like you.
    f) your icon is cool looking.

  • Pius Thicknesse

    I prefer to strictly like CS Lewis as a fantasy writer for the Narnia series. All of his other stuff is basically out of sight, out of mind. :)

  • Lee Ratner

    Izzy: I kind of wish white suits were still okay summer wear for men, it would make dressing up for court in the height of the New York summer more bearable. The best I hae is a light grey suit.

  • Spearmint

    Maybe something like this. (which I totally found by yahooing images with the phrase “silver dress of evil”)
    Hm, sort of the Servalan look.
    I do not find those possibilities acted upon or used to justify evil deeds in either Lewis’s life or in those of his admirers.
    This is an interesting philosophical point, but I don’t buy it. If you write a book saying we should kill all the gays but neither you nor anyone else ever try to implement it, isn’t it still an evil book?
    I am just puzzled how any reference to — oh, Lewis’s strict definition of allegory — always inevitably brings up an accusatory “But what about Susan”?
    I daresay people discussing The Allegory of Love with reference to medieval literature don’t constantly bring up the Problem of Susan. But it’s relevant to any discussion of Lewis as an apologist, which is the context in which his name tends to come up here.
    Anyway this thread seems to have evolved into a discussion of everything we dislike about Lewis, to which the Problem of Susan is very relevant. If you want to counter with some examples of good and wholesome things he wrote, you’re more than welcome to. I just… uh, can’t think of any.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    @Lee-
    Here in the south seersucker suits are back in fashion. Dunno if they are in NY.

  • Spearmint

    Well, Lewis can be pretty funny.
    Then again, Goebbels is a riot, so I’m not sure what skill as a humorist buys you, in the scheme of things.

  • pepito

    But I still read and like Richard Dawkins, too. :P
    Dawkins is the embodiment of XKCD #386. He walks the Earth, unable to rest until everyone is RIGHT.
    This includes wearing stylish clothing that accentuates the best features of a person’s body.
    “Best features” seems kind of subjective though.

  • Dav

    Get up on that coach and start lashing the horses!
    I totally read this as “get up on the couch and start lashing the horses” and considering the context, I went somewhere completely different. With, uh, a different kind of horse. So to speak. Less Black Beauty and more . . . um. Lewis. Yes. Thank you, brain. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but childhood author + ponyboy image = sudden brain shutdown, and not in a Good Way.)
    Izzy, if you’re tall (and aren’t Evil Queens supposed to be?), my vote would be for this one.
    http://style-spy.blogspot.com/2007/10/sex-and-it-dress.html
    Simple, clean, good for everyday menacing and turning fauns to rock, and good color without clashing with “winter” palettes. You might dress up when killing lions, though. Maybe something frothy from Dior?
    Of course, you’d be freezing all the time – the typical problem associated with women’s formal wear, only exacerbated by the fact that it would always be winter. Even if you’re okay with wearing fur and not showing off your marvelous clothes, that still leaves footwear to be resolved. Of course, if your dress is long enough, you can wear full-traction combat boots underneath and no one will be the wiser.

  • Spearmint

    @Dav: ooh, that’s a nice dress.
    Re. whipping pony!Lewis- he might not even mind, although he’d hate himself afterward.

  • MercuryBlue

    You might make the case that if you’re in a relationship you need both parties’ fully informed consent for any sex engaged in outside the relationship
    That’s pretty much my view, yeah. Also the third party needs to be informed of the fact that the first party is in a relationship with the second party.
    Potentially all animals other than humans could count as implicit atheists, too, but that might be pushing things a bit.
    I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees,
    My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
    My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace
    All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
    Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
    Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
    Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
    The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.
    I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
    Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
    For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
    Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
    A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
    Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
    He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
    Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
    I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
    Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
    He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
    His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.
    –”The Indian Upon God”, W. B. Yeats

  • http://profile.typepad.com/gdwarf GDwarf

    On Lewis: I grew up on a steady diet of Narnia and my Dad is a huge fan of his.
    I don’t agree with many of his opinions (and I find his work on apologetics to be…heavily flawed) but I don’t have the same…powerful dislike of him that many here seem to. Perhaps it’s been too long since I read any of his books, but I seem to recall them being, much like every other author’s, a mix. Some excellent observations, some useful insights, some incorrect ideas and some skeevy concepts.
    I still, for example, quite like the Screwtape Letters, just because I find it to be a pretty good guide to the many little ways we can be hurtful without even realizing it.

  • hagsrus

    Jesus made that one olive tree wither and die
    Fig tree
    /nitpick

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    Oooh, dresses! Unfortunately, I’m only 5’2–though maybe Accepting the Power will come with a height increase–but man, that blue dress is gorgeous. As is the silver one, which I’m severely tempted to buy for my possibly-posing-as-evil-at-an-upcoming-ball LARP character.
    And I do like snakes. I could totally go for the snake-themed evil queen thing, actually.
    Also, cool poem. Yeats really had something going on there.

  • Karen

    This is my favorite evil dress. I also love 18th century clothing and cherish a forlorn hope that the redingote will return to fashion.

  • Karen
  • hapax

    I daresay people discussing The Allegory of Love with reference to medieval literature don’t constantly bring up the Problem of Susan. But it’s relevant to any discussion of Lewis as an apologist, which is the context in which his name tends to come up here.
    Ehh. In this thread at least, someone quoted Lewis’s unfortunate trilemma (which has been rejected by just about every apologist since) as an example of “either accept the inerrancy of Scripture or junk the whole thing”, and then someone else pointed out, no, Lewis believed that Scripture was filled with human errors and should be understood in the light of experience and reason — all of which were relevant to the conversation at hand.
    Then the conversation segued *immediately* into “Lewis: what a douchebag.”
    I don’t deny the man’s issues with women (and Woman) were … dicey, even though they evolved significantly through his life; he never lost patriarchal prejudices and remained a gender essentialist to the end. He had any number of other faults, and a terrible habit of Working Out His Issues in his writings.
    But.
    Tolkien gets referenced practically every other thread here, and we don’t have obligatory callouts to his racism and imperialism and classism and terribly creepy relationships with real life women. Heckopete, a little while ago someone brought up Gandhi as an example of an “anti-Hitler”, an ultimate go-to reference as the best of humanity, and I didn’t hear a peep then about *his* rather disturbing views about sex and treatment of women.
    So I guess I would just find it refreshing if just ONCE a reference could be made to Lewis without triggering the whole “douchebag -> Susan -> sadomasochism” litany again.
    Of course, I’d like it even more if we could have a civil discussion about atheism and theism without someone (very possibly me) feeling the need to bring up Dawkins, Harris, or Hitchens.
    I think these must be corollaries to Godwin’s original Law…

  • Lee Ratner

    Karen, the clothing in the link looks more like 19th century Court clothing than 18th century Court clothing/aristocratic wear. IMO the 18th century was a low period for fashion when it came to middling and upper class dress. It was flashy but ridiculous. Regency wear has some of the advantages of 18th century clothing with a medication of its bad elements.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a5ea6499970b Michael Rinschler

    Karen: The Missing Link is a headless mannequin? That explains so much about our species…

  • Jeff

    [[you'd have to go into the wicked queen category]]
    I could totally see Izzy as a “Wicked Queen”, Flamethrower in one hand, chainsaw in the other, her minions simultaneously in awe of her awesomeness, while rightly fearing her awful wrath.
    [[But aww, the horses!]]
    You see, it **APPEARS** that you’re whipping the horses, but they know and you know that just soft caresses, distorted through the WQ filter.
    ======================
    [[Of course, you'd be freezing all the time - the typical problem associated with women's formal wear, only exacerbated by the fact that it would always be winter.]]
    Why? Surely a Wicked Queen with Izzy’s power could live (and thrive) where she pleased????
    =======================
    [[I actually live near the Vaguely International Food store in Harvard Square]]
    There’s a block-long farmer’s market near-by, and one of the stalls sels PISTACHIO baklava. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm……

  • http://profile.typepad.com/jpc101280 Jason

    Been keeping quiet because I was outnumbered and was pretty sure I couldn’t keep up my side of the argument but what hapax said.
    The Great Divorce, Screwtape Letters, A Grief Observed and Mere Christianity were all very meaningful books to me.
    I have never read any of the Narnia books or any of his sci fi.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    1 Peter is the direct and only canonical source of the Harrowing of Hell.

    I asked because I didn’t see how one would read the passage you quoted as referencing the Harrowing – it struck me as generally vague. And I don’t know where Paul would have gotten his information, since he wasn’t a follower of Jesus when he was alive.

  • hapax

    @Tonio — oh, it’s terribly vague. But when the nascent Church had to deal with the uncomfortable and unpalatable message that “Your beloved grandma is going to BURN FOREVER because she died before God got around to fixing that whole apple fiasco”, well… it’s not surprising that somebody eventually got the bright notion of asking “Just what was Jesus DOING all day on Saturday, anyhow?”
    Paul got his information direct from the ascended Jesus — blinding visions, whirlwind elevation to the third heaven, the whole deal. Just ask him, he’ll tell you all about it: “For I received from the Lord, that which I handed over to you…” (1 Cor 11)

  • Jeff

    [[ Just ask him, he'll tell you all about it:]]
    I sometimes think of Paul as a used-car salesman: “Yup, this came straight from Jeezus, he tole me so hisself. No need for all the hacking off yer weiner and, yeah, you can whatever you want. Jeezus he tole me it was all OK now. So can I sign you up for our newsletter?”
    I know that it was dangerous to be a Christian at the time, but still…

  • Z

    For me, biblical inerrancy follows logically from believing the Bible is the capital-W Word of God and the best source of the knowledge necessary for salvation – at that point, it doesn’t make sense for an omnipotent God to only be able to create a distant echo of the Truth, or a few bits of Truth buried under layers of random other opinions.
    Indeed, if we assume an omnipotent God and we also assume that said omnipotent God’s actual desire is indeed to create a Word of Real True Truth, then that’s perfectly reasonable. The problem lies in the two assumptions; reasoning for the former is invariably circular, and I haven’t seen any reasoning at all for the latter.

  • Spearmint

    @hapax:
    IIRC, the Lewis discussion went
    Dumb Lewis Trilemma->
    That “poached egg” quote is so ablist! ->
    Yes, but it’s hardly a unique example of Lewis’ doucheness.
    Our mischaracterization of his position on Biblical inerrancy (which is inconsistent with his trilemma, but we slandered him there, I’ll grant you) nonwithstanding, it’s hardly as if there was no segue.
    Tolkien and Gandhi’s various hateful tendencies don’t damage the integrity of their overall moral vision. Lewis’s, IMO, do, in the same way that Tim LaHaye’s do or Phillip Pullman’s do. That’s what makes them generally relevant. We may disagree on that point, but I’m not persecuting the man out of spite.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    The problem lies in the two assumptions; reasoning for the former is invariably circular, and I haven’t seen any reasoning at all for the latter.

    And there’s another layer of assumptions underneath that – that there is such a thing as salvation and such a thing as capital-T Truth. I asked earlier if there are philosophies that take no position on whether inherent meaning for life exists, and it may be more reasonable to speculate the existence of philosophies that take no position on whether Truth exists.

  • Little Boots

    Had to skip a few pages, and this NEXT thing does get tired. But something I’m wondering about for any literalist or inerrants left here (Bryan, would that be you? Are you here?), what is the Literal interpretation of “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Like the rest of the Old Testament, addressed exclusively to men, I presume. How exactly do you lie with mankind as with womankind, when no vagina is involved. How does doing anything with two penises involved in any way shape or form resemble anything done by a penis and a vagina. Now there is one possible literal interpretation, but I doubt that any Christian or any biblical scholar would ever accept it: that men are supposed to have anal sex with women but not with each other. That of course would completely contradict so much else, Let’s start with Be Fruitful and Multiply, and is absurd on the face of it. So what is this? I think we all KNOW what it means, but only because metaphorical thinking comes so naturally to us as humans. And that’s what Fred is getting at, along with so many other things. It just doesn’t work as a literal text, and certainly not as a literal rulebook, unless you’re willing to allow some pretty bizarre loopholes. In other words, as a gay man, I’ve never insisted that any man I want to be with get a partial sex change operation, so that he has a vagina and I can therefore use him as I would womankind. And therefore … I still get heaven, and cake, right?

  • Little Boots

    The other thing I wonder about is just how affectionate two men can be together without violating the rulebook. Can they kiss and grope and anything else that falls short of actual penetration and still be biblical? I’m actually not trying to be silly here or graphic for its own sake, but trying to get at something that any Rulebook Christian is going to have to deal with. Is staying within the letter of the law enough, or do you look to other things too? Why, if God has not spelled them out? And what exactly do you look to? Again, I think we all KNOW what you look to, love, and compassion, and mercy, and simple human kindness, each one hopelessly vague and subjective and almost indefinable.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “‘Being of infinite holiness’ strongly implies ‘being of infinite mercy’. Under such a circumstance, eternal torment is unthinkable. If you’re okay with a definition of holiness that doesn’t correlate with mercy, do let me know.
    I’d also be curious to know what the origin of evil is, in your system. Obviously not God. Presumably not primal human nature, because humans are the masterwork of a perfect being. We’re left with some external source. I’d be fascinated to hear what it is.”
    The first point makes a common fallacy, IMO. Holiness and mercy are different attributes and not directly related. The God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart could not be said to be infinitely merciful in the sense that you seem to mean it. It’s important to understand God in balance. God is love, which means he hates and judges evil. God is gracious, but also has the purity of holiness which means he cannot approve of evil. It is impossible for God to be holy and at the same time not demand payment for sin. A blood sacrifice is required. He sent His Son Jesus for that purpose, but anyone who has not accepted that sacrifice cannot simply be forgiven because of this idea of mercy — that would make God corrupt and unjust. So, although the label of the attributes isn’t really this simplistic, the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ character traits are in balance. God is as much stern and wrathful as he is loving and forgiving. All are part of the picture.
    As to the problem of evil, it’s the result of free will. God gave man and, before the foundation of the world, the angels also, the choice to obey or disobey. It’s interesting to ponder the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why did God put it there? Theodicy is one of deepest, most complex areas of theology and the greatest of theologians cannot fully answer all the questions that surround it. It’s one of those things that is a consequence of an infinite God: a finite human mind cannot fully understand it, and certainly there are many more brilliant than me. But that’s the basic answer.

  • Little Boots

    Well, since I’m alone here, at least for awhile, I’m free to declaim.
    The one argument that seems least convincing to me is that the earliest Christians, the founders of Christianity, were con-men. If so, they were the stupidest con-men in history. By this theory, their plan seems to have been, let’s invent a religion that pisses off our fellow Jews AND the Romans (a neat trick), both of whom react rather violently and often homicidally to newfangled deviations, and 300 years from now … profit. Sorry, something else was going on (not, I suspect, the Word of God born as Man, but something).

  • Little Boots

    So, you taking a pass Bryan, or were you responding to some previous post?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I’ve been customizing my Psion, and now I can’t get the image of Aslan preaching to Jadis’s Thri-Kreen out of my head. It would go something like this:
    Aslan: Come, my children, surely you must abandon your cruel mistress ? Even though you are unseemly to look at, there’s goodness in your hearts.
    Thri-Kreen #1: Firstly, whom are you calling “unseemly”, furface ? Secondly, we don’t even have hearts, look it up.
    Thri-Kreen #2: “Children”, really ? Your mode of reproduction disgusts us as it is…
    Thri-Kreen #3: Jadis gave us a home, jobs, and a measure of respect what have you got ?
    Aslan: Do you not feel My aura of glory and majesty ?
    Thri-Kreen #1: No.
    Thri-Kreen #2: Nope.
    Thri-Kreen #3: You know what, I… I kinda do. Thought Screen ! Ah, that’s better.
    Aslan: Do not defy me, creatures ! ROOOAR !
    Thri-Kreen #1: Tower of Iron Will !
    Thri-Kreen #2: Inertial Barrier !
    Thri-Kreen #3: Control Air !
    Aslan: … Roar ?
    Thri-Kreen #1: They don’t have psionics in your realm, do they ?
    Aslan: Psi-whatics now ?
    Thri-Kreen #1: You’re in for a world of hurt, mammal.
    All Thri-Kreen, together: Metaconcert !

  • CaryB

    On J: I’ve tried interacting with him by yelling, by reasoning, in every way that I could, and I got nothin’ back. I figure he’s a po’d 17 year old in his mamma’s basement, and she still makes him go to church on Sunday’s or something.
    On the Pope: If what I recall about him being a Nazi is true, he was in the Hitler Youth. Not something there was a whole lot of choice on, back then. I don’t blame him for it. But I feel the same way about it that I do about Robert Byrd. It’s not that I hate them, it’s not that I think they’re evil. But when you’re a leader at that level, you’re something more than just your power or your decisions. You’re a symbol, a beacon of sorts. “This is who we are as a people, this is who speaks with our voice.” There are what, a billion Catholics? They couldn’t find one with his qualifications who wasn’t associated with pure, unadulterated evil? Leaving aside the interesting ramifications of a South American (Oscar Romero would’ve been the best pope of all time) African, or Chinese pope, couldn’t we shoot for “not Nazi?”

  • Little Boots

    Oops, missed the quotes. Yeah, obviously responding to something earlier and completely different. Sorry.

  • hapax

    Bryan: God is love, which means he hates
    Paging O’Brien: I think we’ve got a replacement for Winston Smith at Minitrue!

  • Bryan Swartz

    “I notice you haven’t addressed my comments on this subject from earlier.”
    I must have missed them MercuryBlue. It wasn’t intentional.
    “None of the authors of the Bible ever studied astrophysics or evolutionary biology. We can’t expect anything they say on either subject to be accurate. That doesn’t mean they’re automatically wrong on the history of the Jews or on what it takes to achieve salvation.”
    It doesn’t make them automatically wrong, I agree. But it does make them automatically untrustworthy on the subject. Why read and obey the Bible? The only reason to do it is if you believe it contains the truth. If it just contains opinions that we can take or leave, why not just dispense with it? There are plenty of other opinions out there.
    Beyond that, let me break this down into a simple logic chain. If there’s a hole, show it to me.
    ** Genesis is bunk. Stated by multiple people here. I completely disagree, but it’s as good a hole as any to start with.
    ** Jesus quoted Genesis as factual, referencing Abel, Genesis 2:24 regarding marriage etc. He quoted it as an authority. Abel is mentioned also in Hebrews, as is Noah, Adam is discussed extensively in Romans, etc. Always as factual examples. Abraham as well. Etc.
    ** Jesus not only knew the facts about creation, he was involved in creation. For example:
    “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”(John 1:2-3)
    “For by Him all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all have been created through Him and for Him.”(Colossians 1:16)
    ** If Jesus created everything, and Genesis is not an accurate account of that creation, then Jesus lied when he validated what Genesis says. There are many such chains that could be constructed, this is only one of the simplest.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Oddly enough, I agree with hapax completely regarding Lewis. Which is odd, seeing as I spent a lot of characters in my previous post on trying to destroy her. Destrooooooooy !
    That said, I personally think that Dawkins et al do have some useful things to say. They don’t speak for me (but then, no one but myself does), but I do find myself agreeing with them reasonably often. Thus, if I think that something they said applies to some argument, I might bring them up. If this makes me some sort of a New Atheist bogeymonster, so be it, I can’t help it…

  • Eric

    It’s interesting to ponder the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
    In this context I think it is. In my opinion, God is the one acting evil here; I see intent as being critically important. There was no way Eve could have the intent to do evil or understanding of negative consequences. Putting curious humans and a Tempter and a Tree in the Garden, then punishing humans for doing what God knew they were likely to do- after all, God created their nature? Reads as profound, comic-book-villain level evil.
    But that focus on intent and trying to look at each player on an equal footing is decidedly modern, as far as I can tell; someone raised 1000 or 3000 years ago in a hierarchical, authoritarian monarchy is going to read this document quite differently.
    Also? J- that’s the opposite of helping. Take that to Pharygula or go find a Christian blog that might actually merit a little over-the-top trolling. When you make pretty much every atheist on here facepalm, yer doing it wrong.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Hey man, don’t knock Pharyngula, that’s where I found the mantis shrimp. It’s worth it just for that alone.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “As long as people who do accept the authority of the Bible use it as an excuse to hurt gays and lesbians, their interpretations are a concern for everyone, just like interpretations of the Koran that say blowing up civilians counts as jihad are a concern for everyone. Your right to tell us to get out of your sectarian sandbox ends when you start flinging sand into our eyes.”
    This keeps getting brought up like it has something to do with me. I’ve stated repeatedly that I am in favor of legalized same-sex marriage. If that’s not the issue that you are going on about, what is?
    Also, in a pluralistic society, it’s none of your concern(though I enjoy discussing my beliefs) to condemn someone’s opinion. It doesn’t matter where they got their belief, so long as they obey societies laws and express it through the right process. It’s just as valid to believe something because some professor says it as it is to believe it because you received it in a vision from the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
    “So… you’re saying he’s an incompetent designer rather than a malicious one? I feel vastly reassured.”
    No, not incompetent. The alternative to free will is a world of robots. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine why God chose to create the former.
    “Er, technically the Bible says nothing whatsoever about masturbation.”
    It also says nothing about abortion, the internet, in-vitro fertilization, and 80 bazillion other things. It does present principles that can be applied to these areas however.
    “Wait. The first and second Genesis accounts conflict. The multiple accounts of Jesus’s death all conflict. Doesn’t this mean the entire Bible is untrustworthy, by your reasoning?”
    It would, if I agreed with you. I don’t agree that they conflict.

  • hapax

    Jesus quoted Genesis as factual, referencing Abel, Genesis 2:24 regarding marriage etc. He quoted it as an authority. Abel is mentioned also in Hebrews, as is Noah, Adam is discussed extensively in Romans, etc. Always as factual examples. Abraham as well.
    Bryan: If I refer to “Cinderella” and “Ugly Ducklings” as part of a discussion of … I dunno, aspirations our culture inculcates into adolescent girls, that doesn’t mean I think they were actual, living, historical people (or talking waterfowl). It means that these are well-known cultural referents; each of them carries a wealth of associations and implications that are practically impossible to convey in any other way, let alone so economically; and that the stories are considered to say something important and meaningful about real, common human experiences.
    When I read to my children out of Bible storybooks when they were as young as four years old, they had no difficulty in distinguishing between stories which were “factual” and stories which were “true.” And we would talk about the ways in which “true stories” could say things that were in many ways more complicated, richer, and more meaningful than “fact stories” (which also have their benefits and charms!)
    Are you saying that Jesus’s audience (and modern day Christians) are stupider than four year olds?

  • MercuryBlue

    It doesn’t make them automatically wrong, I agree. But it does make them automatically untrustworthy on the subject.
    Yeah, but astrophysics, evolutionary biology, the history of the Jews, and what it takes to achieve salvation are four different subjects. Whether one knows anything about one of the four has nothing whatsoever to do with whether one knows anything about any of the other three.
    Why read and obey the Bible? The only reason to do it is if you believe it contains the truth.
    Fascinating character interplay. Gorgeous poetry. Background information relevant to understanding the history of religion, philosophy, and literature in large portions of the world. Et cetera.
    (Be back shortly, brother wants computer…)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    It would, if I agreed with you. I don’t agree that they conflict.

    This, I gotta see. I’ve seen some attempts at resolving the contradictions in Genesis, but I’m guessing that Bryan will have something truly creative in mind. Go for it, Bryan ! You can use the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible for reference.

  • hapax

    Oddly enough, I agree with hapax completely regarding Lewis.
    Good gravy, the apocalypse is upon us!

  • Eric

    Bugmaster: Heh, I wasn’t really intending to; I was trying to say “if you want a PROPER place to vent about the Evils of Religion, here are two good options!”
    No, I regularly read both blogs, and I have to say that I feel for the large part PZ Meyers is DOIN IT RITE where J is not. PZ posts what he has to say on his OWN forum instead of trying to threadjack.

  • Eric

    @bugmaster again: Yes, that.
    Bryan, what do you believe is the value of pi?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Bryan, what do you believe is the value of pi?

    I’d imagine that it’s whatever God wants it to be. [stevejobs]Boom ![/stevejobs]

  • Bryan Swartz

    “You are God-breathed. (That would be Gen. 2:7.) Are you infallible? Do you perfectly express God’s exact intent?”
    When this was brought up earlier, I assumed(apparently incorrectly) that it was sarcasm. God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. This is not the same as God infused man with sinless perfection. Different words, different contexts, different meanings between the two passages.
    “he reaches for the metaphor: “God-breathed”. And he expands this by talking about how useful it is. Teaching, correction, training in righteousness! It slices, it dices! What he doesn’t say is “it’s completely true”.”
    Others have argued this point so I’ll spend some time on it. He says inspired(“God-breathed”) and the rest of verse says: “and is profitable …” in other words, inspired/is profitable for are two separate things. He isn’t saying it’s inspired because it’s profitable, or equating that inspiration with the profitability as an explanation of what inspired means. Something can be true/inspired/God-breathed and not be profitable for the things mentioned. He could have done a dissertation on the chemical properties of G2 stars, but that would not have fit the following description. The statement is that it is both true AND profitable for the mentioned activities.
    But let’s go beyond that. Let’s consider the phrase ‘the Word of God’. We find this all over the place in the NT. The OT is called the Word of God(Mark 7:9-13). Jesus’s message was the Word of God(Luke 5:1). It is used several times in Acts to describe the message the apostles preached and the Gentiles received. It is used specifically of each of Paul’s missionary journeys. Paul specifically cited it as the source of his teaching(Colossians 1:25, I Thessalonians 2:13). Peter(II Peter 1:21) made it clear that Scripture is a result of God’s will, not man’s.

  • hapax

    what do you believe is the value of pi?
    Defusing flame wars?

  • Bryan Swartz

    “You asked how God could give a more direct attestation of the Bible’s infallibility, I gave one example. Whether or not it would convince the proverbial willfully blind strawman atheist doesn’t really matter; the majority of the people you’re talking to on this very thread do believe in the supernatural, and they still don’t think the Bible is literally true from end to end.”
    Do you think they would change their mind about Genesis if an angelic demonstration told them to?
    “The more I explore the concept of what it is to be one with God, the more things like “love those who have hated you, dwell with those who have sinned, and p.s. judging people is not the point” seem like better ideas than laying down judgment as to who’s saved and who isn’t.”
    Since I don’t disagree with any of the above, I’m not sure what the point is of asking whether Fred or I am right on the subject. I haven’t engaged in judging people or laying down judgement as to who’s saved. All I’ve done is defend the things I believe are true as being God’s Word. There’s a world of difference between the two.
    “So God doesn’t actually care about people helping others or showing compassion if it’s not accompanied by belief?”
    No, that’s not what I said at all. It is far better to help the sick, etc, than to not do it. But God is more interested in your motive than your action, and you can’t earn your way to him no matter how many ‘good’ things you do. You can’t know God’s will without faith, beyond the basic moral teachings of the Bible. A Christian learns Gods will moment by moment in communication with the Spirit(when they are listening to it). That can’t happen without faith. And God looks on the heart, while man looks at the outward appearance.
    “If God is on the side of love, you’re doing what he wants, and if God is on the side of hatred, you have no business following his orders.”
    This isn’t about love v. hatred though. It’s about what love really is, which is doing what’s best for someone. Sometimes the best thing a person can have is some hardship so they will grow to become more complete people. In such a situation, solving their felt need is the least loving thing that can be done.
    “since Bryan can’t be bothered to respond to my points, I’m going to stop reading his. He’s obviously not interested in a real conversation, he just wants to regurgitate his points at us, and can’t handle anything that’s off that track.”
    This is flatly false. Which points of yours have I not responded to? Beyond that, I’ve been responding to all kinds of off-track things in this thread. Unless what you mean by ‘regurgiate his points’ is ‘he refuses to shut up, beg our forgiveness for joining the discussion, and admit that he’s being a moron in all respects’, I’m not sure what you mean here.

  • Little Boots

    Probably not gonna get any answers tonight, as the noob, fair enough. But Bryan, I am a little curious about your last point that if the Bible is a collection of opinions how can anyone take it seriously? How does anyone take Plato or Hume or Nietzsche seriously? The power of their arguments, the lessons they teach, WITHOUT ever thinking that everything they wrote is true and perfect for all time. Without embracing the crazy shit, at least with Plato and Nietzshe, Hume was notoriously sane. It’s not cut and dried, but why the hell would it be? Why is that necessary?

  • Rebecca

    @Bryan:
    I agree with the Chicago Statement, which basically says that Bible is inerrant in it’s original writing: translations are not necessarily so.
    The key doctrines are repeated so many times in so many ways and forms that the translation issue is a non-concern with them. The details are another matter, and being divisive/dogmatic over them is wrong and I stand against it.
    Incorrect. The belief that male-male sex is in and of itself an abomination, for example, is arguably at odds with this statement – the word that gets translated as “to lie with” implies sex already, which is why there’s discussion over the implications of the redundant “as with a woman.”
    Sex in and of itself is a wonderful thing. We are meant to act upon it — within the proper boundaries like everything else. Whether it is masturbation or fornication with someone we are not married to or homosexual acts, these are perversions of the gift. That’s what is sinful.
    You, I believe, compared the desire to do it with a person of the same sex to the desire to steal.
    Compare:
    Desire: A book / Sex with a similarly-bodied person
    Action: Theft / Sex with a similarly-bodied person
    Most of the time, theft is not the end in and of itself. (Kleptomania and revenge aside.) The book is. There are legitimate ways to get that book, such as earning money and buying it, or putting it on your birthday wishlist. In the same way, there are legitimate ways to have an orgasm, such as masturbation or married sex. But orgasm is not the only goal of people having sex.
    Also, in a pluralistic society, it’s none of your concern(though I enjoy discussing my beliefs) to condemn someone’s opinion. It doesn’t matter where they got their belief, so long as they obey societies laws and express it through the right process. It’s just as valid to believe something because some professor says it as it is to believe it because you received it in a vision from the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
    It is absolutely our concern. The expression of that opinion, even through legal channels, has the potential to cause real harm to real people.
    Do you think they would change their mind about Genesis if an angelic demonstration told them to?
    I’m not one of the slacktivites who believe in the supernatural, but if an angelic demonstration told me that Genesis was literally true, I’d have no reason to believe it. The statement “Genesis is literally true” necessarily means “The evidence of your senses is wrong,” so why would it then follow that I would have to believe I’m seeing an angel? The statement “Genesis is literally true” necessarily means “God made the world look older to trick us,” so why would I believe the angel was telling the truth?
    @PJ:
    I have heard that some rabbis believe that that was what was going on when Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac.
    And that Abraham, by not saying something like ‘WTF do you mean, asking me to kill my own child’, failed the test.
    It’s an interpretation that’s dear to my heart, as is the interpretation that the real test in Turandot is to see which challenger will renounce her after she says that she doesn’t want to marry, but unfortunately neither of them really make sense with the rest of the text.
    @Spearmint: please don’t advocate the rape of anyone.
    @Robyrt: I love the infancy gospels.

  • Hummingwolf

    On C.S. Lewis: He pretty consistently pointed out that he was not a theologian or a great moral example, merely a regular Church of England layperson (albeit an educated one with background as a literary critic) trying to communicate the basic beliefs of the church to people who (he thought) had forgotten the essential tenets of Christianity. The fact that other people seem to think he was a great saint doesn’t mean that he himself was under that impression.
    Maybe I’ve been a Lewis fangirl for too long, but I really don’t see the hate in his work that others are seeing. While the female characters in his stories don’t always come off too well (That Hideous Strength in particular contains much that frankly pisses me off. What, was the story written after he’d been snubbed by an educated woman wearing sensible shoes?), it’s hard to see how anyone who was friends with Dorothy L. Sayers and married Joy Davidman Gresham could possibly have been a hater of intelligent, opinionated, strong women who had sex.

  • hapax

    Skipping over the complicated meaning of “logos” in Greek…
    Scripture is a result of God’s will, not man’s.
    Y’see, I agree with this. And you know what else is the result of God’s will, God’s breath (= “pneuma”, Spirit)?
    Me and my ideas. You and your ideas. Richard Dawkins, and his ideas. Everyone who disagrees with you, and their ideas. My son, who is currently drawing diagrams of Hogwarts. My dog, and her inability to find a dropped hot dog on the floor. The oil currently spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Distant galaxies slowly consuming star systems. The whole of Creation.
    Note that I say “the result of”, NOT “in perfect accord with.” Because you and I also agree that Creation has fallen awry of that original Divine Intent / Plan / Command / Word (“logos”). We probably disagree as to the *reasons* for that, but let’s let it pass.
    Why on earth would you contend that out of all of Creation, all that IS, the one bit that has not been contaminated by error, has not fallen short, has in fact fully lived in perfect congruity with God’s Design, is a mishmash of stories, poems, histories, legal codes, and letters, written, collected, redacted, and translated over thousands and thousands of years? Where, in all your proof-texts, does this motley collection even make this claim (of perfection, not origin) of itself?
    As a Christian, I only ascribed this perfect fulfillment of God’s Will to one Person and to Him alone. Was the Bible crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of the Bible?

  • MercuryBlue

    Scripture is a result of God’s will, not man’s.
    The Bhagavad Gita is an extended dialogue between the god Krishna and a prince of what is now Kandahar; like other sruti texts, it is understood to be a translation of divine truth into words understandable by ordinary humans. What makes it any less authoritative than the collection of dialogues between the god Jehovah and/or the god Jesus and various and sundry ancestors, descendants, and spiritual descendants of the namesake of Israel?
    what do you believe is the value of pi?
    * 1 1/2 cups crushed chocolate sandwich cookies
    * 1/4 cup butter, melted
    * 1 quart mint chocolate chip ice cream
    * 4 tablespoons creme de menthe liqueur
    * 1 cup crushed chocolate sandwich cookies
    * 3 egg whites
    * salt to taste
    * 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
    * 2 teaspoons creme de menthe liqueur
    * 1/3 cup white sugar
    1. Combine 1 1/2 cups cookie crumbs and melted butter or margarine. Press firmly over bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch pie pan. Freeze.
    2. Spread half of softened ice cream in crust. Drizzle 2 tablespoons creme de menthe and sprinkle 1/2 cup cookie crumbs over the ice cream. Repeat. Freeze till firm.
    3. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar, and beat until slightly stiff. Gradually beat in sugar until peaks form. Fold in 2 teaspoons creme de menthe. Spread meringue over pie, and seal to edges. Freeze up to 24 hours.
    4. Just before serving, broil until top is golden.
    Why wait to get to heaven after death when you can have a slice of it tomorrow? Or, y’know, the whole pie, if your house has sufficiently few sweet tooths.

  • Bryan Swartz

    @ShifterCat:
    Yes, there are examples of Jesus breaking the rules in Fred’s post. I just don’t agree that they are valid, which is why I asked for specifics.
    “Please, if you’re going to pull something out of your ass, at least wipe it off before you present it.”
    Could you clarify the meaning of this insult please? I honestly don’t know what you are trying to say here. If I’m wrong, refute what I said.
    “because there’s more faith, goodness, clear-mindedness, and, well, godliness in the words of Christians like hapax, Karen, and Fred, who don’t subscribe to this assertion of yours.”
    Speaking of making unjustified assertions — care to back this up at all?
    “I’m sorry that you fail to see that you’re continuing to be condescending. And I’m sorry that you don’t know the difference between a proper apology and a weaselly fake.”
    Then show me how I’ve been condescending. If you can demonstrate it, you’ll get an apology. I wasn’t trying to make a proper apology at all, I was trying to express regret. I do regret that the impression of condescension exists. I’m not going to apologize for something that I don’t think was wrong though. That’s dishonest.
    “You’re still being circular here. The issue isn’t whether to read the Bible, but how. If the question is “what does the Bible mean by that?” then it does no good to say, “check it against the Bible.”"
    Where have I said this is the case? What I’ve argued against is a methodology of assuming the Bible couldn’t mean X because it conflicts with our perception of the world. That’s a lot different than trying to figure out what the bible means by something. It’s not interpretation, it’s more like projection.
    “And yet you seem pretty dogmatic over a topic that Fred contends is in fact a detail. Who decides what’s key and what’s detail? ”
    Each person has to decide that for themselves. On your earlier argument that this is not the case, I again refer you to the biblical commendation of people for questioning the teaching of the apostles in light of Scripture. Try Galatians 1:6-9.
    “And groping after a shadow of comprehension of that impossible union, that gift half understood, is far more interesting, and far more to the point, than going around in circles trying to determine the one Real True List of Rules.”
    Totally agree. Interpreation isn’t about finding a List of Rules primarily. It’s about finding principles to apply. Life is fluid. Despite the apparent impression of the board, I’m not about finding a List of Rules in most areas of theology. But there are some absolutes. For example, everyone here seems to like “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Well, that’s a rule. How it applies we can disagree on. But we agree that if someone comes along and says nah, love your neighbor when you feel like it, or you don’t need to love your neighbor, that’s wrong. So rules are pretty much necessary. They are signposts to keep us from straying to far one direction or another.
    ” Where the well-poisoning comes in is when you and Lewis suggest, if only by implication, that I as a skeptic necessarily regard “Love thy neighbor as thyself” as the word of “the devil from hell”, or regard “Do unto others” as no more valid or useful a precept than “I am a poached egg”.”
    If I have implied this I stand corrected. What I am saying is that as a skeptic none of those statements should be considered RELIABLE. I am not saying they are all false, just that you can take them or leave them like any other book or wikipedia or whatever.

  • Lonespark

    *”You’re a morally-and-sexually-ambiguous figure of temptation to teenage girls. I command the powers of Hell. You’re wearing the collar, buddy.”
    So full of win. My kid wants me to buy him Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (the movie, we have a book version.) It will be so much more entertaining, now.

  • MercuryBlue

    Do you think they would change their mind about Genesis if an angelic demonstration told them to?
    I suspect I speak for most everyone when I say: First I’d have to be convinced that it was actually an angel, not a hoax or a hallucination or a god or demigod from a nonChristian tradition. Second I’d have to be convinced that this particular angel was both knowledgeable on the subject of how the world came to be and telling the truth about it. Third I’d need a real good explanation for why the world doesn’t look the way Genesis says it does. None of these are impossible conditions. They’re not exactly probable to occur, but they’re not impossible.
    A Christian learns Gods will moment by moment in communication with the Spirit(when they are listening to it).
    I’m reminded, though I’m not sure why, of how a lot of people in various places and times have said they’ve seen the face of the divine: by achieving orgasm.

  • Will Wildman

    This isn’t about love v. hatred though. It’s about what love really is, which is doing what’s best for someone. Sometimes the best thing a person can have is some hardship so they will grow to become more complete people. In such a situation, solving their felt need is the least loving thing that can be done.

    At what point is the most loving thing you can do for a person to throw them into eternal fiery torment with no hope of reprieve under any circumstances?

  • Bryan Swartz

    “If it’s my responsibility to test the real world against the teachings of the Bible, what happens when they don’t match up (which they don’t).”
    Neither of your responses are accurate in my view. I would look for ways in which I may be misunderstanding(both the world and the Bible). But in the end, if I could find none, then I must have faith in God. This is like Abraham being ready to sacrifice Isaac(believing God could raise him from the dead even though such a thing had never happened before) or Noah believing the flood would come, or Jesus believing the Father would raise him, or Daniel and friends going into the furnace, etc. There are times when life doesn’t add up to our senses. True faith does not fail at these times. It will be questioned, it may falter, periods of doubt are expected. But faith doesn’t ultimately fail.
    Also, I wasn’t saying the bible is inerrant because it says so. I was saying it claims to be inerrant, therefore it’s unreliable if any part is false. As to believing the Bible in the first place, that’s a separate issue.
    “No…The Bible’s pretty clear that God creates a solid sky, puts the oceans beneath it, and puts the rest of the water above it. That’s a firmament, that’s the only definition of firmament that there is. Firmament has never meant “a waste and emptiness”. ”
    Source for this? There are a number of translations which term it expanse. Among them the NASB, known as the most literal modern translation.

  • Rebecca

    As a Christian, I only ascribed this perfect fulfillment of God’s Will to one Person and to Him alone. Was the Bible crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of the Bible?
    *applauds*

  • Little Boots

    Of course the biggest group of people left out of the whole “inspired” theme, at least by Protestants, is the all important compilers, the people who get to decide what gets put in and what gets left out. The people who decided to join the Yahweh and Elohim myths, and combine them with Deuteronomy and the Priestly text, with commentary. The people who decided to add the prophets (some, but almost certainly not all) and then the Proverbs and Psalms (again, some but almost certainly not all). Later the people who decided which “gospels” were good news, and which were not, which letters of Paul, or which letters written in Paul’s name, get to be in, and whether that crazy Revelations book should make the cut. These people are the real Voice of God.

  • MercuryBlue

    How old are the translations that say ‘expanse’? I’m betting–and give me an hour or so to poke at biblegateway.com to check this–that every translation that says ‘expanse’ postdates the discovery that sending a rocket into orbit doesn’t punch a hole in the firmament.

  • Hummingwolf

    I should have finished reading the thread before making my last comment. As a general rule, if hapax says something on a Slacktivist post, I probably agree with her… which is one reason why I am usually a lurker.
    But since I’m still a C.S. Lewis fan: Anybody else read Till We Have Faces? I was just thinking it’s about time for me to re-read that one.

  • Art

    Also, I wasn’t saying the bible is inerrant because it says so. I was saying it claims to be inerrant, therefore it’s unreliable if any part is false.
    I call TREMENDOUS foul on this. The Bible isn’t one book with a single (human) author. It’s a compilation of ancient documents from many different times and places written for many different purposes for many different audiences.
    The truth or falsehood of one book included in the Bible is NOT automatically a commentary on how reliable every other book included in the Bible is. Only a commentary, if you must test someone’s supposed infallibility, of the infallibility of the editorial process of choosing which books go into the Bible and which do not (a process that itself was fraught with conflict and uncertainty that took place over a period of many years).
    By your analogy, if Fred Clark writes a blog post and then I write a comment to the blog post saying “Fred Clark is a prophet of the Lord and everything he says is absolutely factually correct”, the very act of my doing so and my comment being included in slacktivist.typepad.com now suddenly means that Fred’s blog post is subject to a standard of absolute inerrancy and to be discarded if it fails that test.
    That’s just stupid. What Paul says about what Jesus said should not impose constraints on what Jesus said (unless you put the cart before the horse and *start out* with the assumption that the Bible is all words that come from God himself using human authors as a mouthpiece).
    Though, really, come to think of it, even within a single book, the author of that book making grandiose claims about that book’s accuracy — claims that turn out to be false — do not make the entire book false. “Unreliable”, perhaps, but not worthless and to be discarded. The number of genuine experts on subjects who make claims about their own perspicacity that they can’t possibly live up to but *nonetheless* genuinely are experts and who write very useful and insightful things as long as you take it with a grain of salt — that list would be longer than my arm, even if printed in 10-point Times New Roman.
    Geez, that’s almost a *given* for reading books from a certain type of person in a certain type of environment — they will almost certainly overstate their case and make grand claims they can’t live up to, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t good and truthful stuff in what they’re saying. (This is true of the vast majority of self-help gurus of any stripe, for instance — and isn’t that, when you think about it, the same genre that much of the Bible is in?)

  • Bryan Swartz

    @ Ursula:
    ” If there is one moral precept and statement of religion that you could get us all to agree on, it is Huck Finn’s “Fine then, I’ll go to Hell.” The firm belief that the right thing to do is the humanly right thing to do, and that either God won’t damn you for it or it is better to be damned for it than not do it. ”
    In that case I disagree with ‘you all’. If that means you think I should shut up and go away, I’ll strongly consider that if requested. The problem with this is God is the source of all truth. You can’t start from man or what is humanly right, because you can’t know what’s ‘humanly right’ without understanding the spiritual realm. Humanism and Christianity are incompatible.
    “As long as you’re framing your arguments with the assumption that not going to Hell is the most important goal, you’re arguing against the moral validity of your own faith. ”
    Where have I said this? I don’t think not going to hell is the most important goal. Glorifying God is the most important goal.
    “One outfit. If you’re going to insist on “literally” interpreting the Bible, come back when your closet is empty and you’ve no more clothing than what is currently on your body. ”
    This is important. I’ll answer the clothing question eventually(though many will probably not believe my answer), but this ‘literally’ business needs to be dealt with verse. My favorite verse on this subject, chosen at random some time ago, is this:
    “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and He will thoroughly clear his threshing floor; and He will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”(Matthew 3:12)
    Now quick show of hands: who thinks this means a literal fork, floor, and barn? Pretty obvious I think this is symbolism. Not everything in the bible is literal — and by the way NOBODY treats it that way either. Nobody thinks everything is literal, and nobody thinks everything is symbolic. Everybody I’ve ever heard or read(literally :P ) falls somewhere in between. Careful exegesis is always needed to determine which you are dealing with.
    A second issue deals with perfect obedience. Nobody does that. Bible’s clear on that point as well. If perfect obedience is required before teaching anything, there would never be any teachers because nobody would qualify. Which makes this business of ‘how many sets of clothing do you have’ moot in terms of whether my opinion is worth hearing. I have not and do not pretend that I obey perfectly. That would be a joke. The things I am saying here have nothing do with “I’m better than those who don’t agree”. They have to do with proclaiming what I believe God has said, period and end of sentence.
    Still, it is a useful exercise to compare myself to the biblical standard. So what about this one suit of clothing thing that John the Baptist said? the next phrase says “and he who has food is to do likewise?” Likewise? Well then what does ‘two food’ refer to? This verse clearly refers to having more than you need.
    So do I have more than I need? I have four sets of clothes. I do not have cable TV. I do not spend money on worldly entertainment. I buy used cars, shop at Save-A-Lot exclusively, and in other ways save as much money as I can. I give to others, and in keeping with Jesus’ command when I lend money, I don’t ask for it back. I no longer refuse people’s requests for a lend.
    There are a few areas in which I could get by on somewhat less. Perhaps that’s something I need to evaluate. In general, God is the judge not me, but I do believe that my handling of money honors Him.

  • Rebecca

    Abraham being ready to sacrifice Isaac(believing God could raise him from the dead even though such a thing had never happened before)
    You’re rationalizing. There’s nothing in the story about Abraham believing that God could resurrect Isaac; he believed that God wanted his son as a sacrifice.

  • Amaryllis

    and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
    I just spent a large chunk of time attempting to catch up with this thread before (we hope) the new TF post appears, trying to answer anyone who spoke to me and making a few other random observations as they occurred to me– and one wrong click of the mouse and Typepad ate the whole thing. Arrgh.
    Yes, I know I should type in another word processor, and then paste when I’m finished, but I always forget about that, until it’s too late.
    And now it really is too late. See you on Tribulation Tuesday!

  • MercuryBlue

    New International Version: expanse. 1978.
    New American Standard Bible: expanse. 1971.
    The Message: sky. 2001. (Genesis 1:2b: “God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” I like this one. I need to find a copy.)
    Amplified Bible: a firmament [the expanse of the sky]. 1964 update of the American Standard Version of 1901.
    New Living Translation: a space between the waters. 1996.
    King James Version (for completeness’s sake): firmament. 1611.
    English Standard Version: expanse (footnote: or canopy). 2001 revision of the 1971 Revised Standard Version.
    Contemporary English Version: a dome to separate the water above it from the water below it. 1995.
    New King James Version: firmament. 1982.
    New Century Version: “[...] something to divide the water in two.” So God made the air [...]. 1986.
    GOD’S WORD Translation: a horizon in the middle of the water in order to separate the water. 1995.
    21st Century King James Version: firmament. 1994 but apparently all they changed from 1611 was the words that stopped being understandable sometime between then and now.
    American Standard Version: firmament. 1901.
    Young’s Literal Translation: expanse. 1862. Dammit. Lost the bet.

  • Art

    €Source for this? There are a number of translations which term it expanse. Among them the NASB, known as the most literal modern translation.

    Most mainstream Bible translations, NASB included, are biased by the fact that they’re made by and for religious people and therefore will avoid translations that make religion sound stupid.
    The translation “expanse” literally fits the meaning of the Hebrew term “raqiya”, but its use in this context is misleading and tendentious — it’s *not* a three-dimensional “expanse” of vast empty space the way we modern folks would think of it. “Raqiya” is pretty unambiguously an “expanse” in the sense of a very broad two-dimensional sheet.
    This is not ambiguous. “Raqiya” is the noun form of the Hebrew word “raqa”, meaning “to stretch out”, used to refer to the action of a blacksmith hammering out metal into a flat sheet. It’s an “expanse” in the sense of being “expanded” in the sense of being “stretched out” or, in the case of a metal surface, “hammered out”.
    This is very clearly the sense meant by the Bible, because it actually *refers to it* multiple times. The “windows of heaven” are opened in order to create the Great Flood by letting water pour out from said “windows”, something that makes no sense at all if the “firmament” is a vast expanse of 3-d space (Genesis 7:11). Job 37:18 has Elihu remonstrate Job by asking “Can you join him in hammering (raqa) out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze?” Again, the sky clearly referred to here as a solid metallic surface.
    There really is no ambiguity about what the Biblical writers and readers would’ve thought a “raqiyah” was. In apocryphal books the cosmology of the Bible is gone into in detail, describing the sun and moon as glowing bodies that enter and exit the view of mankind *through holes in the sky*. Baruch refers to the Tower of Babel as a “gimlet meant to pierce the sky”. The idea of the sky as a flat metal-like sheet was universal among the ancient Hebrews — if Genesis was actually meant to explain the sky as *not* being a flat metal-like sheet but being a vast expanse of three-dimensional nothingness, it did a very piss-poor job of it.
    The *only* way to interpret the word “raqiyah” as meaning a vast three-dimensional empty space made of open nothingness — a meaning it has *nowhere else* and cannot logically have based on its etymology — is to *start out* with the knowledge that the sky is, as we can now see, not actually a flat metal-like sheet that the sun and moon dip down into view through by way of openings cut into it, and then using that worldly knowledge “read into” the Bible and “twist” a word to mean something it doesn’t mean. Something that I thought you and your ilk were opposed to.

  • Hummingwolf

    By the way: Where I live, black raspberries are now in season. Does anybody have a good recipe for black raspberry pi? Though after the farmers market tomorrow I’ll probably just eat the berries straight from the box anyway, I’m still interested in recipes for future reference.
    Oh, and I’ve never baked a pie before. Is pie really as easy as pie?

  • MercuryBlue

    Humanism and Christianity are incompatible.

    We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
    We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
    We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
    We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
    We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.
    We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility.
    We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness.
    We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.
    Yeah, Jesus would hate us.
    All quotes from secularhumanism.org.

  • Bryan Swartz

    ” the person who lives an excellent but non-Jesus-infused life is equally infinitely damned as the person who lies, cheats, steals, and kills indiscriminately, and both suffer accordingly.”
    I believe there are degrees of punishment in hell(though I can’t prove it biblically).
    “I’m saying that a universe which was created and populated with sentient life-forms for the explicit purpose of unquestioningly obeying the dictates of said creator, without being given any justification for said dictates, is a horrible place. Period. ”
    Except justification has been given, rather explicitly. As I’ve said, we were created in such a way as to find our greatest joy and happiness in obeying/worshiping/glorifying God. They fit together.
    “the God you describe is a petty, megalomaniacal dickhead with all the grandeur and purpose of a three-year-old making Play-Doh figurines and then squashing them.* ”
    Do please elaborate.
    “now that I think about it, that implies that we shouldn’t have any forms of punishment or judicial action at all, since it’s up to God to hammer our unrighteousness.”
    Not at all. Romans 13:1-7 sets forth the justification and position for governments. God judges sin, but that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as justified governmental action.
    “you mentioned not knowing what RTC stands for: it’s Real True Christian, full of sarcasm, and you are one”
    So what does it mean? “Real True Christian” doesn’t explain much.
    “Bryan’s not big on consistency; his claim that turning anti-gay is a natural response to becoming a true Christian consequentially indicates that the way to get rid of homosexuality isn’t to ban it, but to convert people until they understand why they’re wrong. From his own perspective (“accepting gay people is a result of not being Christian”) he’s attacking the symptom instead of the disease-of-not-being-an-RTC.”
    For the umpteenth time I’m NOT IN FAVOR OF BANNING HOMOSEXUALITY. I need some help on this. How big a font, how many posts do I need to have saying this before it’s understood?
    “Passive-Aggressive Conservative Asshats”
    Feel free to demonstrate how I’m being Passive-Aggressive any time you feel like it.
    “I will never understand how people can claim not to be homophobic while simultaneously claiming that gay sex and homosexuality are evil soul-destroying God-insulting sins. That level of doublethink is just beyond me.”
    How is it double-think? I don’t think you understand what homophobia is. It’s the whole hate-the-sin but love-the-sinner thing. I don’t have to agree with what you do to love you. This is the foundation of all truly valuable friendships IMO. The openly gay friends I’ve had(past and present) who know EXACTLY what my opinion of this issue is speaks to that as well.
    @ Robyrt: Excellent post. I agree with much of it.

  • Little Boots

    Someone asked way up thread, someone entitled to answers even from this crowd, where exactly does the Bible itself, or God, claim that the Bible is inerrant? Is there actually a passage that says that or implies it?

  • Art

    Where have I said this is the case? What I’ve argued against is a methodology of assuming the Bible couldn’t mean X because it conflicts with our perception of the world. That’s a lot different than trying to figure out what the bible means by something. It’s not interpretation, it’s more like projection.
    Honestly, I agree with this. I think that, for instance, people trying valiantly to argue that the Hebrew word “raqiya” must mean a vast three-D space such as we know actually exists in most of the universe and trying to shoehorn this into a modern understanding of astronomy are kind of pathetic. The honest reading of the text is very, very clear, and it’s very, very clear that the Bible simply states a flat-earth domed-sky cosmology that was incredibly common in the ancient Near East and that it would be very surprising if the Bible did not have.
    The obvious conclusion to draw from this is therefore that when it comes to astronomy the Bible is simply WRONG, just as the Bible is, say, wrong about how genetics works (Genesis 30:25-43). One could also take the tack that one should take a Kierkegaardian leap of faith on such matters and simply believe, against all evidence, that the Earth is in fact covered by a dome of a super-hard metal-like substance and rain comes from reservoirs on top of this sheet that pour through windows that God opens and closes. And one could believe on faith that it is in fact possible to make sheep have speckled offspring by causing them to mate near objects that themselves happen to have a speckled appearance.
    But that gets you back to presuppositionalism — I mean, sure, fine, good for you, cling to the faith that informs your life, but how the heck do you hope to convince us to come to faith, after asserting that faith to you means stubbornly believing that things that obviously are not true are true because a book says so? Because you believe the book was written by God himself? Because the book says so?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    In that case I disagree with ‘you all’. If that means you think I should shut up and go away, I’ll strongly consider that if requested.

    Well, I personally don’t want you to “shut up and go away”, despite being a godless atheist and all. I just wish you’d update your arguments a bit. I’ve seen most of them before, and they pretty much amount to “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it”… A statement that is as passionate as it is unconvincing.

    Not everything in the bible is literal — and by the way NOBODY treats it that way either.

    We had a big argument about this before (incited by yours truly), and we’re kind of having one now. I think we can all agree that some stuff in the Bible is meant to be taken literally, and some is meant to be symbolic or metaphorical. How do you know which is which ? So far, I’ve seen several different approaches (and mixtures thereof):
    The stuff we know to be literally false, based on common sense, is metaphorical. The rest is literal. (so, no one really set that chaff on fire)The stuff we know to be literally false, based on common sense and scientific consensus, is metaphorical. The rest is literal. (so, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and it orbits the Sun vs. the other way around)Same as above, plus the stuff that seems to be completely evil and depraved to us today is probably meant symbolically or even sarcastically. (so, slavery and genocide are right out).We need to look to extra-Biblical sources and do our own literary analysis. If all the sources agree that something is literal, then it is.We need to look to extra-Biblical sources and do our own literary analysis. Almost none of the stuff is literal, but you can extract deeper spiritual truths from the book that way.It’s all just a story, written by people with all kinds of different agendas, and badly in need of a good editor.As far as I can tell, Fred favors approach #3, whereas hapax leans more toward #5. Atheists such as myself usually favor #6 or something similar.
    So, which approach would you recommend ?

  • http://jamoche.livejournal.com Jamoche

    @Tonio: I also noticed the Palpatine creepiness of his eyes. But I thought that my saying so would sound offensive, partly because I’m not Catholic and partly because he can’t help that aspect of his appearance.
    No worries. We Catholics have been been making “Pope Palpatine” jokes since the day he was elected.

  • Little Boots

    Can’t imagine what is symbolic about the slavery passages. YMMV.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    As for the Firmament, I refer you to this handy diagram. I think it should answer all your cosmological questions. Heh.

  • Art

    So what does it mean? “Real True Christian” doesn’t explain much.
    Simple. Many Christians see Christianity as a religion like any other — an attempt, imperfect and halting, to try to make some sense of the human condition and of the world we live in, arising from a particular set of historical circumstances and bound by its cultural roots and limitations, something that we participate in the way we participate in being Americans, or being geeks, or being Dodgers fans. Being part of a learning and growing community that is not intrinsically better or worse than any community, a community we are loyal to not because we believe in its supremacy but simply because it is ours.
    Then there’s the other kind. For the other kind, Christian vs. non-Christian is a binary state. Saved vs. damned, in grace vs. in perdition, nourished by the Holy Spirit vs. convicted by the Holy Spirit, going to heaven vs. going to hell. Christianity isn’t just a human belief system, a lens through which truth is viewed, but IS THE TRUTH, revealed supernaturally and divinely, and the choice whether or not to be a Christian is the most important choice any human being can make.
    Etc. These are people prone to saying that “Christianity is not a religion”, setting it apart from all other religions, and whatnot. These are people who are prone to caring a *very great deal* who is a “true” Christian and who is not because this is not just a criterion for membership in an earthly community but a statement about the fundamental state of one’s eternal soul and its destination in the afterlife.
    And these people reject the other kind of Christian as not being “Christian” at all.
    It’s the kind of Christianity subscribed to by the writers of the Left Behind books. Fred Clark, our host, started using “RTC” as an acronym while doing his Left Behind writeups, as a way to quickly explain that when Lahaye and Jenkins talk about this being a world where all “Christians” were Raptured away they didn’t literally mean all one billion people who self-identified as Christians but some much smaller subset of Christians that fit their exacting standards of Christianity (based on the highly historically bound and particular belief system of 20th century American evangelicalism/fundamentalism and its very weird, very idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible that leads to the belief in such stuff as “The Sinner’s Prayer” and the Rapture and whatnot).
    “Real, True Christians”, in other words, or RTCs. It’s a useful term to keep around for when Fred goes on his rants against the evils and perversities of the American evangelical subculture, to remind us he’s not attacking all Christians nor even all those who emerged from the evangelical subculture but specifically the subset who think of themselves as “Real, True Christians”.

  • http://lightupmy.wordpress.com Jessica

    How is it double-think? I don’t think you understand what homophobia is. It’s the whole hate-the-sin but love-the-sinner thing. I don’t have to agree with what you do to love you. This is the foundation of all truly valuable friendships IMO. The openly gay friends I’ve had(past and present) who know EXACTLY what my opinion of this issue is speaks to that as well.
    It’s double-think because if being gay is an evil, soul-destroying sin, then the person shouldn’t even be around you– there are plenty of homophobics who act that way. The two positions, one of hating the sin while trying to love the person, are directly contradictory. One eventually trumps the other and it’s impossible, at least IME, to keep them in a perfectly balanced tension that involves an equal amount of speaking truth in love and being a true friend to a person.
    To be honest, all my experiences with speaking the truth in love tend to involve someone else telling me how I ought to live my life, as though they understand my experiences better than I do. It’s bull, and anyone who thinks they have all the answers just because they’ve read an old book isn’t living in reality. They’re living in a fantasy construct based on a collection of writings that are over 2000 years old.
    The Bible has many excellent things to say about life, but using it, as Fred says, as a rule book, is sort of missing the point.
    And not to be “gayer-than-thou”, but I’d venture that you don’t know what homophobia is. If you think hating-the-sin-but-loving-the-sinner doesn’t count as homophobia, I’m guessing you’ve never been a victim of homophobia. Contrary to the definition of the “-phobia” prefix, it’s not exactly a fear but more an unreasonable and completely irrational hatred. That’s how it’s exhibited and it’s not pretty. People that hate the sin tend to forget about the loving the sinner (eventually, anyway) and become too focused on hating. Eventually it only becomes about hate, and whatever else you might believe about the Bible, that’s demonstrably wrong: “and the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” There’s nothing there about hating that person’s sin, and in fact, if you read your Bible, you’ll find the “love the sinner but hate the sin” isn’t even in that book. It’s a quote from… Gandhi, I belive.

  • Bryan Swartz

    “But something I’m wondering about for any literalist or inerrants left here (Bryan, would that be you? Are you here?),”
    Still here. I’ll let the others decide if that’s good or bad.
    ” I think we all KNOW what it means, but only because metaphorical thinking comes so naturally to us as humans. And that’s what Fred is getting at, along with so many other things. It just doesn’t work as a literal text, and certainly not as a literal rulebook,”
    See my recent post on how there is no such thing(in practice) as 100% literal or 100% symbolic.
    “you taking a pass Bryan, or were you responding to some previous post?”
    On what — the con men theory, or something else Little Boots?

  • MercuryBlue

    Is pie really as easy as pie?
    Start with pie crust that comes in boxes where all you have to do is thaw it and unroll into the pie plate and it’s fairly easy. (Just, if you do apple pie, make sure at least half the apples are something that doesn’t go to mush when confronted with heat, otherwise you’ll end up with a top crust baked into the shape of a pile of apple pieces and there’ll be a big bubble between the crust and the apple mush.) Try making pie crust from scratch, and success is rewarded by it tasting so much better, but achieving successful pie crust from scratch is an exercise in frustration.
    It’s the whole hate-the-sin but love-the-sinner thing.
    Yeah, but in the case of sexual orientation, it isn’t what we do, it’s part of who we are. Whether I have ever or will ever have lesbian sex is irrelevant next to whether I can have lesbian sex with the person I’m legally married to, or whether I can have lesbian sex at all without risking being fired for not being straight. You can’t say you love me without caring that I’m bisexual while saying you hate the lesbian sex I’m having; lesbian sex is part of being a bisexual woman with a girlfriend, and if you hate part of me that I couldn’t change even if I wanted to…
    (Not that I am actually having any sex, lesbian or otherwise. See also, reasons social anxiety disorder sucks.)

  • Bryan Swartz

    “Can they kiss and grope and anything else that falls short of actual penetration and still be biblical? I’m actually not trying to be silly here or graphic for its own sake, but trying to get at something that any Rulebook Christian is going to have to deal with. Is staying within the letter of the law enough, or do you look to other things too?”
    What Jesus said about lust in the sermon on the Mount. The temptation is not sin. Indulging the lust in your mind, or any act towards sexual fulfillment, is wrong. This is why, in the area of sexual ethics(and just about everything else as well), the well-instructed Christian knows that what you think is the key battleground. Control the mind and the body will follow.
    Once again I must retire for the night.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    Earthquake, San Diego, more to follow.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I’m on the 11th floor, feels pretty wobbly…

  • TenorMom

    Bryan Swartz said: What I think is appropriate is to re-evaluate whenever such conflicts are seen. But re-evaluate everything, with the understand that biblical truth trumps everything else including our senses. Isn’t that the whole point of what faith is?
    *NO*. That is most emphatically (imho) not what faith is. “Faith” as a blind closing of the eyes (and mind) is a relatively new meaning for this word. For most of its life, it meant *trust*, and had a rather substantial intellectual component. It at least meant that the person had given the matter prolonged, serious thought, as fully as they were able. That’s why when I read contemporary prayers or other contemporary books or such that appear *to me* to use “faith” as mindless assentation, I automatically substitute “trust” and see if I can still make sense of what is being said. (Whew. Now I’ll go back & probably find someone else said that hours ago and much more succinctly. Ah well.)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    Earthquake: Initial report a 5.9 near El Centro. All ok here. Sorry to cause panic, but it shook me up and I needed to share.

  • http://briervineyard.blogspot.com Kirala

    Maybe I’ve been a Lewis fangirl for too long, but I really don’t see the hate in his work that others are seeing. While the female characters in his stories don’t always come off too well (That Hideous Strength in particular contains much that frankly pisses me off. What, was the story written after he’d been snubbed by an educated woman wearing sensible shoes?), it’s hard to see how anyone who was friends with Dorothy L. Sayers and married Joy Davidman Gresham could possibly have been a hater of intelligent, opinionated, strong women who had sex.
    This.
    Lewis was probably pretty darn terrified of women for much of the time he was writing – boys playing with other boys in their No Girls Allowed clubhouses often are – and so adhered dogmatically to tradition and history in precisely the wrong ways. Then he got married and had better things to do (although Orual in Till We Have Faces is quite a compelling character, possibly due to Joy’s influence). So ignorance, prejudice, fear, smugness – but I don’t see any hate.
    Then again, I also have a problem with the term “homophobia,” because I think a distinction ought to be drawn between a person who has an actual fear of homosexuality (which they wish to overcome) and a person who has a blind hatred of it. A distinction ought also to be made between misogyny and gynophobia.

  • Pius Thicknesse

    Re hate the sin etc.
    Some sects of Christianity even teach that “Satanic influences” can be had just by being near things that are incompatible with Christianity. Because Satan is supposed to be the “Prince of the Air”, who and what a person surrounds him/herself with influences his or her thinking. So even just having, say, a book on psychic stuff, is supposedly a gateway or an influencing factor in Satan being able to lure you away from being a Christian.
    So seen in this light, being gay would be like having a self-repelling field pushing one away from being a Christian, and that kind of thinking easily leads to the notion that homosexuals and bisexuals are inherently inferior and unworthy of consideration as human beings.

  • Little Boots

    I withdrew that “pass” comment, but I think you did take a pass on my first two posts. No matter. I really do wonder about that other thing: Is there any place in the Bible itself where anyone says, This Is All True? It could just be a collection of stories and wisdom literature, like many other religions, and somehow maybe we’ve all decided it’s literal and inerrant, and all got caught up in that. I’m no Protestant, so I’ve never read the whole thing, so I appeal to you who know, does the Bible itself actually claim to be complete, inerrant, or literally true, anywhere.

  • Little Boots

    And yeah, Kirala, I think “homophobe” is a bit precious. Anti-gay Bigot would be much more honest in most cases.

  • Spearmint

    Long comment is long:
    A blood sacrifice is required.
    By rules God himself wrote, and presumably could alter at his discretion. The blood sacrifice doesn’t actually do anything to compensate for evil. It’s just a yummy snack. It’s not like cosmic balance is somehow at stake here.
    Theodicy is one of deepest, most complex areas of theology and the greatest of theologians cannot fully answer all the questions that surround it.
    And yet the stupidest of atheists can.
    “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
    “Why not?”
    But I feel the same way about it that I do about Robert Byrd.
    Wait, Robert Byrd was in the Hitler Youth?
    @Bugs re. Thri-Kreen v. Aslan:
    You know what, I… I kinda do. Thought Screen ! Ah, that’s better.
    Haha WIN.
    @Bryan: re. Jesus and Genesis
    All the quotes about Jesus being present at creation came from other people, not Jesus himself.
    And his own information would have to come from God- presumably he doesn’t remember the whole divine plan when he’s incarnate, or we wouldn’t get the “Why hast thou forsaken me?’ stuff.
    There are a lot of places where error could be introduced short of Jesus lying. Which is not to say he wasn’t lying, because he could have been and that might be morally defensible as well.
    Certainly it would make his reporting on Hell look more reliable if he endorsed Genesis and it was correct, but since a) it’s demonstrably inconsistent even within the Bible and b) it’s clearly scientifically nonsensical, that’s a moot point. The question now is whether the inconsistency and scientific inaccuracy of Genesis necessarily invalidate Jesus’s claims about salvation, and I see no reason why they would.
    This keeps getting brought up like it has something to do with me. I’ve stated repeatedly that I am in favor of legalized same-sex marriage. If that’s not the issue that you are going on about, what is?
    The fact that you don’t use your beliefs as an excuse to oppress others doesn’t mean that no one is. As long as anyone is, the source of those beliefs is a concern to everyone.
    Also, in a pluralistic society, it’s none of your concern(though I enjoy discussing my beliefs) to condemn someone’s opinion
    What? Yes it is. I’m not allowed to forbid you to express your opinion. I’ve got every right to form my own opinion that your opinion sucks, and tell you so. That’s how societies develop the shared set of beliefs and values that hold them together.
    It does present principles that can be applied to these areas however.
    So what principle have you extrapolated to make masturbation an abomination?
    I too would be fascinated to see you reconcile first and second Genesis.
    Do you think they would change their mind about Genesis if an angelic demonstration told them to?
    Speaking for myself, no, but I’d at least believe in the existence of angels, which would make a lot of Bible stories seem much more plausible. I’d still need a damned good explanation for how there are 3.5 billion year old rocks on a 6000 year old planet, but then, I suppose Gabriel must get asked that a lot, so they probably have some sort of stock answer prepared.
    But God is more interested in your motive than your action
    Why? If he truly loves everyone, surely he’d prefer actions that do good for others to thoughts that benefit only the ultimate fate of your own soul.
    In that case I disagree with ‘you all’. If that means you think I should shut up and go away, I’ll strongly consider that if requested.
    No, we welcome civil debate. Incivil debate too, unless you’re a troll.
    Glorifying God is the most important goal.
    Why? I’m honestly curious here. According to you it makes people feel good, but not everything that makes one feel good is a moral action (see: your views on masturbation). God created us to do it, but that doesn’t make it a moral action either. So why is this such a good objective?
    @Art:
    Congratulations, you are today’s recipient of the coveted Shiva-trampling-the-head-of-the-Dwarf-of-Ignorance-into-the-ground-with-facts-about-the-world Award.
    @Little Boots: re. passive-aggressive whining about people not replying to you:
    1. Bryan is a n00b too; the hive-mind has not assimilated him yet and we therefore don’t control who he chooses to reply to
    2. There’s actually no hive-mind
    3) I choose to reply to things because either a) they were awesome and deserve applause or b) I feel I have something intelligent to say in response. I don’t check the byline first. I imagine most of us reply similarly. Bryan and Sayel got plenty of comments because we disagree with them, not because they were speshul.
    4) That said, carriage returns are your friends. No one wants to read a giant block of text; put in paragraphs and you may get more responses.

  • Little Boots

    And Bryan, I guess the question becomes, Why aren’t you in favor of banning homosexuality, if the Bible clearly condemns it and this is the Word of God? What else really matters if not that? Why would you compromise on that? Is it separation of Church and State? And how is that okay, biblically?

  • Little Boots

    though I don’t think that’s entirely honest, spearmint, it doesn’t matter. And yeah, I was being a little passive aggressive. No matter. Though I’m not really supposed to believe it was a lack of paragraph breaks, am I?

  • MercuryBlue

    On the word ‘homophobia’: how about ‘heterosexism’? Doesn’t have the ‘fear’ etymological connection and doesn’t imply that sexual orientation is a binary.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    Earthquake downgraded to 5.7 “Upon Review”. All ok here. Catching up on reading.

  • Little Boots

    heterosexism works, in a way, it just sounds sounds so drearily academic.

  • hf

    It also says nothing about abortion, the internet, in-vitro fertilization, and 80 bazillion other things. It does present principles that can be applied to these areas however.
    Surely you mean one principle. Paul says explicitly that love sums up all commandments that may exist, and who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
    Ya gotta make a choice here. You can say without self-contradiction that we can’t understand God’s reasoning and that if we don’t understand how a rule serves love we should follow it anyway just in case. (This would mean you shouldn’t try reasoning from principles at all unless you find a direct and indisputable statement of those principles – no, on second thought, not even then. Because you can’t dispute that pro-love stance or the fact that Paul connects this to not harming one’s neighbor, and by ordinary human logic telling teenagers at risk of suicide that all their sexual feelings are evil constitutes harm.) Or you could choose the other path and say that we should always look to the root principle of love. If you go that way then it doesn’t seem like enough to claim that a law served this principle in the past, e.g by working against slave-rape in the Roman empire or (let’s be generous) by helping a small non-nuclear nation surrounded by enemies to maintain a large army. You have to show that an alleged commandment serves love today, in your own life.*
    *or the lives of those you wish to lecture.

  • Little Boots

    Not sure what you mean by angels making the Bible more plausible? Do you mean angels as somewhat independent agents struggling against God sometimes? Angels as imperfect agents of God? Either one would make a lot of things more sensible, but would make the most sense would be everyone stepping down from the whole All Knowing, All Seeing, All Powerful foolishness. Which again raises that question: Does God in the Bible claim those attributes, or is that all extrapolation?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    @Bugmaster, where are you? I’m in South San Diego (a little further south, and I wouldn’t be paying California taxes).

  • Steve Morrison

    Hummingwolf, put me down as another Till We Have Faces fan. I can take Narnia or leave it, but CSL’s take on the Psyche myth is brilliant.

  • Ursula L

    Glorifying God is the most important goal.
    Well, if God isn’t an asshole, then doing what is humanly right, what is kind, what is tolerant, what makes the people around you happier and healthier and stronger, will be stuff that God considers glorifying.
    If God wants glorification in a form that makes people unhappy, that involves doing harm to others, that is unkind to other human beings, that perpetuates discrimination, etc. then God is an asshole.
    Homophobia, anti-gay bigotry, “love the sin, hate the sinner” all demonstrably and measurably harm people in the real world.
    If God finds that “glorifying” that tells us something about God. And it isn’t something nice.
    And if you consider it more important to glorify a God who acts that way, for the sake of a chance at your own salvation, well, that’s selfish, harming others to benefit yourself. And it makes you as much of an asshole as the God you claim wants this behavior.
    My point was about what sorts of arguments work here. I
    f you’re going to be interesting in the long-term discussion, you can’t just claim that this or that is what God wants and is necessary for salvation. You won’t impress anyone, you won’t convert anyone, and you’ll just be being boring. The most you’ll do is convince us that you worship an asshole-God, because the things you’re talking about as glorifying God are things that we know hurt people, and things that many people here have been hurt by. A lot of us consider each other online friends, and no one likes it when their friends are hurt, or when they are hurt. And you’re talking about a version of God that is endorsing this hurt.
    Another point for getting along in discussion here:
    You can’t start with the premise that anything in the Bible is correct. Many people here don’t believe in the Bible as religious truth, and those who do believe in the Bible as religious truth disagree on interpretations. So odds are, no one will share your premise, and therefore no one will take your conclusions seriously. You’ve got to put in a good argument that you’re interpretation of the Bible is correct.

  • http://jamoche.livejournal.com Jamoche

    My first stop after an earthquake: The “Did you feel it?” site http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane
  • Little Boots

    Bugmaster, Hawker, are you both seriously in an earthquake? Are you okay?

  • Dav

    Re: Hate the sin, love the sinner
    Being queer is part of me, in the same way that I am female or white or not a morning person. You can’t edit out the bits of me that you don’t like and call the rest “the real person” unless you’re willing to claim that all sexuality is completely separate from “real people.” Which is bull, frankly – people are sexual.
    To argue that gay people need to avoid actually being gay is to claim that they are better off alone, without romantic connections of any kind, longing for love but unworthy of experiencing it. That seems so utterly un-Jesuslike that I don’t think it can be right.
    The difference is even more clear cut for those of us who are bi; if a bi woman falls in love with a man, it is not sinful for her to love him, marry him, support him, nurture him, care for him throughout his life. But if the same woman falls in love with another woman, and does the EXACT SAME THING with her lover, then her actions are sinful and hell-worthy.
    I don’t find Jesus distinguishing much between the recipients of actions; he is notorious for spreading love and healing to the most startling recipients. I have a hard time imagining him amending his commandment to “love, but not if there are gay cooties involved.”
    Paul would, but I’ve long thought Paul’s kind of a jerk. He tries, poor dear, but it’s hard for him.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I’m in Los Angeles. Felt the building sway a bit, but that’s all…

  • Little Boots

    Oh, please, Paul’s the gayest bitch in the Bible. Marry some woman if you absolutely have to, but don’t expect me to like it.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Oh, please, Paul’s the gayest bitch in the Bible

    What, gayer than David ? Cause that dude was pretty gay…

  • Little Boots

    David tried to keep it under wraps once in a while. Paul let his freak flag fly with every letter.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Andrea said:

    While hares don’t chew cud, specifically, rabbits, at least, do a similar thing: eating one of their two types of poop… I say this not to prove anyone wrong or to stir up trouble, but because I have a rabbit living in the main room of the second floor of my house, and I make fun of her for the poop-eating sometimes.

    Oh, I know. :) But the Bible doesn’t list hares as an “animal that eateth its own waste”, but as an “animal that cheweth the cud”. (Or whatever the exact phrasing is.) Though really, I think that habit would be enough to classify lapines as unclean animals, along with dogs.
    Adding to Art’s points about the word “firmament”, the Vulgate Bible translated the word “Raqiya” into Classical Latin using the word “firmamentum”, which means a strengthening or support.
    Bryan Swartz said:

    Could you clarify the meaning of this insult please? I honestly don’t know what you are trying to say here. If I’m wrong, refute what I said.

    An ass-pull is to invent something to support your argument, eg. your claim that the Pharisees weren’t really following Jewish law, but instead were following laws they’d made up.
    Also: note that when they confront Jesus about breaking the Sabbath, he doesn’t say, “Nuh-uh, healing doesn’t count as work.” He doesn’t deny breaking the Sabbath at all. He responds with, “The Sabbath was made for the people, not the people for the Sabbath.”

    “…there’s more faith, goodness, clear-mindedness, and, well, godliness in the words of Christians like hapax, Karen, and Fred, who don’t subscribe to this assertion of yours.”
    Speaking of making unjustified assertions — care to back this up at all?

    Hellooooooo, it’s subjective?
    But since you insist I elaborate: the posts of the people I cited have a certain wisdom and clarity to them; their faith clearly doesn’t require tests, nor does it require shutting out any part of the world. Even when I don’t agree with what they say, it’s obvious that they’ve thought things through, and are willing to treat everyone else as equals whose opinions matter, not poor unfortunates who just don’t know what’s best for them. Their faith illuminates, even for those of us who don’t share it.
    Your posts, on the other hand, are willfully ignorant and intellectually cowardly, yet you act as though you’re dispensing pearls of wisdom, and refuse to acknowledge counterpoints with anything other than glib dismissal or outright ignoring. Your faith doesn’t illuminate, it smothers.
    Yeah, yeah, yeah: “There’s a lot to respond to, I might miss things.” You know what? If a debate doesn’t matter enough to go back and read carefully (making notes in a textfile where necessary) and think through what’s being said to you, don’t bother to participate. Seriously. Saying, “I’m sorry, this is too much for me to handle, I’m bowing out” may frustrate us a bit, but at least it doesn’t feel like an insult.
    And don’t bother to reply with “But I’m not trying to insult or ignore”. If you’ve been told that what you’re doing infuriates people, but you go and do it anyway even though it’s not necessary for your argument, you’re infuriating them on purpose. And trying to deny that you’re doing that is just further insult.
    Also? Admitting that a task is too much for you shows that you’re honest, both with yourself and with others. Acting like your points haven’t been countered when you’re avoiding the most difficult questions is dishonest.
    By the way, I would actually be more interested in seeing you do the hard work of properly addressing all of the questions and counterpoints put to you than I would be in seeing you go away. But your behaviour so far has led me to believe that you’re simply incapable or unwilling, and hiding behind, “But there’s sooooo muuuuuuch, can you guys go back and find the relevant stuff for me?”

    Then show me how I’ve been condescending. If you can demonstrate it, you’ll get an apology. I wasn’t trying to make a proper apology at all, I was trying to express regret. I do regret that the impression of condescension exists. I’m not going to apologize for something that I don’t think was wrong though. That’s dishonest.

    Oh, gee, the fake apology is a good example right there: “I’m sorry you feel offended” rather than “I’m sorry for offending you”. That places the blame to the offended party while absolving yourself of any responsibility, and implies that the other person is simply misguided for finding anything you said or did offensive.
    And I call bullshit on your claim that you “weren’t trying to make an apology, but to express regret”. You know how to do that without pretending to apologize? You say: “I was not trying to be condescending.” Period, full stop. You don’t put an “I’m sorry” if you don’t actually feel sorry (unless you’re being sarcastic). And you know what you do next? You analyze your behaviour and make an honest attempt not to condescend in the future.
    Speaking of pointers about one’s behaviour: analyze the rest of your statements your own damn self. I’m not going to do your homework for you, and I’ve learned not to expect apologies from your ilk in any case. But just because I don’t expect you to apologize, much less have the capacity to recognize your own mistakes, doesn’t mean I won’t call you out on your bullshit whenever I smell it.
    Little Boots said:

    I really do wonder about that other thing: Is there any place in the Bible itself where anyone says, This Is All True?

    Bryan has claimed there are, and provided a few quotes. Other people pointed out the flaws in his “citations”. He has utterly failed to address these counterarguments. Not surprising.
    To Bryan: if you’re thinking of asking, “But where are those counterarguments?” my answer is going to be “Get off your ass and look them up yourself.”

  • Spearmint

    Though I’m not really supposed to believe it was a lack of paragraph breaks, am I?
    No, seriously. I saw your stuff and I scrolled, because you seemed to be on my side so I didn’t feel a burning compulsion to refute you and it was all blockish and long. When I see a giant block of text my brain goes into tl;dr mode and refuses to read stuff of a length I would happily read if the paragraphs were smaller. (For instance, Ursula’s long post up there).
    I ignore half of Lee Ratner’s posts for precisely this reason- I probably know a third as much about the history of the American Labor Movement as I would if he pressed “Enter” more often.
    Not sure what you mean by angels making the Bible more plausible? Do you mean angels as somewhat independent agents struggling against God sometimes? Angels as imperfect agents of God?
    I mean angels as glowy dudes with a lot of wings. I currently am unimpressed by Yahweh’s claims to create columns of fire and so on because I don’t see any manifestly supernatural occurrences in my daily life. If a phosphorescent flying mammal the size of a human shows up on my doorstep, I’m going to have to reevaluate my views about the likelihood of a number of supernatural occurrences, including ones Yahweh is credited for. Genesis, for instance.
    Mind you, this still would lend him no moral authority, but at least his claims to be able to rewrite the laws of physics wouldn’t seem absurdly implausible.
    @Dav and Ursula: well said.
    @Earthquake victims: Take your laptops to a doorframe, ya’ll. I don’t want to see someone’s next post be all “Blah blah theodic,mu7o8j,l78j78″ and then we never hear from them again. O_o

  • Spearmint

    …and having hit “Post” I realize I totally misinterpreted your question, Boots.
    The angels in the Bible do nothing for me. I was talking about if actual angels show up at my house.

  • Little Boots

    oh, okay. I’m kind of intrigued by the idea of angels, as something separate from God, but then even as a Catholic, I was always a natural pagan. One all-knowing, all-blah, blah God always seemed hopelessly boring and stupid to me.
    And just for you, needless paragraph break.

  • Spearmint

    “There’s a lot to respond to, I might miss things.” You know what? If a debate doesn’t matter enough to go back and read carefully (making notes in a textfile where necessary) and think through what’s being said to you, don’t bother to participate.
    In fairness it is all of us vs. one of him. It’s pretty easy to miss points under those conditions.
    I… really don’t feel he’s being as enormous a jerk as you feel he is? He’s been pretty civil in the face of a lot of incivility from us, and he is at least trying to reply to some of the arguments being flung at him from all directions. Blah blah tone argument whatever; I’m not criticizing the people who were justifiably offended and said means things to him, but I think he’s been handling himself fairly well considering. Just to put a differing perspective out there.

  • Pius Thicknesse

    @Bryan:
    Incidentally, I seem to recall you saying something to the effect that glorification of God is the most important thing.
    It seems a bit presumptuous for you to declare that to be true for all 6+ billion people in the world, which is the sense I get from the context.
    We are all different; that means that things that are important to each of us will be different.
    If one does not believe in God, then one cannot make His/Her/Its glorification the most important thing for that would be rather self-contradictory.
    Now I am not saying you, personally, should abandon that, but your faith is not all peoples’, so your prescriptive prioritization is really only useful for you.

  • hagsrus

    There are holes in the sky
    Where the rain gets in
    But they’re ever so small
    That’s why rain is thin.
    Spike Milligan (Silly Verse for Kids)

  • Little Boots

    In fairness to Bryan, Pius, there are plenty of us who would say, “The important thing is to love one another” or “The important thing is to help each other get through this world” or something like that. Is that equally arrogant or is it just expressions of God love that are inadmissible?

  • Dav

    If a phosphorescent flying mammal the size of a human shows up on my doorstep, I’m going to have to reevaluate my views about the likelihood of a number of supernatural occurrences, including ones Yahweh is credited for.
    Me, too.
    I sense an opening for evangelism here. Sure, it would be more work to set up the wires and manage the lighting for house door you knock on, but if the success rate is higher than wearing a shirt and tie, it might be worth it. Plus, think of all the struggling stage artists who’d be thrilled to help out.
    Then again, what if your chosen convert has read the Bible and challenges you to a wrestling contest or other proof of angelic prowess? Dislocating people’s hips might win you converts, but sooner or later, the police are going to start investigating.
    Am I the only one who thinks “glorification of God” is kind of a weird concept? I mean, what does that mean? And why does God want it? It’s so abstract, I’m not sure it’s helpful at all.

  • Little Boots

    Glorification of A god makes some sense. Glorification of THE god seems silly and redundant.

  • Dav

    Glorification of A god makes some sense. Glorification of THE god seems silly and redundant.
    . . . ?

  • Little Boots

    Damn, I sense I’m going to stay up way too late tonight. I blame Jesus.

  • Little Boots

    Dav, if you believe in a single all-powerful God, it’s redundant to glorify It. What the hell does It care? A god, struggling with others, yeah, it makes sense to try to make that one the best and brightest.

  • hf

    I was just thinking that. Well, except for blaming Jesus. (I blame my own arch-nemesis: curse you, linear time!)
    @Dav, I believe our new friend meant that while a human-like deity might seek glorification, a uniquely all-powerful all-creator would not. To my admittedly biased ear, ‘the need to glorify God’ sounds Nietzschean — “Since ‘God’ cannot justify existence, we must create a joyous life that will justify all of history in our own eyes.” (Not a direct quote.)

  • Little Boots

    Yeah, hf, I think that’s actually a little better. It’s not that it wouldn’t care, it’s more like what good would it do. It’s sort of like making your country the most glorious on earth, as opposed to making this universe the … what, best universe ever? What does that even mean?

  • Coyote

    Definitely with the people all for Lewis post-marriage. I can understand why people could recoil from him with so much hate; I still remember reading a paragraph along the lines of “And the people who you -really- have to pity are those poor, contemptible madmen. Man, it must really suck to have no hope whatsoever that you will ever be a ‘real’ full person capable of real thoughts! I really feel for them, in their hopeless holes of utter despair, which they can never ever climb out of” right after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Good stuff!
    But ‘Til We Have Faces is my favorite book of all time, and The Great Divorce is absolutely the best, most… Christian, in the sense of Christ-like, treatment of Heaven and Hell that I’ve -ever- come across. And, as has been said here, Lewis didn’t think of himself as a Real, True Christian, or a great moralist. Doesn’t he introduce Mere Christianity with “So, I screwed up here in a couple of ways, and please don’t judge all of Christendom on my issues” or something?
    Also, although I disagree with Bryan in most ways (and agree that he’s dodging the more difficult questions), he has at least been polite, and I’m honestly very impressed that he’s still trying after fourteen freaking pages of debate. But… it’s a scary place, he’s coming from. Because there is that terror, that What If it’s all wrong, it’s all a Load Of Bunk, Jesus was a madman and we’ve all been deluded, and if you’ve been born, baptized, and raised under serious literalism and inerrancy, then that utter terror is kind of programmed into you. You learn to stop up your ears and ignore the harder questions, because if you don’t, you might not be able to answer them, and then the entire world is Chaos and Hell.
    As for being baptized under the Bible? Yes, there are sects of Baptist who do that. I don’t remember whether I was baptized before Christ, or before Christ and The Word, but it was probably the latter.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/hawkerhurricane Hawker Hurricane

    Quake was in El Centro, about 65 miles east of San Diego right on the Califronia/Mexico border. Just a good shake here.

  • Little Boots

    It’s funny. Bryan should come back. The love is actually kinda flowing for him on this page.

  • Little Boots

    Good to hear, Hawker. Well, not good, but glad for you.

  • Ursula L

    There’s a lot to respond to, I might miss things.” You know what? If a debate doesn’t matter enough to go back and read carefully (making notes in a textfile where necessary) and think through what’s being said to you, don’t bother to participate
    I’d put it the other way around. If you write/post something online, you’re primarily doing it so that others can and will read it. So it is your own responsibility to write well.
    That means spell check, short paragraphs (shorter than you would when writing on paper, as some people are reading on small screens), re-reading and editing before you post, and being very clear that you’re only communicating your text, not your thoughts or emotions, so you need to be much more precise than when speaking aloud (avoid sarcasm and humor unless you mark it.)
    It also means knowing your audience, and the expectations and practices of the community you’re participating in. Including citations if appropriate, and choosing language that fits the community standards.
    And always, always remembering when you’re on a blog, you’re the guest of the blog’s owner, and you owe that person the same courtesy that you’d give them if you were a guest in their dining room.
    Otherwise, you’re coming into the debate and mumbling, shouting, or otherwise making little sense. And you can’t expect people to pay attention if you’re being carelessly unclear.

  • hf

    I do think some of the criticism seems unjustified (e.g. the part about outlawing such-and-such). Bryan seems utterly wrong and logically incoherent about the basic meaning of following his Book’s commandments, as I said on the previous page of comments. And for some reason I get hung up on the little misreadings of metaphor. Really, the use of interest as an explicit metaphor for something else should guide your behavior? Do many shepherds burn goats alive (same chapter)?
    Also, I don’t claim to know the precise meaning, but using the metaphor “theopneustos” for scripture can’t help but suggest breathing life into Adam. For farg’s sake, the same letter-writer supposedly tells us to replace psyche (the type of life-animating soul we’d get from Adam) with divine pneuma or breath.
    But Bryan, you seem quite polite for someone so thoroughly, horribly wrong.

  • http://www.faithmanages.com/ tls

    The problem with the whole “glorification of God” thing is that people take that way too literally, like, we’re supposed to just sit around and contemplate God and how wonderful he is… not really much of a life there, if you ask me, and I think he may’ve had bigger plans than that for us, y’know?
    I think it’s a little more… what’s the word I want here. Abstract? I think that’s probably the right word. Or to be a bit more specific: I think it’s a lot less about sitting around navel-gazing and a lot more about appreciating the world around us, whether it’s marveling at a sunset or laughing at kittens playing or hugging a friend who needs a hug or baking cookies for your office or listening to music or, well, pretty much anything involving love, awe, and respect for the world that was created for us. I can’t imagine God creating an entire world just so we could ignore it in favor of him, y’know?

  • Little Boots

    Bryan, I’m tellin ya, sudden fan base. Wake up!

  • Z Paul

    Just stumbled on this; great stuff here. At the same time, what if we’re wrong? What if the injunction against usury is absolute, and the elders of Baptist Deliverance Tabernacle made a grave error when they signed the papers for the loan?
    While the church’s road-maps are antiquated and the terrain has changed, does that make it safe to change the implications of any verse to conform to the ethics or civic mores of the day?
    “Safe?” some might say, “safe? Doesn’t that imply fear?”
    Perhaps it does, but I don’t see any logical reason to not be afraid. The arguments above, while articulate, don’t ask whether we may be jumping on a bandwagon of progressive Christianity without asking ourselves whether it may – come judgement day – not only be outdated, but horribly wrong.
    All analogies will eventually crumble under too close scrutiny, and the map-terrain works remarkably well for a long time, but we must remember that the current terrain will one day be an absurdity and laughable. One day our values will be regarded as outdated. Will they be seen as progressive? Perhaps some of them. But what does that really mean, and what are we trying to accomplish by adjusting our reading of the scripture to a compass whose North is changing constantly?
    Humanity is historically inconsistent and can’t be relied upon for general good judgement, why should our generation be any different? I’m rather proud of how we as a nation have seemingly progressed toward reason and equality in terms of civil rights. We are innovative and so far, generally sustainable (interesting anomaly with the subprime bust, though; maybe some excessive tendencies there). But we must remember that human senses of justice and reason aren’t necessarily things that God has to be accountable to. If He says something is wrong, then isn’t it? So the question really is, has He definitively said it’s (whatever “It” may be)wrong? This seems to me to be the only vital question that all other points must follow.
    Does this mean I or anyone should agree with no-interest lending, aversion therapy, hormone injections, and so on? Not necessarily. But while those issues will inescapably be found further on down the argument, we can’t change our conclusion because the answers may not be current enough. We must weigh arguments based off their own merit, and not belabor points that just question popularity, shouldn’t we? What “makes sense”, especially to culturally sensitive (a great thing to be) people, doesn’t always make the best or strongest argument for a more liberal interpretation of scripture.
    However well-written, many of the arguments in the original string are running on fumes.

  • Little Boots

    And Ursula, I agree with all of that, well said. We’re still developing a whole ethics and morality of the internet, it’s kind of interesting, but rules and customs are definitely being formed.

  • Little Boots

    tls, do you see all that as in any way different from honoring a world without God? Why does any of that have to be about honoring God as opposed to honoring existence or nature?

  • Little Boots

    To be a little too literal, but what the hell, it’s almost 2 in the morning out here, who cares?
    Godwin’s Law? Is that a kind of Holy Writ on the Internets? Do we all try to follow it in some way, just cause someone once said it, and it kinda made sense? Do we punish those who refuse to honor it?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    From my perspective, the descriptions of “glorification of God” in the Bible really do read like they were meant literally. Of course, the Biblical OT God basically comes off as the ultimate apotheosis of an Earthly king: all the ego, all the petty jealousy, all the paranoia, all the authoritarian control-freak tendencies… But with the celestial power to match. Much of the OT is concerned with various people’s attempts to appease this entity, so that it does not smite them as it did so many others. Thus, it makes perfect sense that such a being would make humans bow down and worship him for all eternity — it’s entirely in character.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Noooooo !

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    damn it curse you typepad

  • Little Boots

    Yes, Yahweh is clearly one of the gods, almost never THE GOD, until the Priest writer, whoever that was, got ahold of him.
    But I’m more intrigued by your second post. NOOOOOO! what?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Deliver me, Oh Great FSM !

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    Noooo, I broke the italics tag, but I seem to have fixed it.

  • Little Boots

    oh, okay.

  • Coyote

    I dunno about fan status, LIttle Boots. Most of Bryan’s posts have left me incoherently spluttering in rage and… incoherence. (Or, alternately, wincing at the memories of when I thought like that.) But you’ve got to hand it to the guy, he is still butting his head against that mountain of granite. Like a mountain goat, except not destined to burn in fiery torment beneath the feet of sheep.

  • Little Boots

    Affectionate contempt? I dunno, I think Bryan got a certain respect here just for sticking it out, and it suddenly came together, late at night. Oh well. And if it’s not prying (oh, hell, it’s totally prying, but) when were you diagnosed? What happened? Are you on meds?

  • Emcee

    While the church’s road-maps are antiquated and the terrain has changed, does that make it safe to change the implications of any verse to conform to the ethics or civic mores of the day?
    Okay…I’m really loathe to say anything on this post, because I’m having a really hard time making coherent sense of it. But, if I understand it, this is a very convoluted version of the “hedge your bets” arguement. It’s “If the atheists are correct, everyone ends up in nothingness, and nobody wins. If the Christians are right, they end up in Heaven, while the atheists end up suffering etenally. So I’ll join the Christians, cuz they might win, while the atheists lose either way.” Which I have so many problems with, I don’t know where to start.
    Let’s start with, this is a really bad reason to believe in something. In fact, I don’t see how you can truly believe if you are just trying to beat the system. Which sort of defeats the purpose.
    Then there’s the fact that I get to live my life honestly and more fulfilled, not following a bunch of decrees from a being who was supposedly an all-powerful creator, but gave me the ability to not believe in him (which seems to be self-defeating).
    Then there’s the issue that a lot of what we are talking here isn’t about conforming to the ethics or civil mores of today, but to objective and scientific fact. The fact that the Earth is more than 6000 years old is demonsterably true. So say otherwise is to ignore fact and is not going to change in the next millenia.
    And I’m sure there’s more to say, but it’s really late…

  • Little Boots

    And of course, what does “believe” really mean in that context, emcee? Mostly it seems to mean, “pretend to believe.”

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    This is flatly false. Which points of yours have I not responded to? Beyond that, I’ve been responding to all kinds of off-track things in this thread. Unless what you mean by ‘regurgiate his points’ is ‘he refuses to shut up, beg our forgiveness for joining the discussion, and admit that he’s being a moron in all respects’, I’m not sure what you mean here.
    Oh, things about how your definition of worship is not the same as other people’s, and why should we use yours instead of more usual ones, and the point of faith not being at all that the Bible trumps our senses for most people, and how you should stop making generalizations about faith and worship as if they apply to everyone when they clearly don’t.
    Oh, and this one:

    To ignore one’s own faculties of reason, given to one by one’s god/ess/e/s, is to ignore one’s god/ess/e/s.
    Look, the world is, by your beliefs, your god’s creation, made directly by him. Does that not make it at least as special and important as the book your god dictated through others, which has been edited and interpreted by highly fallible humans along the way? So you can look at the way the world works — and I’m talking about physics and genetics and soforth — and see that it clearly does not work the way the Bible seems to say it works. So why would you not believe that the world is the way it is, and God made it that way, and clearly someone wrote something down wrong somewhere along the way — transcription error or something — or else you’ve misunderstood the verse because you’re a fallible human? Why not believe in the infallibility of your god by believing in the infallibility of the world?

    And anybody who insists that there are no contradictions to be found in literal readings of the first two chapters of Genesis, rather than actually addressing the problem, is in fact just regurgitating points rather than engaging honestly with them. You don’t have a real answer for that one, so you’re just going to deny that any problem exists.
    I don’t want you to change your faith — I don’t care what the fuck you believe, if it works for you, more power to you — I just want you to not be a dick about it.
    Oh, and just because you’re in favor of legalizing same sex marriage (and please stop saying gay marriage, it’s insulting to bisexuals like myself, among others) doesn’t mean you aren’t a homophobe and doesn’t mean you aren’t being insulting to queers.
    But in the end, if I could find none, then I must have faith in God.
    And AGAIN, why does having faith in your god mean believing the Bible above the rest of Creation?
    Humanism and Christianity are incompatible.
    No. No, no NO NO! Christianity and your rather limited little version of Christianity are incompatible. You keep making the assumption that only you have true faith, true worship, true Christianity. This is condescending, and it’s what we mean when we say that you are a Real True Christian: that you keep claiming that only your Christianity is the right one.
    How is it double-think? I don’t think you understand what homophobia is. It’s the whole hate-the-sin but love-the-sinner thing. I don’t have to agree with what you do to love you. This is the foundation of all truly valuable friendships IMO. The openly gay friends I’ve had(past and present) who know EXACTLY what my opinion of this issue is speaks to that as well.
    “Some of my best friends are X,” doesn’t excuse any kind of bigotry. And as a queer person, I think I know a hell of a lot better than you do what homophobia actually is, and considering my love to be a sin definitely qualifies. It qualified when it was my baby brother spouting that line of nonsense (to his credit, he didn’t deny it), and it qualifies when you do.
    And hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner also qualifies as passive-aggressive, by the by.
    Try making pie crust from scratch, and success is rewarded by it tasting so much better, but achieving successful pie crust from scratch is an exercise in frustration.
    Oh, bah. There are some extremely easy pie crust recipes out there. What it’s not easy to do is teach yourself to make pie crust. It really, really helps to have someone around who knows how to make it, and so knows what kind of texture you’re looking for.
    Alternate term for homophobia? How about “heterosexism”? (Oh, MercuryBlue got there first, oh well.)
    Mind you, we’re kinda stuck with homophobia for now, and in fact the suffix phobia means more like “irrational fear or loathing,” (arachnophobia is still used for people who feel compelled to kill any spider they see) but whatever.
    Little Boots, is your handle intended as a reference to Caligula? (I’m a classics nerd, “Little Boots” always makes me think of Caligula.)
    telling teenagers at risk of suicide that all their sexual feelings are evil constitutes harm.
    Quoted for truth.

  • Coyote

    Affectionate contempt! Yeah, that about sums it up.
    And nah, prying’s cool with me. It’s way better than “Ugh, that’s not something to brag about.” I was diagnosed… about age seventeen? Three years or so ago, right around Christmas. I’d always suspected there wasn’t something quite right about my head, and knew full well my mom had the disease (that’s a long, long story, though, and part of why Lewis’s “Ah well, sucks to be you people” stung me so much, because I was -fully- aware of the damage mental illness can do). The crux came when I started hearing not-fully-coherent voices, and seeing not-fully-formed shapes, always on the edges of perception. So I went to the psychiatrist, got diagnosed, and started taking meds, which worked until I graduated and ran out of health insurance.
    So, technically not taking meds, but generally managing anyway. I’m lucky in that my hallucinations are generally pretty easy to figure out. The paranoia can be reasoned with– it doesn’t go away, but you can kinda sorta ignore it.

  • MercuryBlue

    That’s Pascal’s wager. Which fails for neglecting to take into consideration the mutually exclusive nature of the Christian and Islamic hells, not to mention the multitude of beliefs about the afterlife in nonAbrahamic religions and the possibility of a god who only rewards those who don’t believe in any gods. And so forth and so on. There’s lots on the Internet about the fail of Pascal’s wager.

  • Little Boots

    Glad to know, well, really glad to know, you’re dealing. Wish you could get the meds you need, but hey, we’re only the richest country on earth. What’re we supposed to do. But that is really interesting, and it sounds like you’re doing okay. Only ever had to deal with depression, which, let’s face it, is a whole lower level of extreme. It’s interesting you can recognize hallucinations and paranoia, and reason them away. Did not know that about the disease.

  • Little Boots

    Mad, it started so long ago. There was this thread on a different site, somehow bringing classical Roman history and the Bush Cheney monstrosity together, and somehow Little Boots seemed to fit. Now c’est moi. I try to change sometimes, but it’s my internet name, and that’s just how it is.

  • Francis D

    The God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart could not be said to be infinitely merciful in the sense that you seem to mean it.
    No. He could be said to be a sadistic dick. Oh, and evil for that little stunt. How many people did he gratuitously kill in the massacre of the first born, merely because he wanted to show off?
    And if God actually wanted to show off, why not create something truly impossible – like floating rock bearing His words? No need to harm anyone, and far more towards his stated goals than either the Bible supposedly being his innerant word or torturing people.
    God is love, which means he hates and judges evil.
    He is love, so he hardens someone’s heart? Riiiight. He judges evil, so he creates hell – which is far more evil than anything any mortal man can ever do. If God really created a place of eternal torment (Hell) and sentences people there, he is not morally fit to lick the shit of Adolf Hitler’s boots.
    God is gracious, but also has the purity of holiness which means he cannot approve of evil.
    To paraphrase Fred (mostly because I can’t find the quote), “I’ve met many people who strove to be models of purity. They’ve all been judgemental jackasses. It’s also been my genuine pleasure to know a few people who strove to be models of God’s love. They all were also exemplars of purity.” Purity as a goal leads to problems.
    It is impossible for God to be holy and at the same time not demand payment for sin.
    Why? God set the rules. Therefore God decides what Holy is. Therefore the only reason Jesus had to be crucified is because God’s injured pride demanded it. You get absolutely no points for paying off someone eles’s “debt” when the only reason it’s owed is because you’ve set the rules to ensure it is.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    @MadGastronomer:

    No. No, no NO NO! Christianity and your rather limited little version of Christianity are incompatible.

    I agree with almost everything you said (*), but, to be fair, you don’t have the “true faith, true worship, true Christianity” any more than Bryan does. The best you could say is, “my version of Christianity differs greatly from yours (**)”, or “the general consensus of the majority of Protestant Christians disagrees with you”, or something like that.
    BTW, I’m one of those people who’s willing to give Bryan the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he’s malicious or deliberately condescending; he’s just rather inexperienced at this whole “debate” thing. That said, he hadn’t acknowledged any of my comments so far. Maybe he’ll get to them later… Hmmmmmmm…
    (*) Minus the pie stuff; I couldn’t bake my way out of a paper bag, so I have no opinion on the matter.
    (**) Speaking purely hypothetically here, since IIRC you’re some sort of a heathen, heh :-) Unless I’ve mistaken you for someone else…

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    I agree with almost everything you said (*), but, to be fair, you don’t have the “true faith, true worship, true Christianity” any more than Bryan does. The best you could say is, “my version of Christianity differs greatly from yours (**)”, or “the general consensus of the majority of Protestant Christians disagrees with you”, or something like that.
    Actually, I’m not claiming to. His version of Christianity is limited in its vision and scope, in the understanding of the universe it offers him, so I call it limited. Any viewpoint is limited, of course, but I do think his version more limited than many I have seen.
    And I don’t think there IS a One True Christianity, which is actually kind of my point: he keeps insisting that his definitions are the Right Definitions, and I keep pointing out that there are lots of other definitions, and what makes his better than anyone else’s? I’m not specifying one that I think is correct, though. I just have definitions that work best for me. Definitions are (ha! by definition!) not objective, but are at best the subjective ones of a large group of people.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    All this talk of purity inevitably makes me think of the other kind of Pi.
    “What makes you think you’re so pure ? You’re not pure. I found it !”
    “Survival of the fittest, Max, and we’ve got the fucking gun !”

  • Little Boots

    And just how pure does anyone really want to be? Really? Pure is virginal. And who really, truly values that in our society, even in themselves?

  • Coyote

    He judges evil, so he creates hell – which is far more evil than anything any mortal man can ever do. If God really created a place of eternal torment (Hell) and sentences people there, he is not morally fit to lick the shit of Adolf Hitler’s boots.
    Doesn’t it say at least once that Hell was made for the Devil and his angels? IE, those who actively -chose- it, by rebelling against Heaven? (Which is why The Great Divorce is so much win.) Baptists handwave this, IIRC, by saying “Oh, it was -made- for the Devil and his angels, but then God had to modify it for humans, since we fell into the Devil’s trap.” But that’s always seemed like a paper-thin excuse– and it also doesn’t fit with the idea of Omniscience, I don’t think. I think humans have to choose hell– by which I mean actively reject Good, Light, (and, possibly, Dark), Love, Laughter, Music, Joy… Good– in order to get there.
    @Little Boots
    Thanks. Graduating and going without meds was, in some ways, a really good thing for me, because in light of the health care thing, I wound up going “Holy shit, if this sucks for me, how much does it suck to be someone who can’t afford pain meds for their chronic diseases? Or a new cane when their old one breaks? Or appendix removal?” I mean… wow. Just, wow. (The film “A Beautiful Mind,” for all it’s a bit of a romanticized view of John Nash’s life, kind of deals with hallucinations quite well. They don’t necessarily go -away-, but you can get around them. Same with paranoia. I’ll always find myself wondering if that metal box has a camera in it, but I can reason myself out of trying to take it apart, or distract myself from thinking about it.)

  • Anton Mates

    Bryan,
    I know you’re probably swamped with responses at this point, so there’s no need to respond to the other comments I made earlier, and I’ll bow out now. Just a couple of remaining points–and again, you needn’t respond if you don’t have time.

    Do you think they would change their mind about Genesis if an angelic demonstration told them to?

    Sure. Of course, the angel would have to actually demonstrate the literal truth of Genesis, not just order them to believe it–and that would involve explaining away all the apparent contradictions between Genesis and available evidence. But if Genesis is literally true, an omniscient/omnipotent deity would certainly be able to provide his messenger with such an explanation, no?

    The alternative to free will is a world of robots. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine why God chose to create the former.

    I do. If you’re like me, you probably haven’t met an awful lot of robots, and you certainly haven’t met a robot crafted with all the power and skill a deity could muster. So how do you know that robots are the only alternative to free will, and how do you know that such robots would be inferior to the current model of human (however you judge inferiority)?
    Incidentally, as I understand it you believe that heaven is free from sin. So if God can’t create free-willed creatures without their sinning, does that mean that heaven is robots-only?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/shiftercat ShifterCat

    Spearmint:

    I… really don’t feel he’s being as enormous a jerk as you feel he is? He’s been pretty civil in the face of a lot of incivility from us, and he is at least trying to reply to some of the arguments being flung at him from all directions. Blah blah tone argument whatever…

    First of all, tone argument counts for a lot, at least from my point of view.
    Second… well, I’ve been around for several dogpile-on-one-or-two-posters arguments before. If it were just a matter of missing the occasional thing, and going back to answer as conscientiously as possible when called on it (as I’ve seen other people do when they’re dogpiled), I’d have a bit more sympathy. As it is, he keeps saying the same things over and over, most notably the “all or nothing” argument, and they’ve been rebutted over and over — at that point, there are simply too many counters to “miss” all of them. Yet he keeps on doing it. That makes me suspect bad faith.
    Something else that makes me suspect bad faith: the constantly asking other people to find or reiterate previous posts for him. I’ve run into people who try to derail an argument with rapid-fire, “When did I do this?” “When did you do that?” questions; it tended to be either an attempt to turn the conversation into a Battle of Anecdotes, or an attempt to swamp the other person with distractions until they threw up their hands and left. I’m not going to accuse him of this without a solid reason, but the suspicion is there.
    And, I must admit, two things that are virtually guaranteed to make me go from zero to pissed-off: willful ignorance and arrogant condescension. The former, I can’t respect. The latter, I can’t abide. The combination fills me with contempt. And unlike other people, “affectionate contempt” isn’t an emotional combination I’m comfortable with; it feels a bit too close to being patronizing.
    Ursula L. said:

    If you write/post something online, you’re primarily doing it so that others can and will read it. So it is your own responsibility to write well.

    Well, yeah, I agree. That’s one reason why I use EditPad to write things out, and often take a while composing.
    And now I really must go to bed. Thankfully, I don’t work tomorrow.

  • ako

    I think I could be persuaded by an angelic visitation. It’d depend on the particulars, of course. If it was an angel disguised as a normal person, or one that appeared to me while I was delirious with fever and alone in the room, or seemed to be wearing cheap costume wings and didn’t do anything noticeably supernatural, then I wouldn’t be convinced. But if, for instance, it swooped down one day from the sky, summoned up a vision of God creating the world according to Genesis, and said “In the name of the Lord, I show you this!”, and I had no particular reason to believe I was off my head, I’d believe. I’m fairly easily persuaded to believe what I see and experience.

  • http://apocalypsereview.wordpress.com/ Pius Thicknesse

    I’ve said this before, but I’ll tell you what would make me go from zero to infinite in how fast I would believe in any supernatural entity that left a clear calling card:
    Violation of natural law in a verifiable way.
    Even just breaking the first law of thermodynamics would be all right with me, but… oh, let’s see, a parity-violating electromagnetic interaction, breaking the uncertainty principle (simultaneous measurements of complementary variables NOT disturbing the system under consideration by the fact of measurement), or other similarly rarefied situations.
    Actually, suppressing the weak interaction would be another immensely immediate proof, since this also violates natural law as we know it (it would require destroying the exchange particles involved, and the immediate consequence would be the disappearance of beta decay radioactivity).
    So, yeah. Quite a few candidates exist for immediate worship by yours truly, yet said deities seem oddly reluctant to do such things. XD

  • anon for this one

    I’d love to give the world a hug.
    I’ll settle for a corner of the internet.
    Anyone who reads this is given an infinite amount of the best internet hugs I could possibly give you, anytime you want one, for any reason.
    There is someone human out there who wants you to be comforted and congratulated in good times and bad times. I love you all.
    Even J and all the Brians. :)

  • anon for this one

    Feel free to pass that on, if you want to. :)

  • Mark Z.

    When this was brought up earlier, I assumed(apparently incorrectly) that it was sarcasm. God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. This is not the same as God infused man with sinless perfection. Different words, different contexts, different meanings between the two passages.
    The same words. Human life is God-breathed. Absolutely nobody says this means “sinless perfection”. Yet Paul describes the scriptures as “God-breathed” and you take that to mean “perfectly true”. Where do you get this?
    Others have argued this point so I’ll spend some time on it. He says inspired(“God-breathed”) and the rest of verse says: “and is profitable …” in other words, inspired/is profitable for are two separate things.
    You say they’re separate things, I say he’s making a general statement and then clarifying with details. Seems we have a conflict of interpretation.
    Something can be true/inspired/God-breathed and not be profitable for the things mentioned. He could have done a dissertation on the chemical properties of G2 stars, but that would not have fit the following description.
    Not in the letters of Paul, because there was no word for helium back then. If you think I’m nitpicking your example just to be difficult, think a little harder. There is a point here.
    The statement is that it is both true AND profitable for the mentioned activities.
    No, the statement is that it is both inspired and profitable. Now you’re trying to write your preferred interpretation back into the text. Cut it out.
    But let’s go beyond that. Let’s consider the phrase ‘the Word of God’. We find this all over the place in the NT. The OT is called the Word of God(Mark 7:9-13). Jesus’s message was the Word of God(Luke 5:1).
    And yet relatively little of that message made it into the Bible. We have a few sermons, a few parables, conversations with a handful of people. It seems “word of God”, as the phrase is used in Luke, doesn’t mean “the Bible”. It’s its own thing.
    I suggest you look at the way the term “word of the Lord” is used in the Hebrew Scriptures: for prophetic statements spoken to specific people for an immediate purpose. I’ll make it easy: here’s a search in the NASB for that phrase. Like 1 Kings 17: “The word of the Lord came to him [Elijah], saying, depart from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan.” And a little later, the word of the Lord tells Elijah to leave the brook and go to Zarephath. I’d argue that the word of the Lord in that sense really is infallible–he goes to Cherith and there are indeed ravens that bring him food. But it’s appropriate to that moment. It doesn’t mean that if I go to Cherith that is east of the Jordan I’ll be fed by miraculous ravens.
    (Also, ravens? Scavengers. Ritually unclean, as is anything they touch or feed on. That’s right, the word of the Lord told Elijah to violate the rules in the Bible.)

  • http://jamoche.livejournal.com Jamoche

    NOOOOOO! what?
    Italics. It’s the curse of Typepad: forget or typo your close-italics tags, and on some browsers it’ll be italics all the way down. Previewing doesn’t help, because that’s the one part of Typepad that manages to figure out that there are missing tags to be closed.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    italics all the way down
    I thought it was turtles all the way down.
    Maybe the turtles are italicized?
    Or maybe I just haven’t had enough sleep and the cider is getting to me now.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    I totally forgot: You’re right, Bugmaster, I am some variety of heathen (though not Heathen). More precisely, I describe myself as a Hellenic-Eclectic Solitary Wiccan, and a part-time Discordian.

  • alfgifu

    Oh dear.
    First of all, an apology. I am away with work all week and haven’t got time to read more than a couple of pages of the discussion since my last reply, and I probably won’t be able to come back and respond to this one. I just wanted to add some thoughts.
    The thing is, I really like C.S. Lewis. I enjoy his work. I’m not saying I agree with all his ideas, or anything like that. But when my own depression was as bad as it got, I found freedom, support and (yes) inspiration to be a better person in his work.
    One thing about Lewis is that he was honest enough to change his mind when he got things wrong. Take his treatment of women. Even more than Tolkien, Lewis grew up and lived in a male world. He had no close female relatives around when young. He went to a boy’s school, fought in a man’s war and lived and worked in an entirely male environment. It wasn’t until quite late in life that he actually started meeting women.
    Look at the development of female characters in his books.
    First you have the ‘nut-brown girls’, or whatever they’re called, in the Pilgrim’s Regress, set against the glorified ‘Lady Reason’. It’s entirely Madonna/whore territory, and the female figures are there to illustrate the journey of the male narrator. It’s a straightforward (and self-important) allegory about the general unworthiness of the self-insert main character.
    From there go to That Hideous Strength. Five or ten years down the line, Lewis attempts to write an everyday woman and produces the strange unreal Jane Studdock. I agree, by the way, with whoever said that Mark Studdock looks like Lewis’ self-insert. There’s a similarity to the narrator of Pilgrim’s Regress, who is an intentional self-portrait. But otherwise you see a rather crass and ignorant attempt to draw a picture of what Lewis thinks a woman might be and should be.
    Then, Narnia. In one place, he’s saying ‘battles are ugly when women fight’. In the next few books, his female characters start taking part in battles – Lucy and Susan’s archery gets more useful, Aravis steals her brother’s armour and runs away from an arranged marriage, and Jill turns out to be better at ‘woodcraft’ than the boys. They develop more personality, as well.
    Finally, Till We Have Faces. Orual, the main character, is female. She’s also a strong political and military leader who has several lovers over the course of the book, with a flawed but internally consistent character who (this being Lewis) engages in a life long struggle with the divine.
    I’d hold Orual up against Eowyn as a powerful female character any day of the week.
    I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that Lewis may have been flawed, but he struggled with his own bigotry and you can see his position changing. And while he certainly did have a big pulpit, he often talked about how he didn’t feel that he could set himself up as an authority. He states clearly that he is a layman, with no special knowledge, who is only sharing his own thoughts and positions which have no authority. Even in Mere Christianity he starts out by saying that he is no theologian and is only talking about his own ideas on Christianity. It’s true that he has been treated like the fifth Gospel writer by a lot of people ever since, but that wasn’t his own assessment of himself.
    Also, the Problem of Susan – my impression is that the whole of The Last Battle was a thought experiment along the lines of The Great Divorce, and Lewis needed someone to leave out. Given that Susan is the character who he has shown previously having the most difficulty accepting the strange and magical stuff associated with Aslan, she’s the obvious choice. She’s the most sceptical, and the most committed to the real world, so she gets the boot. I don’t think it has anything to do with incipient sexuality, necessarily – she wants to be a grown up because that shows that she is rejecting the reality that a simple child can accept in preference for a less real world that a young adult thinks is far more important. Add in Lewis’ general ignorance about women and you get an accidentally ugly picture. I do think that it was a terrible idea to try that sort of thing in a book aimed at children. It doesn’t work, and it has all sorts of unpleasant implications.
    Thanks for your concern, Kit. The depression is not such a big thing for me now – it hasn’t gone away, but I know what it is, which makes a huge difference. I think I’ve got it on the run.

  • Anton Mates

    Lewis-themed Wall O’ Text incoming!
    Spearmint,

    Tolkien, and Shakespeare, and probably every good author ever, grey up their villains as well as their heroes. No reader of Tolkein hates Gollum; you’re not meant to, and in fact it’s through Gollum that the quest succeeds. The shadow lies across every human heart- cutting it out isn’t treated as either possible or desirable. In LoTR Sauron is a cypher rather than a character, but if you read his backstory he comes out looking greyer too.
    Lewis never does this. He’ll slag off his protagonists, but the villains are all unmitigated evil. There’s no goodness or ruined virtue in Jadis- Aslan has mercy for Edmund, a once and future good guy, but there’s no concept that there should be mercy for her. She’s the Other; she’s only there to be hated, battled and defeated, never redeemed.

    I think this is rather unfair. Yeah, Tolkien has Gollum–and to some degree Saruman and Boromir and Denethor–but he also has a crapload of orcs and trolls and other emissaries of faceless evil, who exist only to be destroyed by the righteous. And Sauron, as you observe, is a cipher.
    Lewis, for his part, has quite a few villains with ruined virtues and sympathetic qualities. In the Narnia books, there’s Miraz from Prince Caspian, Digory’s Uncle Andrew Ketterley from The Magician’s Nephew, and arguably Eustace in the first part of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (He’s about the closest thing that book has to a villain, at least, the short bit with Gumpas aside.) Ketterley experiences some redemption, if only in the form of an epilogue, and Eustace of course is redeemed all the way into a Hero.
    In the Space Trilogy, there are Weston and Devine, both exceptional men in their own way. Weston in particular is depicted as a very tragic villain (although Ransom ultimately triumphs against him only by killing his sympathy for Weston and channeling his “perfect hatred,” which is pretty damn icky.) And The Great Divorce is of course full of villainous damned souls who may yet be redeemed; that’s one of the main points of the book.
    (Yes, these grey-area villains are almost exclusively male. And the only female ones I can think of are rendered sympathetic entirely by their status as mothers. But that’s Lewis for you. And after all, if his female villains had any good qualities, you could hardly distinguish them from his heroines!)
    Now it’s true that Lewis’ villains are rarely potently evil and sympathetic at the same time. That seems to follow from his worldview; evil is weakness and smallness and pettiness and void, and is always pathetic if you look at it carefully. No one is really swayed by evil because there is no power to sway other than that given by God, and God is good; hence sin is always a free choice by a formerly good being to reject good. No villain can be less than completely blameworthy for their crimes.
    I don’t think this philosophy is a result of a lack of empathy, though; Lewis holds himself as responsible for his flaws as he does anyone. (This leads to some of the passages I find most painful to read, where he seems to argue that people with depression are to blame for letting Satan seduce them into being depressed…and he doesn’t seem to realize that this sort of argument is itself a symptom of depression.)
    hapax,

    Tolkien gets referenced practically every other thread here, and we don’t have obligatory callouts to his racism and imperialism and classism and terribly creepy relationships with real life women.

    I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can see a couple of factors here. Lewis has a much bigger rep as a Christian apologist than Tolkien does–whether or not Lewis himself would think that appropriate. So naturally people are going to be more interested in whether the positions he expresses in writing are morally acceptable. You don’t see many people citing The Hobbit when they’re explaining how best to interpret the Bible.
    Also, no offense to Tolkien fans, but I personally consider Lewis a much better writer than Tolkien, so his flaws interest me more. I feel the same fascination with him as with Lovecraft: how can someone be able to articulate their own mental life with such power and nuance, and apparently be a good friend and kind person to almost everyone they meet, yet have such massive blind spots and prejudices when it comes to viewing others?
    Nothing Tolkien does really resonates with me, so I’m not terribly surprised if his attitudes on race, class, etc. don’t either.

  • ako

    Till We Have Faces frustrated me. The ending felt like a cheat. Although I think that’s something that’s influenced by how you see the whole human-deity relations thing: I’m not convinced of much of anything on the deity front, and have a lot of disagreements on principle with most of the more widespread beliefs on this front. So I’m inclined to take apparent principled disagreement with Gods very seriously, and feel cheated if those aren’t being addressed. I think the whole “What seems to be a grand stand against injustice is really selfishness wrapped up in high-minded rhetoric” trick might satisfy some other people the way it completely failed to satisfy me. When it went “No, actually she’s concerned because of her selfishness!”, I was just left going “What of it? Pointing that out doesn’t answer the questions she raised.” And those questions never were satisfied.
    As far as the Problem of Susan goes, it always struck me as extremely subject to interpretation. Yes, she’s left out of the trip to Narnia because she’s stopped believing and developed some fairly ordinary adolescent vanity. Whether people read this as “She’s damned to Hell for all eternity for being a teenager who likes lipstick”, or “She’s been left out because Aslan knew she wasn’t ready, and she’ll be back with her family after she’s found her faith again” seems to have as much to do with their personal expectations and attitudes as it does with what the book says.
    I did quite like The Screwtape Letters, even with the obvious preachy aspect. I haven’t read The Great Divorce.

  • Francis D

    Doesn’t it say at least once that Hell was made for the Devil and his angels? IE, those who actively -chose- it, by rebelling against Heaven?
    I don’t care. If that’s what Hell was created for and God’s chosen to repurpose it for another group he wants tortured, then it says nothing better about him than if he created it for the purpose of eternal torture.
    I think humans have to choose hell– by which I mean actively reject Good, Light, (and, possibly, Dark), Love, Laughter, Music, Joy… Good– in order to get there.
    And now we’re back to God the Merciless, God the Compassionless. Anyone who chooses to reject all that is mentally ill and as such they need help. Not to rot in hell.
    @Brian
    Do you think they would change their mind about Genesis if an angelic demonstration told them to?
    Depends what you mean “Told them to”. If an Angel came down to me personally and claimed that Genesis was literally true, it would change my mind on some things. I’d start believing in angels. This is new evidence that was not previously available. If the angel simply ordered me to believe in the literal truth of Genesis then I’d believe in Angels – and also that Angels were authoritarian sods who expected me to believe rubbish just because they told me to. If the Angel then went through a demonstration of exactly how the world had been created to look as it did while being consistent with the two (incompatable) accounts in Genesis then I would still want to know why the Universe had been fabricated to look old and therefore deliberately mislead people.
    In short, Angelic revelation would make me change my beliefs because it’s new evidence. It would not necessarily make me change my beliefs to what the Angel wanted.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    Yes, of course, and I found some of it quite enjoyable (but a lot of it was pretty dull), though he’s better known for his fiction.
    Among certain circles. Not everywhere. And as even his fiction was a form of theology, you’re on weak ground.
    –
    @hapax: *isn’t* a stereotypical argument?
    It’s an argument that calls attention to the stereotypes he uses. And if we’re on the subject, “Oh, and did you know Lewis had sadistic sexual fantasies?” is stereotyping what I said. I said it was inappropriate the way he mixed up his sadistic sexual fantasies (which are on record) with his evangelical writing for children. Not the same thing. And not necessarily the worst sin in the world, but symptomatic of his inability to distinguish his own tastes from divine mandates, which is never lovable.
    What I do not tend to find, is that they are evil.
    Okay, that’s how you react to him. I react with visceral recoil, the same way I do to Ayn Rand: reading both their writings gives me an instinctive sense that I’m listening to the inside of a really, really horrible mind. You see a struggling moralist, I see an intellectual thug. You feel his virtues outweighed his faults, I feel his fault outweighed his virtues. Different people see different things.
    As Lewis has more admirers than detractors around here, I sometimes resort to stronger language out of frustration. This is a board with a lot of Christians and a lot of geeks, so a Christian fantasy writer is likely to have plenty of fans; I suspect the fact that I’m into neither makes me less likely to cut Lewis slack because whatever goodies he’s handing out, they don’t fit in my cupboards. He was, at least, a strong personality, and strong personalities tend to elicit strong responses. Anger and condemnation, which are what I feel, are strong reactions, but I don’t think this is because I’m blind to his merits. I just don’t feel they let him off the hook for his vices, which ring louder in my ears than in yours. I don’t think this is unreasonable.
    –
    Oh, please, Paul’s the gayest bitch in the Bible.
    Can we please not use phrases like ‘gayest bitch’?

  • ako

    One caveat on the belief thing – something that would make me believe wouldn’t necessarily make me worship. It depends on what was revealed and explained. If I was going to decide a god was worthy of love and worship, I’d need to be reasonably sure of their basic goodness.
    If, for instance, I saw really strong evidence that God-as-described-by-Bryan exists, and it wasn’t accompanied by anything to help me understand how such a God could possibly be good (because the more I read of Bryan’s description, the harder of a time I have seeing any justice or mercy in the God he talks about), then I’d be more likely to despair than worship.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    It is far better to help the sick, etc, than to not do it. But God is more interested in your motive than your action, and you can’t earn your way to him no matter how many ‘good’ things you do.

    That wrongly takes the focus away on the effects of one’s actions on others. I would argue that a motive to placate authority may sometimes result in charity being a grudging thing. But Fred has made the excellent point in earlier posts that focusing on motive amounts to patting one’s self on the back for being a “good person.” What ultimately matters is how people interact with one another.

    It’s about what love really is, which is doing what’s best for someone. Sometimes the best thing a person can have is some hardship so they will grow to become more complete people. In such a situation, solving their felt need is the least loving thing that can be done.

    No. It’s not your place, or mine, to determine what is best for someone.

    To argue that gay people need to avoid actually being gay is to claim that they are better off alone, without romantic connections of any kind, longing for love but unworthy of experiencing it.

    I would agree with one clarification – they’re already gay because they have gay desires.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I said it was inappropriate the way he mixed up his sadistic sexual fantasies (which are on record)

    I know you referred to some passages in your previous post, but I’d like to see more proof, because so far, I’m rather unconvinced. Yes, Aslan is strong and furry, and Jadis is elegant and sexy in an implicit kind of way, but that doesn’t quite add up to, “hey kids, check out how much fun BSDM is”. I’m open to persuasion, I’d just like to see more evidence.
    As for “anger and condemnation”, it seems like our current discussion of Lewis parallels our earlier discussions of Kipling and Jefferson. Thus, my opinion is the same as before: if you’re going to condemn everyone who’s a man (or, perhaps, even a woman) of his time for not having a perfectly enlightened morality, then you’re going to end up condemning pretty much everyone who has ever lived, including yourself. You’ll end up focusing on all the “vices”, and thus miss all the “virtues”.

  • http://j.com/ Tonio

    I’ll tell you what would make me go from zero to infinite in how fast I would believe in any supernatural entity that left a clear calling card: Violation of natural law in a verifiable way.

    Even in that case, I wouldn’t be prepared to deem it as “supernatural.” It would be possible for the entity to be “natural,” meaning that our previous understanding of physical laws was incomplete. I don’t like the term “violation” in this context because it stands the concept of physical laws on its head – we created the “laws” to codify and categorize the order that we observe in the universe.

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    if you’re going to condemn everyone who’s a man (or, perhaps, even a woman) of his time for not having a perfectly enlightened morality, then you’re going to end up condemning pretty much everyone who has ever lived, including yourself
    That’s an unreasonable parody of what I’m saying. I think misogyny, racism, intellectual bullying and cruel dismissal of the mentally ill fall well below the line of ‘not perfectly enlightened’.
    And the ‘including yourself’ threat isn’t going to work on me. If somebody wants to condemn my morality because they’re doing better, then good for them. I’m glad there are people more virtuous than me. It’s better for the world, and what’s good for the world matters more than what’s flattering to me. Maybe I’ll even learn something.
    I may get to the cites later, but it would involve looking up and copy-typing, and that’s time-consuming and I’m having a busy day. Try, as rough examples: Jadis whipping the horses, the unmanning effect the green witch supposedly has on her knight, the sensual description of Aslan post-resurrection as he romps with the little girls, the grateful pain in the flaying of Eustace. Then look and see if you can find equally passionate and engaged descriptions of physicality in scenes that don’t involve extreme power imbalances. I’m not saying he’s trying to promote something; I’m just saying you can see the workings of his own sensual thoughts in what he chooses to be sensual or graphic about. Like I said, it’s not the end of the world; it’s just like his implication that there’s something more civilised about liking eggs and bacon than fish and white wine: confusing his personal preferences for moral qualities.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    I’m with ShifterCat on the tone argument thing. Being an asshole in polite language doesn’t make you less of an asshole. And I *do* wish Bryan would shut up, and go away, and a number of other things if it comes to that; I think he’s a troll, and if he’s not a troll, he’s a homophobic, bigoted moron, and I have no sympathy. None.
    Also? My friends don’t feel the need to hold interventions for me over something that’s not hurting me–or even something that might theoretically not be in my best interest, like drinking occasionally or eating cheeseburgers or whatever. That’s why they’re my friends: they can distinguish between “stuff I wouldn’t do” and “stuff that’s going to kill you.” Nor did my friends *make* the thing that’s going to harm me harmful for no good reason.
    I’m not gay. But being poly and sexually open is part of me, “hate the sin, love the sinner” is bullshit, and I would spit in Bryan’s face if I met him. And in the face of his “God”. I’m not sure how much clarification “petty, megalomaniacal dickhead” needs, honestly.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/metabug Bugmaster

    I think misogyny, racism, intellectual bullying and cruel dismissal of the mentally ill fall well below the line of ‘not perfectly enlightened’.

    Right, so you’re automatically condemning everyone who is less enlightened than yourself — while reserving the possibility that you might not be perfectly enlightened. Still, as far as you’re concerned, whatever virtuous things these people have accomplished, are completely overshadowed by their “vices”, as you put it.
    There’s nothing wrong with this stance, if you look at it from the strictly moral perspective. However, from a more practical perspective, it makes no sense. Humans do not live in a vacuum; for better or for worse, we are the product of a culture that surrounds us. This means that if absolutely everyone in your culture is misogynistic (by our modern definition of the word), you are overwhelmingly likely to end up being be misogynistic as well — and you’re not going to even be aware of it. Sure, I could demand (retroactively) something better of you, but I might as well demand that you hover in the air by will alone. It’s not impossible, but highly unlikely. I believe that this is the point where righteousness transmutes into self-righteousness — the point where you begin demanding the virtually impossible.
    Or, to rehash a previous example that someone else posted: it is somewhat likely that, in the future, CO2 pollution would be counted as a great sin, and a morally unacceptable act. Have you, Kit Whitfield, done everything you could to reduce your — and your nation’s — carbon footprint ? If not, then why should I listen to anything you say or respect anything you do, the carbon-polluting global-warming-inducing vicealicious wretch that you are ?

    Try, as rough examples: Jadis whipping the horses, the unmanning effect the green witch supposedly has on her knight, the sensual description of Aslan post-resurrection as he romps with the little girls, the grateful pain in the flaying of Eustace.

    I recall the scenes that you mention, and I acknowledge that they could be interpreted as BSDM episodes — but I think that you’d have be looking very, very hard for kinky sexuality in order to interpret these passages in this way… Perhaps as hard as all those Moral Guardians who keep finding secret youth-corrupting messages in Disney movies. If you look hard enough for something, chances are you’ll find it. FWIW, I don’t believe that every expression of “physicality” is necessarily sexual, as you seem to be suggesting.
    As I said though, I’m open to persuasion; I’ll await your detailed analysis.

  • http://isabelcooper.wordpress.com Izzy

    A few specific points:
    “I’m sorry you feel that way” is passive-aggressive. Either you’re sorry for your comments and actions, or you’re not. Hell, hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner is pretty passive-aggressive too. Either grow a pair and admit that you willingly follow the sort of jackass God who would condemn people to hell for doing something that causes no apparent harm and makes them happy, in which case you’re an evil bigot but you might as well admit that anyhow, or grow a pair and actually consider what exactly your beliefs say about the being you worship, and whether that being deserves worship. Either way, stop being a weasel and claiming you really really love me despite my tragic flaws, because fuck that noise.
    Having friends of Persuasion X doesn’t mean anything. (I mean, claiming friends of said persuasion on the Internet *really* doesn’t mean anything, but we’ll let that pass.) As we’ve discussed before, friends are a pretty self-selecting group: you could hang around with gay people who really honestly aren’t bothered by this, but that doesn’t mean all or even most gay people don’t find it a problem that you think a benevolent deity would send them to Hell. Also, you have no idea what your friends think. Maybe they find your views very hurtful but hope you’ll change your mind. Maybe you have some unknown personal qualities that balance out your hateful bigotry in their eyes; maybe they have to hang around you because they’re friends with a friend of yours and blah blah intricate web of social relations; maybe you throw really good dinner parties or have a PS2 or something.

  • http://www.nightkitchenseattle.com MadGastronomer, who is really just very tired

    I agree with Izzy that Bryan’s rude. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Some things cannot be said politely, no matter the tone used to say them, because the content of the message is rude.
    “You’re going to Hell for who and how you love,” is one of those things. So is, “You’re completely wrong about your own religion.”

  • http://www.kitwhitfield.com Kit Whitfield

    This means that if absolutely everyone in your culture is misogynistic (by our modern definition of the word), you are overwhelmingly likely to end up being be misogynistic as well
    Excuse me, did you just define ‘everyone in your culture’ as misogynist men? Are women not part of a culture?
    This is the kind of remark that creates ‘check your privilege’ situations. It’s like saying ‘Everyone in the antebellum South was racist’, as if the slaves somehow weren’t ‘in’ the antebellum South, or ‘Everyone in Victorian England was homophobic’, as if there were no gay people. It’s using ‘everyone’ to mean ‘everyone who was anyone’, and that won’t wash.
    Look, what I’m saying is simple. As I read his stuff, C.S. Lewis seems to have a nasty personality. As I said before, that’s personal, not political. He also has nasty politics, which give his nasty personality plenty of room to work with, but it’s the nasty personality that really gets to me. This is not a general statement about human nature, it’s a statement about the nature of a particular human.
    I think that you’d have be looking very, very hard for kinky sexuality in order to interpret these passages in this way… Perhaps as hard as all those Moral Guardians who keep finding secret youth-corrupting messages in Disney movies.
    Nope, I wasn’t looking that hard. I just got a vibe off them. Same as I wasn’t looking very hard to find reasons to dislike Lewis; it just came naturally to me when reading his stuff.
    Your implication seems to be that if I see things you don’t, I must be struggling to contrive them rather than feeling them as sincere reactions. To which I say: thtp. Why would I waste my time looking for reasons to dislike someone? Sometimes the reasons just jump out; the rest of the time, why bother?

  • http://www.imaginarysite.com chris y

    I think misogyny, racism, intellectual bullying and cruel dismissal of the mentally ill fall well below the line of ‘not perfectly enlightened’.
    Sure, but these attitudes were for most of history in most of the world not simply those of the unenlightened, but those of effectively the whole of society. They were structural, and it’s something that one unavoidably has to come to terms with in dealing with anybody born before, say 1914. A few individuals may stand out in retrospect, but if you peer too closely at even a Wollestonecraft or a Wilberforce what you find is feet of clay to a 21st century sensibility.
    I recently read a book surveying late antiquity (400 – 1000 CE) in Europe and the mediterranean. In a post script the author admitted that he’d asked himself the question: who, of all the myriad people he had researched, would he actually want to meet. He came up with a rather tentative list of four.
    If we come to Lewis’ generation (my grandfather’s) you can legitimately apply a slightly higher standard, but you’re still dealing with a structurally racist and misogynistic society, with an deep authoritarian tradition in the academy as much as elsewhere and a fundamental incomprehension of mental illness. And Lewis was no Wilberforce.
    I can’t imagine I’d have wanted to meet Lewis. It would have been almost impossible to remain civil. But there he is, a significant figure in 20th century letters, and we have to deal with him somehow. I’m unconvinced that the most useful way to do this is to place undue emphasis on attitudes which are simply commonplace. That isn’t to excuse or applaud those attitudes from a modern perspective, but to suggest that we need to see what, if anything, he has worth saying which can be extricated from them. I’d say the same thing about Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible. And Shaw.