Religion

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Chev's interpretation is based on Catholic theology and not personal opinion except in the sense that being Catholic is a personal belief.

 

True, but religion IMO is more about personal beliefs than what the Church wants you to believe.

 

If someone believes that the Religious Organization to which he/she belongs speaks with the authority of God then the dogma of the Organization is the personal belief of the individual.

ie: If you are a practicing Roman Catholic and hold religious beliefs that are contrary to the teachings of the Church that is heresy and in the eyes of the Church a sin.

 

I didn't offer any view or interpretation regarding the sword quotes - neither did Aikanaro. It's just a quote. The interpretation is entirely chevaliers.

However, even a metaphorical sword is used to cut things in two - family bonds in this case.

I personally think that placing any ideal above people will never yield anything good, be it an ideal related to a political ideology, religion or personal world view.

 

That "...not for peace, but with a sword" quote is presented differently in one of the other Gospels, where Jesus says something like "You think I came to bring peace? I came to bring division." Clearly the "sword" in this case is metaphorical, i.e. Jesus came to divide humanity in two: those who follow Him and those who don't. This is backed up by about a thousand other Jesus quotes.

But the "sell your garment and use the money to buy a sword" is different IMO. Pretty literal if you ask me, and considering several of the Apostles were carrying actual swords when Jesus was apprehended tells us that Jesus was okay with carrying a sword around.

 

I find it curious that when the original topic was about atheists being attacked, so many start talking about some silly verses in the bible, which aren't a reason.

 

Do people take religious dogma and the rantings of people on TV (or at the local pulpit) too seriously? Absolutely, and they have for thousands of years (ok, not the TV part). Do people take religious beliefs and a relationship with some kind of supreme being too seriously? Far from it, the vast majority of people around here don't take it seriously enough. If half of the people around here who claim to be christians actually sat down and studied the Bible for ten minutes a day, the religious fervor would plummit and and actual progress would be in sight. I'm not saying it would fix all the world's woes, but it would make this a better place. Unfortunately, most people (in America, at least, and probably everywhere else as well) much prefer to use some vague concept of religions as another way to hate other people and another reason to make trouble, rather than what Christianity (at least) was intended to be.

EDIT:
That "...not for peace, but with a sword" quote doesn't refer to Jesus's desire to bring conflict, but rather a prediction of the inevitable conflicts to come.

 

Well, Jesus's teachings were quite radical given the social and politcal contexts during His lifetime. The local leaders, both politcal and religious, wanted Him to just go away, since He was so good at "stirring the pot," which threatned a break at the political level, but socially and at the family level as well. Probably many orthodox, conservative Jewish family members saw Jesus as a real threat (which he was to the status quo), and it is natural that many would break with other family members who became followers of a "radical", preaching a new Word.

Even today, some family members get very upset if a family member dares to even consider marrying outside the "established family" relgion, such as a Christian Catholic marrying someone who is Protestant, or the reverse. Considering the contexts of the time, it was probably a more serious break, which could split many families. I would believe that many of those in orthodox Hebrew families saw the early followers of Jesus as unholy heretics.

The fact is many of the early followers of the new radical sect, which would become Christianity, showed a lot of courage and conviction to follow a leader who had just been crucified by the Roman and local religious authorities. It was Rome's favorite way of dealing with upstarts and other "troublemakers" within the emipre. I've always found it more than a little ironic that Rome is now the Christian capital of the world and center of Christian belief. That must have been one powerful "sword" He gave them....

[ February 26, 2007, 18:53: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Unholy Heratics. But why? Because they hold dear a different set of beliefs than those of the 'established' religion. Ancient Tomes, Leaders and Policies aside this is what it all appears to be about - sects vying for dominance - monopoly, you might say, in the market of faith. Ive been finding it extremely hard to understand, as an agnostic, the incredible passion people hold for their 'pet' beliefs.

Surely, the established Hebrews - or Romans, as the case may be - found this upstart, underground 'cult' a threat, and, what's more, unholy - so far as their beliefs taught them. Does then the belief held by these people make their faith any more valid than the other?
Does a denunciation of any faith truely cement another in the place of the 'One True'? And, moreover, why?

In order to clarify my point here, allow me to explain my position. Montresor previously pointed out the all-important defining line between 'Faith' and 'Religion'. My *personal* stance is that faith is a necessary componant of spiritual wellbeing. Without faith, life loses its luster, as it were. Truely a terrific thing to possess. Religion, therefore is nothing but a means by which to attain faith - a structure through which those who have not found faith within themselves, and thus are lacking spiritual wellbeing, feel ill at ease with life, etc, can do so with the help of others. A support group for the soul.
Sounds great, right?

Now here's the tricky part. While all religions are valid - they only are to a point. That point is where they stop helping spiritual growth and begin to use it as a means to garner support for the governing body. Unfortunately, this governing body is often known as a Church.

It proves surprisingly hard to put this forth without in some way probably offending many worthy people and valid arguments.
Chandros' quote, however, struck me as insight - that merely because one faction sees another as 'evil' or 'heretical' doesnt mean in any way that said faction is therefore 'true' or 'good'. This, I believe, applies to all 'factions', including christianity, hebrew, etc.

This is my attempt at saying that, all in all, words mean nothing in this context. 'Heretic' is meaningless, as it is used to describe a member of one organisation that believes differently to another, when in reality - or perhaps a perfect world - the purpose of the two should be exactly the same, the means, not the end, and the religion itself, I feel, ought to be secondary to the Faith it is meant to foster.

Not meant as a flame - I hope you can see what I'm getting at.

-TP

 

@Chandos:

First of all, I'd like to stress that the contents of the New Testament (what you called "Jesus's teachings") is not as completely new or radical as you make it appear. I do not want to belittle it, for the contemporary mainstream did indeed not look too kindly on some of the (then to become) Christian ideas.

The courage you attribute to the followers of the crucified leader is very much in line with the general stubborness of the Jews displayed throughout the preceding times of exile and oppression. Take for instance the sacking of Jerusalem by Antiochus IV, during which the Hasidim refused to abandon Mosaic Law even though they were threatened with torture and death (170 BC). They (the Hasidim) probably were the antecessors of the Pharisees and of the Essenes, whose doctrines seem to have influenced primitive Christianity. The courage seems to be connected to this people, but it doesn't necessarily have to do much with Christianity itself.

Moreover, there is around 106 BC the apocryphical text of the "Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs". In there, a good deal of the Sermon of the Mount seems to be anticipated.

Again, this was not the mainstream view in those times. But even St James and St Peter didn't view their teachings as anything different than a reformed Judaism. It was St Paul who introduced a certain "radical" element, namely the abandonment of circumcision and the permission to eat pork. Those two points had been major obstacles for converting gentiles and may well have been one of the main reasons why all of a sudden a religion that is not too different from old Judaism started to conquer the world.

My second comment is concerning the sword and the family bonds, again. You made a perfect case to show how senseless the idea is to remove a certain doctrine, even at the cost of family relations, and replace it with a different kind of doctrine that only serves the same purpose: to impair those who don't submit to it. In this light, Jesus did indeed not bring peace, but a sword. This sword, however, as you showed, was in no way different than the swords orthodox Jews used to the same end.

 

1) Orthodox Jews were persecuted under the Roman Emperors because they would not sacrifice to, IIRC, the Divine Emperor. The 'Christians' were just following in their footsteps.

2) Orthodox Judaism would have considered the 'Christians' heretics because they believed that Jesus was the messiah.

And what became Christianity changed dramatically from Judaism under the influence of Paul and exposure to Greek philosophy/religion.

 

Actually, it was Peter who introduced the eating of pork and other unclean foods, and the primary reasons the early Christians were attacked by the Jews were 1.) claiming Jesus to be the Messiah, as Nakia mentioned, but even more 2.) claiming him to be the Son of God. Even those 'radical' Jews who believed in the ressurection of the dead, the physical pressence of angels and demons on Earth, and that the messiah was coming, sent by God, to rescue them, found it heretical for ANYONE to claim to be that close to God, even the messiah. They thought of the messiah as some kind of super-prophet: flawed, mortal, and altogether human, but chosen by God to do something great.

 

Like someone said earlier, Religion's primary purposes ought to be the perfection of the faithful and the proclaiming of their beliefs. The problem becomes when rival belief systems start arguing over contradictions, or even the very tennets. Neither side can prove themselves right, but their beliefs are unshaken. Power tends to corrupt some individuals, pride corrupts others (myself included there perhaps), which loses the love that Christ taught in the first place. As frustration rises, hatred creeps in. That's where you get the videos that were linked to in the first post, or the "God Hates Fags" link that some fundamentalist group operates. As the fighting increases, the only solution is to take things off the table (like Prayer in schools) instead of finding a better solution.

 

Do we take religion too seriously?
Some obviously do, but I am not one of them. Technically, I belong to the Swedish Church (protestant old school), because I have been baptised but I don’t care much for the beliefs of Christianity. The Swedish Church for me is more of a cultural and historical part of my country.

Then again, one shouldn’t forget that the man (Gustav Vasa, who liberated Sweden from the present Danish rule) who converted Sweden from Catholicism to Protestantism did it because he was a cheap bastard, and wanted the riches of the Swedish Catholic churches for himself.

Even though the intention wasn’t all that good, the consequences were. The conversion led to less force of religion and the fact that more people were now able to read the contents of the Bible since it was translated from Latin to Swedish. If anything is oppressive, it is to expect people to follow a religion they don’t even know the meaning of.

I do believe that this little piece of history has a part in my views of religion. I think that some Christian morals and values are good (excluding the ban on abortion, divorce and birth control), but that is as far as it goes.

The religious organizations of the world have shown way too many times that their intention isn’t at all to help people, but to climb the ladder of power.

 

Exactly the purpose of eduicating the faithful on the beliefs they are expected to profess/obey. In a faith where duties are asked of the members, it is important that they do understand and believe.

Often a sad reality in the world. Desire for power overrides the desire to do good. That is perhaps the hardest thing for the pious man to face.

 

Religion is totally unneccesary. It is in the end just a lot of mumbo jumbo.

I believe in God, I sometimes read my scriptures, but I dont need to go to a temple and wash a phallus with milk, I dont need to observe any holidays, and I certainly wont even touch the water in the Ganges no matter how 'holy' it is. I dont even pray. Im just at One with Shiva, and Shiva is at One with me. My physical body is just an extension of his will...so why waste my time with all that ritualistic stuff when I already am 'God Jr'?

 

I'm not concerned about religion that much anymore. Everything is one, everything flows and yet everything stays the way it has always been. Call it philosophy, call it religion, call it what you like, but to me they're all just points of view never reaching beyond the horizon. There is no escaping of here and now, no escaping of being human. One thing we can learn all the time is that what we have known before, what we have thought we have understood has been so very little all along.

 

If you do not obey, then do you really believe? If a religion has a set of rules and/or guidelines, and you claim to believe, then why not follow them? If these rules aren't for our protection/betterment or the protection/betterment of the world around us, then what kind of religion is it?

 

The real question is: To what extent does this worldview enable us to make sense of the actual living of our lives?