Religion and politics.

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Religion is an attempt to make sense out of an illogical and irrational world. It is useful and has certainly had an impact both positive and negative on human beings. Love of God and of at least other believers is central to it. It does better the lives of people who believe in it.

I skipped 'Is it about tolerance and turning the other cheek' since that afaik is Christian only. Others could probably tell us.

 

It is internally consistent, unlike Politics.

Why is that important? Nothing is rational.

It gives you answers to many questions, and if you accept them, you can get on with more important things, like feeding your family...

Only as far as it was truly obeyed.

It was meant to be. It has been twisted by those who abused their authority into the gruesome mockery that you seem to hate so much.

If you actually read the doctrine, you'd know that the answer is yes. Again, that may have been lost over the years.

Again, it's supposed to be, but we, like everyone else, fall short of that mark.

Where it is truly lived, it does.

And you call Christianity a failure? Have you seen the clowns that get elected?

And Politics isn't? All politicians care about is keeping their high paying jobs until they can retire to a bloated pension financed by the tax payers. If they talk about legalizing Same Sex Marriage, it's got nothing to do with human rights or equality, and everything to do with getting enough support to get them re-elected to political office.

Have you actually read the Scriptures? Jesus Christ encouraged us to give to the poor and the needy. There was that law of Tithing, which requires the faithful to give 10 percent of all our income to the church (as opposed to how much to the government in taxes?). The two great commandments of the Law that all other are based on are to Love God and to Love our fellow men.

There are some that are under the heading of misunderstandings, and some that are under the abuse of power. When you look at politics, putting faith in God doesn't seem so irrational...

 

Is it logical?
Is it rational?
Is it useful?
Did it have any positive impact on humankind?
Is it humane?
Is love really the center of the lore?
Is it about tolerance and turning the other cheek?
Did it better the lives of the people?

It is always a courtesy in any debate to accuse the other party of ignorance and work up from this premise. I won’t return this favour but rather focus on the gaps I left (hey, I’ve got a life outside the boards o’magick, you know) between my assertions and how I came up with them in the first place.

As religion is solely appealing to our emotions over our intellect, it is only to be expected that criticism directed towards religion causes undue reactions disproportional to what has been said. Please keep this in mind during your read through my ramblings.

As to why religion is not rationally but rather emotionally inclined: this is something that has been discussed earlier and I don’t think it would contribute greatly to the current debate. Hence I will jump directly to the other questions.

I will restrict myself to dealing with Christianity since this is my so-to-say native religion and thus the one I know best. My knowledge on other religions is somewhat fuzzy, but I bet that if you’re willing, you could find analogues results in dealing with them that I find for Christianity.

The first thing I remember from my childhood days is that religion seemed to be about more or less interesting stories with an easy to understand morale attached to them. The center of attention was, of course, the Genesis, Exodus and the New Testament. There were closed and disjunctive stories of Moses, Abraham, Noah, Jesus, Peter and Paul that didn’t seem to be linked in any way; and the idea that they shared a common ground – a common logic – wasn’t there at all. They were splinters, each sensible or memorable in its own rights without a demand to be put them together for the sake of an all-embracing meaning that could be bigger than the sum of its parts. Morale was what my parents thought of as proper, the pope was a debatable old man in a funny suit and it was possible to be catholic without having anyone as unimportant as the pope interfering with the everyday life.

Or so I thought until recent times.

Recently, it occurred to me that there are people out there who really believe in the truthfulness of the Bible and the goodness of their religion. This was as far from my personal views as it gets, so I thought it necessary to dwell a bit on the subjects at hand to come to a straight idea of why this didn’t appeal to me in the least.

We have to distinguish at this point between the fundamental outlook some of the faithful hold regarding how literally the bible is to be taken (e.g. creationism) and the more sophisticated opinion of the mainstream of today’s Christians. The first I deem clearly outnumbered and not undisputable even within the doctrine of Christianity, the second are more likely to be representative for what Christianity is or claims to be today. Nevertheless, there is a disturbing tendency of fundamental groups right now to re-establish schools of thinking humanity has overcome quite some time ago (again: creationism and, of course, the idea of punishment being central to the religious doctrine) which, together with a subjectively recognized over-proportional representation of fundamental views on these boards, leads me to include this minority of Christians in my musings.

As we all know, religion’s constituents are not a holy book and a few catchy phrases distilled out of it alone. Religion is the institutionalization of the Holy Scripture and its interpretation. Private notions regarding god may be called spirituality, but only with a full set rules and structures do we get what we call religion for the sake of this argument.

This institution of sanctity has a certain logic to itself, and I’ll concede that in this and only in this sense one can attribute logic to Christianity. Given that there is a fundamental saying such as “everything in our doctrine has to confirm our prolonged authority and hence our doctrine is subject to our authority and not vice versa”, then this is naturally consistent in itself. Since the course of time has brought many changes to how we view ourselves and how we value life, there have been many changes to parts of the doctrine, parts which the institution found it couldn’t abide any longer. These have been referred to as “misunderstandings” or “abuse of power”. This is highly unlikely, though, because it would mean that in contrast to centuries of misguided teachings of the church only recently did we find the true form of Christianity. Furthermore, the very invention of the idea of Heresy – and the treatment of those accused with it - shows that religion is not too fond of those who try to point out possible errors in the interpretation of the fundamental holy book. The treatment of those opposed to the prevailing interpretation of the scripture shows that religion is not the attempt of mankind to gather knowledge - as has been falsely stated in the other thread; rather, it is the quite successful attempt of establishing and justifying a ruling caste.

However that may be, we find that the doctrine of religion is by no means consistent over time; what’s more: we find that it is not consistent within itself. Small examples for this are all over the place, one has only to open the eyes to hit on them; there’s the curious discrepancy between the big fuzz the Catholic Church seems to make over the concept of family and some references in the New Testament. Jesus didn’t think too highly of family bonds. On numerous occasions you find things like the following: “And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19, 19)

Jesus is generally believed to be one of the wisest and loving men on earth. Maybe you are aware of the curious story of the cursed fig tree. The tree didn’t yield fruit – it wasn’t even the time of year for harvest, but Jesus was offended anyway because he couldn’t still his hunger: he cursed the fig tree which promptly withered. I don’t think that we would think too highly of Ghandi if he was to exhibit a similar course of action towards the unconscious world.

Jesus has said some remarkably positive things as well, but I can’t find any logic other than the one asserted above for the omission of some sayings in contrast to others when it comes to the emphasis placed by the church on those sayings. Jesus seems to be especially fond of the concept of hell, which always did strike me as odd, because I could never fully understand what hell should have to do with love in the first place. I will get back to this point a bit later.

The gospels tell us that Jesus believed his second coming to be imminent, i.e. he talks to his disciples as if their generation would surely witness the second coming (cf. Matthew 25, 14). Maybe you all are aware that the second coming hasn’t happened yet – and I very much doubt it will be underway in the near future. And still people have the son of man in the highest possible regard for demanding that people should and could be nice to each other on a general basis. Which is ironically the same thing asserted by Ghandi some 2000 years later – with the effect that those who claim to follow Christ tried to beat hell out of him. There’s logic there?

Neither can I find any logical connection between the cutting of the family bonds Jesus demanded of his followers and the high regard today’s church has for the family. Sure enough, religion has not for the first time been confronted with such apparent contradictions, but I’m not interested in the intellectual pull-ups necessary to align the interpretation of the scripture with ever-changing external pressure. I think merely that there is no real logic when it comes to justify why certain passages of the bible are vital and why others aren’t – even if they originate from the same author in the same historical context.

The cutting of social bonds as a prerequisite for following Christ seems strangely out of place for a religion that claims that one of the gravest shortcomings of our current society is the individualism and egoism the young people of today display.

What possibilities does a human being have to surmount the borders of his self-consciousness? The tools at hand are love, sex, parenthood, patriotism and to a certain extent social awareness. We all know how religion tends to deal with sex and does all to diminish the personal and social component inherent in it. Religion wants to cripple sexual experiences. As a result, sex as a pure means of procreation is not suited anymore to overcome loneliness.

Celibacy is asserted to be one of the highest ideals of Christianity. The virtuous, righteous, in short: holy men of Christianity have always been the ones who led a live of asceticism. Where celibacy is not possible, religion is at least bent for making the conducting of sex as undesirable and painful as possible. This is why according to religion sex should only be maintained in the environment of marriage and even then only in the context of procreation. Only recently, since there was a strong and courageous movement of women, did the painful side of marriage disappear – at least in the western world. One should bear in mind that this development was not initiated but rather opposed by the church. Not so long ago, a man who demanded a child a year was considered virtuous by religious standards, even if this sorry behaviour led to the demise of his wife and half of his children. He, however, who resorted to birth control to spare his children a life of suffering from venereal disease and malnutrition, was committing an abomination in the eyes of God. This view is, I’m sorry to say, still prevailing today and causes severe harm in the third world countries, whether you like it or not. Still consider this religion to be one of love? Makes me wonder…

Much is to be said at this point to the origin of moral standards. Broadly speaking, a moral code could be defined as a necessity for the ordered and peaceful social interaction. In this way morals protect the members of societies with rules of “Thou shall not kill” and “Thou shall not lie”. Some of these rules are evident in the sense that the harmful consequences of certain doings are plain and obvious. Others aren’t. “Thou shall not have homosexual intercourse” is one of them; since no harmful consequences are to be expected from having a homosexual relationship (check on the populations of bonobos [pan paniscus] for what homosexuality and promiscuity can do for the welfare of a social group), religion had to invent a special trick: the harmful consequences were postponed and hustled into some non-retraceable unknown future, the after-life. “Your immortal soul will take harm if you give in to your carnal desires!” That is to say, morals present a system of reward and punishment that is designed to alter human desires. A pre-requisite to this is to classify human desires into “good” and “bad”. Those religious morals fail, however, to provide a stringent logic with which we can accomplish this classification; there’s nothing besides “it is written in our holy book”. While this may be sufficient for those who are used to place faith over intellect or even common sense, I don’t see how enlightened, rational beings can subscribe to such an approach.

Delving deeper into the wonderful world of morale standards, we can presume that many of those have been developed over time by man. Now take for example a rule that tries to regulate feelings of jealousy, envy and hurt involved in one person cheating on another. Christianity deals with the problem by issuing the rule “Thou shall not commit adultery.” This is by no means the only possible way of dealing with the problem. An equally good rule would be “Thou shall not feel jealous.” If adhered to, it would accomplish the same thing, namely the protection of a given society form harm.

There’s a foreseeable objection to this: jealousy is a natural emotion that would have to be suppressed in order to adhere to the imaginary rule. So? Carnal desire is equally an emotion, what distinguishes one from the other? The next objection would be: aha, but an automatically arising feeling is hard to be stopped in comparison to the simple omission of an action. Well, this may be the case, but my reply is: since when was the idea of happiness and easing the strain of our lives the central point in the Christian morals? The very idea is one of the higher the efforts the higher the price. I think that anyone would agree that the idea of all-embracing love is a concept nearly no one can live up to, nevertheless it is believed to be the highest ideal of any Christian.

But there are two other problems (and yes, here Christianity is remarkably consistent) that make rule one preferable over rule two. Firstly, as we have seen above, marriage should be the only context in which sex is possible. To prevent humans to circumvent this rule by marrying any potential sexual partner, Jesus was so free to abolish the old concept of divorce that has been handed down by Moses. Secondly, and even more important, there is a common trait that can be found all over the Christian doctrine: if there are two possibilities to accomplish the same effect for the individual and for the society, choose the one that is more painful! How to counter the spreading of AIDS and over-population in certain areas? Birth control and contraception would be effective, but where is the lesson to be learned in this? The church goes for prohibiting contraception and advocates abstinence. Everyone is aware that this advice is most likely to be ignored. But at least the church can make feel anyone who does so feel bad about it.

The effect is not that anyone would suppress his carnal desires unduly, but rather that everyone would take great care that he can follow his desires as discretely as possible. I suggest that the Catholic Church has done more for the development of prostitution and sex tourism than the urges of male population would have needed without the invention of religion in the first place. If individual salvation is depending on the regard of your neighbours, you make sure as hell that no one finds out about your misdemeanours. I want to stress the point that this doesn’t speak against human nature, but rather against the weird tweaks religion tried to apply to it.

Now the supporters of religion may argue that all of the above is nit-picking and beside the point, as clearly the main message of Christianity is one of love, tolerance and charitableness. Well, this I doubt. Here’s why: first of all, Christ says “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” He says “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

How can anyone claim that this is central to Christian believes when virtually no one is even trying to live up to this? Our soon to be chancellorette Angela Merkel as well as the Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber are leading the Christian parties in Germany. I’ve never seen them selling what they have. I have seen the judging others quite often, though. Are these the people Gnarfflinger has in mind when he concedes that some people are not living the Christian live correctly? I think the human trait to gossip and look down one’s nose at someone has hit new heights in the Christian doctrine; e.g. how can the involvement in something as private as the sexual live of other people be aligned with the above quote? God would be the only one to judge, but I’ve never really seen any Christian following this rule.

The saddest part of self-proclaimed do-goodness, however, is “ultimately, it is all about love!”

Christianity believes in hell, and I’ve been told that it is not a nice place. There’s a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, torture galore, eternal hellfire, in short: the kind of place you would like to see visited by George W. Bush. It is not necessary to point out that the modern Christ doesn’t believe in the classical fiery hell anymore, it suffices to know that hell is the worst place any human being could possibly end in.

On the other hand we have the concept of love. While it is extremely difficult to define what love really is and everyone has a tad different emphasis of the multi-faceted thing that is love, I came upon a sufficiently satisfactory definition by Bertrand Russell in his essay “What I believe”. He defined love as an emotion being fed by two poles: delight on one side, benevolence on the other. That is benevolence taken literally as a concept of well-wishing and caring for someone. Now how could you put someone you care for in a place like hell?

Christianity came up with a surprising twist that makes it possible for all Christians to overlook this apparent contradiction till this very day. On the one hand, they say, it does only look to us as if this was cruel, because in reality it is only for the better of the one being tortured. He may suffer, but it is only in order to save his soul – and this surely is a good thing, no? This logic had its big time a few centuries ago, when we had the inquisition. And Spanish conquistadores who christened Mexican babies before they smashed their heads. Even if the babies probably didn’t appreciate this procedure, it still was believed to be a good solution for anyone involved.

Nowadays, this argument is not all what it used to be, mainly because free thinking people pushed back the Christian oppression all over the world. But how to maintain the concept of hell along with the necessity of having a modern, enlightened god, a god that is not the Great Avenger but a Loving Father instead? Without punishment, the concept of sin doesn’t make sense anymore, and how would we tell the righteous man from the vicious without sin? And if we didn’t knew what was righteous and what wasn’t, how would we know whether it would be better to eat fish on Fridays than on Saturdays?

At this point a new and useful idea has been introduced: the free will. While in medieval times it was generally believed that the failure of man was due to the devil’s doing, we have today done away with this old bogeyman. The free will has been introduced and has immediately been found useful. Not only can wickedness exist only if combined with a free will, but hell as well is again possible if we can shift the blame from god, who now can be all-loving again, to the wicked soul being tortured in hell. It is because man is able to deny god that he inflicts upon himself the direst punishment any Christian can think of: the absence of god. Think about this for awhile.

And now ponder this: you walk upon a lone and lonesome road until all of a sudden you come across a pond. A man has fallen into the pond; it is obvious that he is drowning because he can’t swim. He will die if you don’t interfere and save him. However, because he is misguided in some way or other, he mistakes you for a person he bears a grudge against, so he yells “I’d rather die than let you save me!” What to do here? The Christ will let him drown, because he values the ominous free will higher than the individual’s salvation. The human will jump into the pond and try to pull him to the shore. How twisted has anyone to be to really believe that the concept of hell regardless of its current embellishment can be for the greater good of our souls? And that love has a place in the heart of anyone who could prevent suffering but chooses not to?

It sounds more like defiance and hurt pride than godly forgiveness. A stubborn child god.

And turning the other cheek? Tolerance? The god of the Old Testament is envious of his competitors. Think of the golden calf. Jesus himself is condemning anyone who dares not follow him. On the other hand we have Herodot who undertook extensive travels in foreign lands, visited other peoples and came back to write down what he perceived. We know that he had been shocked sometimes because of some particularly strange rites he encountered, but by and large he never ever felt the urge to point out to his hosts that they were calling Zeus by the wrong name. In his view one god was as good as any other. Now that’s what I call tolerance. This is unthinkable for Christians. The very nature of Christianity makes it impossible for the Christian god not to be envious of other religions. Is god not subject to good and evil? How then can we call god “good”? But if he was subject to concepts of good and evil, well, firstly we had to call god “evil” on account of the suffering he brings into this world and into the next, and secondly, where would the concept of good and evil have come from in the first place?

As to the answers that religion is supposed to provide for those who seek enlightenment: why don’t you share these answers? I’m really curious. I suppose there is just one answer that can’t be obtained by living a life inspired by love and guided by knowledge (Russell again). This answer is the hypothesis concerning the central fear of any human being: do we survive death?

Since this is supposedly the only question religion can claim to have an answer for, and since this question is the distillate of human fears, I think it can be maintained that the foundation of religion is fear – and not love as has been asserted time and again. Throw into this the fear of punishment, the concept of hell and the idea of dividing the world into the faithful and the unbelievers and what you get is a system of hate and intolerance that has down little else than harm to the world since it originated in the desert some thousand years ago.

I will illustrate this with a few examples of one who maintains to be one of the very faithfuls:

Modern Christians don’t believe this humbug anymore, but the things they believe are not that far apart from this as they would like to pretend.

The next is dealing with how religion has and still is hindering the progress of man

This means that the religious approach of gathering knowledge is to start with the flattering notion of the superiority of man and work up from there. Nothing can be gained with this approach other than the confirmation of said superiority. That is as trivial as it gets. The same is a common thread throughout the church’s history when it comes to science – and it is still the same outlook today, as you can see from the debate around stem cell research, cloning, abortion and related issues.

The idea that a plague is a punishment from god has never ever saved any individual soul – science, however, has.

Now will anyone tell me something about the achievements of religion?

 

Such a long post. I will only address two points.

You seem to see a contradiction between the empahsis on the family and Christ's allocution on leaving family for His sake. I do not know how Protestants try to explain this. However, this is simple to a Catholic. Whenever Our Lord speaks to someone, it must be kept in mind to whom and what he is talking about; not everything Our Lord said applies to all people. In the instant case, What Our Lord was referring to was what the Catholic Church calls the religious life (priests, monks and nuns). Those called to the religious life are called upon to forsake all family and devote themselves fully and solely to His service. Those not called to the religious life and not called upon to forsake family. Thus understood, there is no contradiction.

I believe you also misunderstand the nature of God's love. While God is a god of love, He is also a god of justice. Since we cannot properly understand the nature of God, it is not possible for us to fully understand the true nature of the offensiveness of sin, or why sin merits hell. The best I can sumarize is that God is an infinite being, sin is an infinite offense to God, and therefore only an infinite punishment is appropriate to the crime. God's love was demonstrated by Him sending His Son to give men a chance to avoid the appropriate punishment for their sins. If we reject that chance, we choose to place ourselves into hell, God does not put anyone there.

And where did you get the idea that hell is an example of God's love? It is a creation of God's justice.

As for your analogy to a drowning person, I do not find it fully appropriate. To make it more appropriate I would change the drowning person into a convicted criminal sentenced to death by drowning in the pond. The person on the shore is willing to intervene in the just punishment (set aside for the moment the morality of the death penalty; assume, arguendo, that capital punishment is just and moral and that the criminal in question was justly convicted) if the criminial repents of his crimes. If the criminial refuses to repent, how is it wrong to allow him to suffer the punishment he justly deserves?

There is no contradiction between true religion and logic. There are, however, those who use faulty information and twisted logic to create an appearance of contradiction which does not, in fact, exist.

 

Religions are tax exempt because they are identified as non-profit organizations. Political activity does not make the religion a for profit group. In my mind, trying to punish a religious group, or all religious groups, for political activity by removing their tax exempt status is tantamount to an unjust punishment and gagging of a legitimate behaviour.

However, I think that one item should be discussed and clarified here. Religions may be tax-exempt, but that does not necessarily mean that they receive money from the government. IIRC, some religions do, and THAT money quite rightly has strings attached. My religion (LDS) for a long time has refused any form of government money, and thus has avoided becoming beholden to government input or control. I don't believe this has changed recently, but it may have (though I doubt it).

Stifling any group's input into the political process is the first step toward an unjust society, IMHO. Religions who assert their doctrine, particularly on matters of morals and tradition, are not stifling the rights of others by so doing. They are simply exercising their right to speak.

 

Thanks for the response, Khemsa. It is always good to see where one can clarify statements and where the casual observer thinks the weak points of any debate are.

On family and Christ's view on family: It is of secondary interest to see who was addressed by Christ on this matter. I certainly didn't say that Christ expected all people to cut their family bonds. I said - and what you say doesn't touch this in the least - that Christ deemed the concept of family inferior to the bonds experienceable in following him. He thought it to be more important to love him than to love one's brother or sister, father or mother, son or daughter. I call this attitude vain, even if you insist differentiating between what a certain behaviour has to be called when displayed by god in contrast to the same behaviour displayed by a human.

Love in god is simple. You just have to be vain enough to think you're more than an ant to the creator of the universe, and bingo! you're there.

Loving a human is quite another matter and difficult enough as it is.

Claiming to love all human beings alike is just nonsensical.

The other point you got exactly right: I don't think the concept of hell nor the concept of justice has anything to do with love. Hence believing in hell - as you believe would be needed because of justice - is quite the contrary to believing that "Christianity is all about love".

How can anyone possibly misunderstand the nature of love? If god's love is that different from the love we can experience as human beings, than perhaps we should cease to call it love. Perhaps we can settle for guardianship or something like that.

And this is the central point of my criticism: in contrast to all the claims made by modern Christians, we still seem to deal with the stern guardian of morals we know from the Old Testament. Where did you again perceive any progress?

Last, not least: you say that we cannot understand what god is all about, nor can we understand sin, nor can we understand hell, nor can we understand everything related to this, namely religion itself. And still you find logic in this, your true religion? Humans never cease to amaze me...

 

Darkthrone,

Do you understand all the intimate workings of the Universe, down to the smallest quark? If not, how can you call your belief in the existence of the universe logical? One's ability to understand something has nothing to do with the existence of the object.

I would note that "love" is a word that is easily misunderstood because we use it in so many different ways. I love my job, I love my children, and I love my wife, but no one thinks I mean the same thing by the word "love" in all three cases. In the Catholic Faith, the word "love" when we refer to God is the Latin "caritas" which we translate into English as "charity."

Of course, we cannot love all people equally, that is nonsense, if by love you mean warm fuzzies like I feel for my wife and children. But again, we are talking about different types of love. Love, philosophically speaking, is an act of the will whereby one wishes the best for another. Therefore, the command to love my neighbor does not mean I have to have warm fuzzies for them. It means that I have to will the best for them, which, religiously speaking, means I must wish them to go to heaven. This I can do for all people, which is why the command to love my neighbor is not nonsensical.

The problem we are having here, it seems to me, is a problem of language centering around the plasticity of the word "love." This shows why definitions are so important, and it is establishing definitions that is at the root of Scholasticism, the Church's philosophy.

Yes, complete devotion to Christ is superior to family life. But this is simple to explain. Why were you created? What is the purpose of your life? To the Catholic, the answer to this question is that I was made to know, love and serve God in this world so that I may be happy with him in the next. Given that the purpose of life is to serve God, then it is logical that one who choses to devote his life solely to God is superior to one who choses other ties. You may disagree about the purpose of your existence, but it is not illogical given the Catholic understanding of human purpose.

If Christ were just a man, then you would be correct that he would have been vain and his religion a cult. However, Christ is God and He has dominion over us because He made us and He redeemed us. The Creator is always superior to His creation. It hurts our human pride, but we really are insignificant compared to God.

It seems to me that you want to distance God from human relations. For example, why should the love of God not be superior to the love of family? Our parents participated with God in our creation. Our parents provided the flesh component of our existence, but God created our soul and infused it into the tissue at our conception. Thus, on what basis do you claim that our parents have a greater claim to our love than God? You may not believe in the above account, but your unbelief does not create illogic in my argument.

Furthermore, given the above, it seems we owe more love to God than to our parents because God provided the part of us that will last for all eternity, while our parents provided the part of us that will rot in the grave. Should not the greater love go to the one who gave us the greater gift? Would not to do otherwise be ungrateful?

It is not sufficient to deny or refuse to acknowledge the axioms of the Christian religion and then deny the existence of logic in the religion because Christianity does not accord with your axioms. It must be judged on its own merits, compared to its own axions, or upon an objective standard upon which we can agree.

 

Well, this depends on the country. In my country, where unfortunately the seperation of church and state doesn't exist (mainly because the constitution states that the christian orthodox doctrine is the dominant religion), the christian orthodox church is tax-exempt and the orthodox priests are considered public servants and they are paid by the state .

Also, donations are not the bigger source of the church's income. The majority of church's income comes from renting buildings and fields, which have been rather acquired through dark and suspicious ways (Yes we will accept your son in the monastery but you have to give us this crop-field).

Also, all these luxury cars and all these vestments and tiaras, which cost thousands euros, make me wonder how much of this income goes to charities.

BTW, one month ago it was discovered that the orthodox bishop of Attica has founded an off-shore company and that he has 1 billion euros in his bank account. I guess he was going to spend them in charities .

 

BOC, I'm sorry I have such a "North America-centric" view of things. I was referring to the US and Canada. I acknowledge that many other countries have differing systems. Most countries have a "State" religion, IIRC, that has priviledges and status beyond that of other religions. But in NA, we're not supposed to have one single state sponsored religion or sect. All are supposed to be treated equally.

My thesis has always been that within that traditional framework, all religions and indeed, all viewpoints should have the opportunity to weigh in on political matters.

 

Yep, unfortunately the tax-exempt status and the salaries are not the only privileges of the orthodox church. Orthodox priests and monks do not have to serve in the army, while this is an obligation for the rest of us (and the archbishop of Athens dares to talk about lost fatherlands that we must reconquer, he who has never served in the army), other christian doctrines and other religion must take permission from the local orthodox bishop if they want to build a temple, religious classes are obligatory in high school and so on...

 

Your point is well made. Nevertheless, I agree with Dante's view of love, which is that when we love, we imitate God. And that it is God's greatest gift to mankind - to love is to be "like" God. How else can one explain the progression of Dante, the pilgrim? He begins with the love of Beatirce: even though Dante is married to another woman and he has children with his "real" wife. Yet, he has this love, which has never left him, for Beatirce. Is it adultery? Or is it a sublime invention, intended to open Dante to a new life? If Dante had never really met Beatrice, would he still need to invent her?

Thus the pilgrim beigns his journey and progression. It begins with a love of passion and lust; from there it moves to a higher notion of love, the spirit of love - a rebirth into a life in/of love. This becomes the driving force of Dante's Art. Dante confirms this in the "Vita Nuova."

From there it moves to the highest forms of love as Dante begins the "Divine Comedy." It is the love that "moves the planets and the stars." And in the end, Dante's journey takes him full circle, returning once again to Beatrice, whom he meets in Paradise. Dante wished to prove to us, through his art, that the love between a man and a woman opens us to the "orders of love" in God's universe.

Dante, through the range of his art, "proves" that all the different loves you mention are connected because they originate from the same source. Yet they manifest themselves in unexpected ways. In many ways I am agreeing with your statement. Yes, the order of loves can be "misunderstood, but that does not diminish their scope and influence on the human heart.

 

It seems I have my work cut out for me...

These took place over thousands of years. During some of those times, there was nobody to write further records.

And when those in authority of these instutitions start to deviate from the doctrine, you get these misunderstandings. Just as I earlier claimed that the Law of Moses failed when the Scribes and Pharisees went beyond the law, so too has Religion failed when they went beyond the doctrines core to the faith. This is where you get the difference in perception of the pope. To the faithful Catholics, he is a Holy man. To you, he was "the pope was a debatable old man in a funny suit".

That's backwards. The authority must conform to the doctrine, hence our authority is subject to the doctrine. Much of what the Catholic Church has had to backpeddle on came from deviating from the Doctrine (Geocentrism, Flat earth). This has diminished their credibility on heavier issues, from Evolution (theories opposing creation) to morality (homosexuality, abortion) where the doctrine supports us. What's worse is the fact that other Christian faiths are weakened by those mistakes.

This is called sacrifice. you give up your home, the fellowship of your family to do as God requires, and He shall reward you in Heaven. This is the promise given to those who leave behind their families to serve as missionaries. My Cousin is currently somewhere in Arizona serving as such a missionary. for two years, he leaves behind his Family, Girlfriend and prospects of a job or education to serve God. In the Early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there were some that heard the teachings and were disowned because they joined the Church despite the objections of family members. Also early on, the Priesthood was called to travel to far away lands even though there was hardship at home, in faith that the Lord would protect those left behind. This, I believe, is what Jesus meant.

This was the Parable of the ten Virgins. It is a warning to stay true to the faith, and be spiritually prepared to meet Jesus Christ at all times. The Foolish Virgins are the ones that didn't develop that faith, or had not repented of their sins, and thus were not ready when the Saviour returned. It actually said that no man would know when the Lord would return. It does not mean that it would be during the life time of the disciples...

Just because they claim to be chirstians, doesn't mean that they are truly obedient. I ask that you not judge all christians by the sins of a few.

Again, wrong. Sexual relations are only to be enjoyed in the bonds of Legal and Lawful marriage. There is an emotional element in sex that should only be shared between man and wife. It is the means of procreation, sure, but that is not the sole purpose. Otherwise, there would be a conception rate of 100%...

Wrong! That is directly called a false doctrine in the scriptures. First in Genesis, where we are commanded to Go forth, be Fruitful and Multiply (kind of hard without a husband/wife), and in 1 Timothy 4:1-3, where forbidance of marriage is listed as a false doctrine.

I'll give you that one. Seeing as we are all children of God (acts 17:28), that is necessary to enable us to live peacefully. Would it be Heaven if we hated everyone there?

Given that Sex is accepted as a means of Procreation, and that sex is only to be allowed in the confines of Legal and Lawful marriage, Homosexuality does not aid in the fulfilling of the commandment to go forth, be fruitful and multiply, therefore Marriage was limited to between a man and a woman. Therefore, Homosexuality, like Fornication, beastiality, incest and adultery were labeled as grevious sins.

Carnal desire is a natural desire, but left unchecked is very damaging. So too is Jealousy. Just as Greed, sloth, gluttony, wrath and pride. These things need to be held in check if we want to be able to peacefully co-exist.

Suppose you see a sign that says Danger!, Whirlpool! Swim at own risk. Suppose you ignore that warning, but swim anyway. It's your own fault if you drown. Likewise, Religion continues to warn about the dangers of sin, but if those dangers are ignored, then the sinner is responsible for those consequences.

None of us are perfect. In this modern world, it is all but impossible to give up property altogether. We still need money to buy food, we still need clothes to cover our nakedness. I list myself as imperfect too. My language has been far from spotless (Though sometimes I do come up with some better way to phrase it, but I stull use the word bullshit when command of language fails me).

You've refered to Hell being a place of punishment. Think of hell as a place outside the kingdom of God. God has given us his house rules, and if we are unwilling to abide them to the best of our ability, then we should not be entering the Kingdom of Heaven. It's just like here on SP, there are rules, and if we are unwilling to obey them, ultimately, we may be banned. Hell is a place for those banned from the Kingdom of Heaven.

I won't be the one to send them to hell. They go of their own free will. They don't realize where they are until it's too late...

First, Free will was established before Temptiation. In the second Chapter of Genesis, Adam is told that he may freely partake of any tree in the garden of eden--excpet the tree of Knowledge of Good and evil. The Serpent doesn't make his appearance until Chapter three. For those that insist on Logic, here goes:

Adam and Eve were forbidden to partake of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adam and Eve partook anyway.

Therefore, Adam and Eve must have had freedom to choose from the time they were given the commandment.

This also means that they make their choice, they are responsible for the consequences.

Christ throws out the life preserver, the person in the pond refuses to grab it, then he drowns. Likewise, Christ offers forgiveness of sins on the condition that we do our best to obey his commandments. If we refuse, then he cannot help us.

There is a better analogy. Imagine that you have a credit card. Think of your sins as running up a debt. Eventually it gets huge, but you don't worry about it. One day, the issuer of the card comes to collect that balance. Of course, you are unable to pay. Then a man arrives with a huge bank account, and is willing to pay your debt out of his account. He also sets up his terms. If you refuse his terms, you are to ba carted off to prison for Fraud (charging a balance when you have no intention or ability to pay). The only way to go to hell is to refuse the Atonement of Jesus Christ....

Again, back to your drowning analogy. If you don't reach for the life preserver that's been thrown to you, then the guy on the shore can't save you. If you put your faith in other gods, you're gonna drown--and that golden calf is going to sit there with the same look on its face regardless. Baal is off somewhere else and can't hear you (either that or he's standing on the shore with a videocamera and laughing as you drown).

It's also extremely hard to do. This is one of those areas where we all fall short...

 

Yes, "love" is easily misunderstood, which is why I provided an attempt of definition in my text. I know that it is an awful lot to read, but, hey, it was an awful lot to write, too. However we define love, once we have done so it is not logical to speak of superior or inferior love. Either a feeling we have matches the definition or it doesn't. Consequently we speak about love or we speak about a different phenomenon. You insist in differentiating between two different emotions and in calling them by the same name - that doesn't do any good for the sake of the debate.

Take Chandos view for example. It is highly romanticized and not the worst attempt at an definition - apart from two points. First of all it is a definition that excludes god from the feeling of love, since he is the single point of referrence, the defining entity. Everything that could be deduced from this definition with regard to god would be that god, indeed, is like god - which is trivial and doesn't yield any valuable insight.

The second weakness of the argument is that in order to define human love, we need to define what we think and feel about god in the first place. come to think of it, this definition is a very catholic one, as it makes the following possible: we define god as a vengeful entity that is about to bring justice and punishment to the world. On the basis of this assumption we bring the concept of sin and the inquisition into this world. We punish the unrighteousness, in this we imitate god, this was our definition of love: bingo! Christianity is all about love and god is all about love!

I for my part think that love is an emotion completely independent of the existence or non-existence of god. This is surely true if we follow a definition like the one above: taking delight in someone and wishing him nothing but the very best. If it is independent, then we can match god and religion against this definition - my point is that religion contradicts love in the above definition. Therefore, I can either love or be faithful. I for my part choose love.

Christians view this differently. I think they err. However, since belief is based on emotions I don't think it is possible to sway any believer with arguments. The root of religion is a repitition of the same sayings and rules during our childhood days - no religious man has started from zero and thought about what would be most rational in the given cisrcumstances. In this light, criticism towards religion should first and foremost appeal to the undecided.

Again a last point: the center of the criticism is not the denial of religious axioms, however fervently you claim this to be the case. The criticism is about looking at the acknowledged axioms on one side and on the human being complete with all emotions and capabilities on the other side. And then then see whether the axioms have anything to do with what being human is all about. That is what I neglect.

And last last thought:

A belief is neither logical nor illogical. It may be founded in emotions or ratio or both. Logic has little to do with it and I never claimed that it had. But if you somehow defined your belief, we are able to compare a) your thoughts and actions to this definition and b) the definition to the rest of the world that is open to experience. The illogical part - as I perceive it - is that the impact religion had and still has on mankind is contrary to its own definition and hence not a thing that can be logically justified.

To illustrate this: you say "yes, devotion to Christ is superior to family life." And I say "yes, the Catholics claim that devotion to Christ is superior to family life." Where do you realize a denial on my part? But here comes: The claim of devotion to Christ as a blueprint for the perfect life together with the idea of individual salvation leads to egoism and selfishness, because it imposes the question: where do I stand in the eyes of god? Sex and family life, however, are about pushing back the shackles of loneliness and therefore impose the question: where do the others stand with me? The first question is internal and can be answered without ever having to interact with any other human being. The other is the essence of interaction with others. There is still no contradiction to Christian believes. But Christians don't stop there, rather they claim: "Christianity is about love and altruism, the bad in the world is due to the individualism and the egoism of the people."

At this point I can't help but call this statement nothing but illogical.

[Edit:] @Gnarfflinger: Only saw your post right now. Your vigour in defending the sayings of God does you honour. It is not to the point, though. I asked: has religion contributed to mankind? Has relgion bettered the life of people? You can't answer this by stating that the bad things done in the name of religion were due to misunderstandings - because the results are still the same for the people. I'm not interested in whether it could be possible to create a sound logical system of believe and wrap the Holy Scripture around this. I'm interested in the main parts of religion: devouting life to god, believe in sin, punishment and a higher justice, believe in righteousness and don't question what you experience. And you as well as Khemsa can try to twist or enhance my analogy all you like, you don't change the vital point: God has the power to save, he could force salvation upon anyone. And yet he chooses to value the free will higher than salvation and consequently shifts the responsibility to the sufferer. And this denial of responsibility towards his creation is called love by Christians. Ask any North Korean what is of greater importance to him: having something to eat tomorrow or participating in free votes in the next fall. So, the objectively better thing for the individual is of inferior importance to god and Christians. All in honour of a concept that cannot really be understood by any human being.

[ May 25, 2005, 09:05: Message edited by: Darkthrone ]

 

What do you mean, that religion says that its believers follow blindly? Surely there are some churches that preach that but it's by no means universal and representative of the whole religion, especially Christianity and Islam.

Okay, so you would prefer a world where there is no pain, suffering, loss, hunger, the need for money and also no dreams, accomplishments and challenges? How would we appreciate the "good" things in life? What would life be without free will? I know that with free will, I can choose to help the North Korean, the old lady next door cross the road, or comfort a grieving friend. Honestly, in most cases, isn't suffering really just the choice not to care, always putting your interests above everybody else?

 

Where do you think the Church encourages its followers to question the doctrine? The whole idea of dogma and papal infallibility is about "Don't ask, even if you do not understand!"

And yes, I'd prefer a world without suffering and pain. Anyone claiming anything else based on a hollow concept like free will does not know what she's talking about, sorry Charlie. Only someone who gets her idea of life from her cosy chair in a comfortable home could utter something like that.

Where do you get the idea that the absence of pain leads to the absence of dreams? This is

 

Darkthrone,

Let me try and explain what you call blind obedience. The Catholic Church, as do most religions, has a certain set of beliefs that one must believe to call themselves "Catholic." If one does not accept these beliefs, then one is not Catholic. These beliefs, in the Catholic case called "dogmas," are non-negotiable and non-debatable. If a person chooses to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, they may be many things, but Catholic they are not. That person has no right to call himself a Catholic. These dogmas are the basic tenants of the Faith. If a person wants to be a Catholic, these dogmas must be believed. If a person does not want to believe these dogmas, they have the ability to do so, but they cannot be called Catholic. Beyond this area of dogmas, Catholics are free to debate and discuss. And we do. With the possible exception of Judaism, no religion has collected the corpus of theological writings and speculations as has the Catholic Church. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a work called the Summa Theologica. An unabridged copy of the Summa would take about 3-4 feet of shelf space, it is an amazing compendium of just about every question one could have about God and man. St. Thomas intended this massive work to be an *introduction* to theology and philosophy. If you think the Catholic Church does not have debate, then you have just been getting your information from the media, which is concentrating on some dissenters who are denying basic dogma. But, again, to put if profanely, every club has its rules. Either accept the rules and be in the club, or reject the rules but leave the club.

I posited a definition of love: to will the greatest good for others. You wrote that love is "taking delight in someone and wishing him nothing but the very best." Now, your definition is not so far different from mine that we cannot engage in further discussion on the matter.

What I fail to see is how faithfulness to religion contradicts either defintion of love. The nearest I can figure out by piecing your argument together is that:

a) God is supposed to love people;
b) God has the power to save all mankind, regardless of their free will;
c) If God truly loved someone he would want them to have the greatest good, which is heaven;
d) God allows some people to choose hell, refusing to override the person's free will;
e) By refusing to override the person's free will and force them into heaven, God is not expressing love;
f) Therefore, God does not truly love people;
g) There exists a contradiction between a claim that God is love and a religion that teaches a-d.

Am I getting close to understanding your argument?

If I am even close to understanding your argument, then let me offer the following observation. What makes a human being different from every other animal? Catholic philosophy and theology teach that, aside from an immortal soul, the thing that makes humans different from the animals is the possession of free will (as an aside, it is not intelligence that separates us from the animals).

By definition, if you have free will you are a human being (the angels are a very special case which, for the sake of simplicity I shall ignore for now) and if you lack free will you are not a human being. Again, except for the angels, only human beings can go to heaven or to hell (there is no "doggie heaven," even if we sometimes say it to make our children feel better after the loss of a beloved pet).

If it were possible to take away a person's free will, which it is not, they would cease to be human. If God overrode a person's free will, He would destroy it. If He destroyed it, that creature would no longer be human. If the creature was no longer human, then it could not go to heaven. Therefore, to speak of God overriding someone's free will and forcing salvation upon them is, philosophically speaking, impossible; it is a non sequiter.

I was not trying to twist your analogy. I stated that I do not believe that your analogy is correct, that it is fundamentally flawed. I then presented an analogy, based upon the imagery you provided, that I felt to be closer to the Catholic Faith. You may disagree with my analogy, and believe your analogy is superior, but I did not attempt to twist your analogy; I did not try to make your analogy mean something you did not intend.

You wrote: "'Christianity is about love and altruism, the bad in the world is due to the individualism and the egoism of the people.'

At this point I can't help but call this statement nothing but illogical."

I would like to narrow this down so we can discuss this rationally. I assume that you do not deny that much of the evil in the world is caused by people's choices, do you? War, most famines, crime, etc. are all evils brought about by human actions. Do you agree? Or do you blame God for not overriding the free will of bad people and force them to be good? If the latter is your belief then further discussion is pointless. However, assuming you accept that much evil is caused by humans, then perhaps you are raising the question about such things as natural disasters or diseases? If so, let me know and we can discuss this issue in greater depth as this post has gone on long enough.


@Gnarfflinger:
I am afraid Darkthrone is correct. St. Paul makes it quite clear that celibacy is the more perfect option. However, he recognizes that most people will be unable to follow that rule and so he says that, if celibacy is not possible for you, then get married, as it is better to be married than to burn in hell for sins of impurity.

 

Thanks Khemsa. I appreciate your calm attitude, be sure of that.

The first part of your post: sure enough there is debate within the Church. It doesn't seem to touch vital points, though, unless the external pressure is too big to ignore it any longer. I'm quite sure that someday e.g. female priesthood will be a reality of the Catholic Church. As with all vital changes, this is something the church opposes as long as it dares; at a certain point, however, the change will come, history taught us that much.

We were not debating the church for its own sake, though, but rather the goodness or badness of religion. You don't have to be member of the club to criticize it. Unfortunately, like it or not, I'm member of the club. I was born catholic and raised in a more or less catholicish environment (which luckily didn't do me any harm). I think nothing of the Catholic dogma, and yet I'm Catholic, since this is not just a matter of choice, but one of culture and ways of thinking you can't escape easily. Technically, I don't have to believe any part of catholic doctrine and can still be a catholic - and call me such, although I rather won't. The pope alone could change this official status against my will - and I'm sure he gives a ****.

You finally have come to the point I was addressing right from the start. Your reasoning seems to be stringent - with one exception that I have to point to and which renders it useless. It is this:

"If God overrode a person's free will, He would destroy it."

How's that? Your child is screaming for a lollypop, but because dinner is near you choose to override this free will of your child and prohibit any sweets before dinner. And afterwards your child is not able to utter another volition? Perhaps God should be told that ignoring the free will of others is not the same as erasing it.

Next, I don't deny that evil and badness is due to people's choices. I certainly don't blame god, since I don't believe in god. Most bad things that happen to people are caused by other people. Natural disasters are coincidences with no divinity behind them whatsoever. My assertion is this: the thing that causes people to do bad things to other people is religion. Not because of god letting dance his puppets in an evil way. But because of what we humans ourselves have cruelly invented in presuming what would be right and proper for a given community. With the idea of god and sin and righteousness as an excuse for our own sadism.

 

Darkthrone,

The debate in the Church does not touch "vital points" because all the vital points are points of dogma on which all Catholics must agree. Some things in the Church can change, others cannot. Thus, I believe you are incorrect, women will never become priests. The male priesthood is a matter of dogma and cannot change; it is, thus, not a matter for legitimate discussion. However, for example, the question of a married priesthood is a matter of Church law, which is subject to change. We may one day see priests allowed to marry, and it is certainly licit for Catholics to debate the pros and cons of a married clergy.

Let me be clearer on the issue of free will. Using your example, when I choose to not give into my child's wish for a lolipop, I have not overridden his free will, I have simply prevented the execution of the choice. The child still has its free will and still desires the lolipop. Unless the child voluntarily changes his will to conform to my command, there would remain a constant tension as the child strove for the lolipop while I frustrated the attempts. For me to have overriden his free will I would have had to change him so he no longer desired the lolipop.

When a person abuses his free will by commiting sins, that person chooses hell. By choosing hell, the person has chosen to hate God and goodness. If God prevented the person from executing their choice and took the person to heaven, the free will choice of the person to hate God and goodness will not have changed. Therefore, that person would immediately cast himself into hell once again. This bouncing back and forth (understand that I am limited by words and so am using a physical description for what is really a spiritual process) would never cease -- as soon as the person was raised up to heaven, the person would immediately cast themselves back into hell.

In order for the person to remain in heaven, God would have to change his free will to make him choose the good. By making the person choose, the ability to choose is destroyed.

Let me try and forsee one objection. Why would someone voluntarily choose hell when they could choose heaven and why would someone who had chosen hell, but who had been lifted by God to heaven, chose to return to hell? Well, we have a good example in the story of Satan. The greatest of the angels, when presented with the choice, chose to spend eternity in hell rather than in heaven because his pride led him to prefer that hellish (pardon the pun) choice rather than to subordinate himself to the service of another. In Satan's case the choice was even starker because the angels have infused knowledge -- they do not learn and cannot make mistakes, all knowledge was given to them in their creation. Satan knew exactly what he was doing and he knew exactly what the consequences would be. And, yet, still, he chose heaven over hell. So, to, with human beings. To sin is to hurt God and to hate God. A life filled with sin is a life filled with hatred of God. While we yet live we can repent of this hatred and sin and return to the love of God. However, upon death we are stuck with the consequences of our choices, just as are the angels. Upon death, a person who is dedicated to hating God will continue to hate him for all eternity, and will not be able to even tolerate the presence of God. To use a simplistic explanation, the mere presence of God would elicite horrid pain to one who hates God. So great is that pain that the pains of hell seem lesser by comparison -- thus, hell becomes the preferred place to be, if you will.

People do terrible things to other people. Period. Atheism caused people to do terrible things to other people. The 20th Century is proof of that, the godless philosophies of Communism and Nazism racked up a body count that exceeded all of human experience to that point. Even if religion caused people to do bad things, the slaughter caused by religion throughout human history was easily exceeded in a few years by the slaughter caused by atheism. So I must disagree with you, religion does not cause people to do bad things, it simply offers some people an excuse. And if it is not religion, the malefactor will find something else to excuse his evil deeds.

But even if evils can be laid at the foot of religion, it is unfair not to recognize the good religion has done. I could point out all of the wonderful things religion has done. Since I know it best, let us just talk about the Catholic Church. Do you think hospitals are a good thing? The Catholic Church invented them. Is helping the poor and feeding the hungry a good thing? Even an anti-Catholic like Voltaire recognized the tremendous good the Catholic Church, through the monastaries and convents, had done in helping the poor. Is education a good thing? The Catholic Church invented the University as we know it in the West. The list goes on and on.

Have Catholics done terrible things? You bet. And the Church even recognizes it will happen: its called original sin. Have non-Catholic religious people done evil things? You bet. Have irreligious people done terrible things? You bet. People do terrible things to other people, its what we do best.

In many ways, a better question is not why do people do bad things, but rather why do people do good things? We may disagree over this, but I believe that overall, recognizing there are exceptions, you will find religious people doing more good to others than irreligious people (By irreligious, I do not mean those who dislike religion, I simply mean those who have no religion).

Just as an example, if I asked you to name a modern person who is well known for personally helping the poor, you might name some irreligious people, but I bet that their charity consisted mostly in giving money to help others. But I also bet you would name Mother Teresa, a very religious woman, who helped the poor herself. Religion led Mother Teresa to commit her whole life to helping the poor. How is that not a good thing? Can you name for me one irreligious person who has devoted their life to the service of the poor, asking nothing in return? I know I cannot, but I stand to be corrected. The only people I can think of that have helped the poor and the sick as a personal vocation (and not professionals who do it as a job, or rich people who just give some money) have been religious people.

So, weighed in the balance, I would say that religion is a good thing. Yes, it has given bad people an excuse to do bad things (though I submit they would have done such bad things anyway and simply used another excuse), but it has also caused many other people to look outside themselves and help others.

You may disagree with my balancing, Darkthrone, but please at least be fair and acknowledge the good as well as the bad in both people with and without religion.

 

That's what I've been saying all along. Don't judge Christianity by Torquemada or any other who's committed attrocities in the name of God. It's not fair to judge Germans by Hittler, or Russians by Stalin...

Good, Neither am I. I'm only interested in Religions that form their beliefs from the scriptures. We are here to serve God, not God here to serve us...

Everything but the last point I can accept. If we don't question our experiences, we don't learn and grow. Any religion that teaches us not to think for ourselves is BS (I wish I knew how to make that smiley).

He CANNOT override Free will. Before we came to earth, we agreed to come here with full understanding that we would have free will, and would be requires to do every thing in our power to return to God. Satan, thought to deny free will, and guarantee that we would all return automatically. Your analogy had the guy drowning because he REFUSED to be rescued. If God were to override free will, that would be breaking His own law.

The principle is this: If there is no evil, then how can we understand good? If there was nothing negative, then how can positive be defined?

! Timothy 4: 1-3 states that forbiddance of marriage is a false doctrine. Hebrews 13:4 says that Marriage is honourable in all. 1 Corinthians 7:2 says let every man have his own wife, let every woman have her own husband. These three passages, all written by Paul, condemn Celebacy, and promote marriage.

Exactly one of my points that I've been trying to hold to. Flat Earth? Not in the Scriptures, stance subject to change. Same Sex Marriage? Forbidden in Scriptures, Not for debate. The Sun revolving around the Earth? Not in Scriptures, Not necessarily true. Termination of life to unborn children? Explicitly forbidden in Scripture, therefore still a sin.

I'm LDS, and We don't have female bishops or whatever. We believe that the duties of Motherhood are more demanding and more sacred than other responsibilities in the church. The Men are given the Priesthood to compliment the wife in the family unit. It's not as if the Women don't get jobs in the church. Many women are called to various offices too (like teaching sunday school classes of all ages, leading an auxiliary for Women and a program to help Young women grow int he Church).

In my church, the higher officials are required to be married.

 

This is the view of Dante that is accepted in some literary circles. Although not everyone agrees with this reading. And while Dante has had a profound influence on my thinking about the nature of love, it is not entirely "my view." Nevetheless, you missed some of what Dante was trying to voice here. At the risk of being cryptic, some of this was only suggested at in my previous post, and will be left between the lines, so to speak. These lines were not by Dante but by another Italian poet, and a close influence of Dante:

The lines are quite famous, and it almost mirrors Dante's meeting with Beatrice in Paradise. How could Dante go to Paradise without meeting his lady there, and seeing her in glory? Dante was the greatest of all Medieval poets. Yet, Dante stands in the doorway of the Renaissance; Petrarch is his heir, and Laura, his Beatrice. It is a liberation from the former life of self-denial, and a refutation of monkish asceticism. There, I said it anyway...so much for being cryptic.