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PostPosted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 8:48 pm 
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Icy put my thoughts into a form much clearer than I could have, for one reason: he cares enough to put it down right now, I don't --;;

Thanks Brian.

-MiB

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 Post subject: "This week, on Theological Roundtable Today-"
PostPosted: Mon Oct 06, 2003 11:53 am 
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Leaving aside the potentially sarcastic-flame-inducing question of whether or not MiB is a good Christian (which I'm hardly qualified to judge these days, anyway), I am curious about one thing:

The Man In Black wrote:
The bible's all allegorical, thats where so many people get it wrong, I mean Jesus spoke in parables, the 10 commandments appear to be mostly guidelines ("Thou shalt not kill," its almost universally accepted that there are still circumstances killing is okay with God, if 1 of the commandments is merely a guideline it logically follows, since it isn't specified, the others are as well, correct?)

But what about the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"? I can see where "Thou shalt not kill" is just a general rule of thumb which can be circumvented in extreme circumstances, but no. 1 seems pretty straightforward. It's hard to think of an emergency situation which would require belief in a different god. I've seen it interpreted as meaning that if you grow up somewhere where you have no access to the word of God, you're exempt, but if you're familiar with Christianity and still reject it, you go to Hell. Which still seems a bit sucky, frankly...

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Er...no. Aside from closed-minded people, a lot of ministers and priests take this view, I mean the real problem this solves is, God is all-forgiving and all-merciful, but if he really wants to give us all a chance to go to heaven, why is Christianity the One True Religion? It means that a whole lot of people went to hell who not only lived good lives but had *no opportunity* to convert to said "right" religion (ie the Chinese just after Christianity got started.) So, either God is not really all forgiving and all merciful, and he lives to pick random peoples to bless and take up to heaven (kinda inconsistent with the ideal of the Christian God) or there is some other way to get to heaven than by being Christian.

You'll have to excuse me, the church we normally attend is Southern Baptist, so your non-fundamentalism frightens and confuses me... You seem to place more emphasis on living one's life by Christian principles rather than the actual mythology. Which begs the question, doesn't that make you more of an altruistic deist with an interest in ancient Hebrew literature than a “Christian”, per se? (Whoops, I said I wouldn't get into that. Ah, well...)

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2003 9:38 am 
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TEH BIBLE wrote:
Thou shalt have no other Gods before me


Kinda duh, if you're reading the bible you're either a scholar (don't count) or a Christian (counts.) If you're gonna go around worshipping the Christian God, don't go worshipping Vishnu or some Shinto God or the dog next door.

Or there could be some playing with the translation, I'm not a biblical scholar (Krylex has enough knowledge to make him one, though) so I wouldn't be able to tell you that.

Its all in perspective, you can look at every passage in the bible, practically everything everyone has ever said, and turn it to whatever purpose you want with the right perspective, the bible is no different, if you want it to say "peace be unto you" it says that, if you want to say "the bible is a horrible book that condones violence and dogma" then it'll say that. I mean seriously, look at the Koran, you have simultaneously some of the best human beings (dude, have you ever met a nonradical muslim who wouldn't give you the shirt off his back in a second, if he thought you needed it? I havn't!) I've ever known, and the very worst, yet they both draw their doctrine from the same document.

As to whether or not I'm techniqually a Christian, well I'm gonna be preaching in a Christian church and I'm being taught by Christian ministers, so maybe I'm not a Christian, but its close enough so that the Christians don't really mind.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2003 9:46 am 
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Heres where one can get into a strange situation when interpreting the bible. Someone once asked in a class of mine, if a person could truly be a part of two religions and have them coexist. It really comes down to who you ask. The two in question were Christianity and Buddhism. I've personally asked both, and Christian's generally say no, a few even citing that there commandment saying that one's attempt to reach enlightenment could be blashpemous, as it is put before the veneration of God, while all Buddhists have said that it would be perfectly fine and that the tenents do not cross. Its pretty easy to see from both perspectives, so interpretations can go very haywire in an instant. I don't like this talk, however. I feel Kylaer lurking to pounce on MiB for saying there are good Muslims...


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:00 am 
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Thats ignorance acting out, imo. In Buddism you do not worship anyone- you merely follow the teachings of a wise person, who some say is a God. If this is true, than a "true" Christian cannot read scholarly works, go to school, or anything else, for it would be the same as "having another god before me."

Just my POV. And Kylaer won't jump on me for that, because he knows its true, see his scoreboard for Islam, he just dislikes how many radical islamists there are, as do I.

Edit: To make it more clear; suppose there's some insane person, somewhere, who believes Einstein is God (literally)? Does that mean that, as a Christian, you are not allowed to take his teachings and judge them on their merits, because it would be "taking a false God"? No. The same way, Buddism doesn't require the worship of Buddha, you can take the teachings of teh Buddha and judge them as the advice and opinions of a wise man.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2003 4:28 pm 
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krylex wrote:
I've personally asked both, and Christian's generally say no, a few even citing that there commandment saying that one's attempt to reach enlightenment could be blasphemous, as it is put before the veneration of God, while all Buddhists have said that it would be perfectly fine and that the tenants do not cross.


I remember a part of a sermon my pastor gave, where he described post-modernism and spiritualism as "some of the greatest threats to the church today".

His point was that by taking your search for enlightenment outside of the church, you are separating yourself from the rest of the church community and maybe placing your own enlightenment above larger values like service and fellowship.

The larger problem though, is the temptation to just keep the easy beliefs but discard the more difficult corollaries. (i.e. Thou Shalt Not Kill => Declaring conscientious objector status.)


I don't mean that you should blindly go along with whatever your church's dogma says, but you should try to choose a belief system that's at least internally consistent. So, "No Gods Before Me" could be taken just to mean "Focus on what's really important and don't confuse the issue".

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