Reply to: Rid Public Life of Christianity

[clearedforlanding]

Have you read the Bible?

OT: ~39 books, covering purported history, law, historical fiction (Job), poems, sayings, prophecies. NT: ~27 books, 4 gospels (life of Jesus), 1 books concerning what Peter, Paul and some other apostles got up to, 1 prophecy and the rest are letters to various groups of Christians across the then Roman world.

It's not an instruction manual at all.

Within Christianity, Liberal Theology is held by a significant number of people. Liberal Theologians teach that the Bible is the work of man. Even with non-Liberals, like Karl Barth, the Bible is held to contain the Word of God, but is not of itself the Word of God. There is Biblical support for this, as the term "Word of God" is never a term for scripture within the Bible. The phrase is often "The Word of God came to Isaiah" or some other bloke, meanin
g "God spoke to Isaiah". In the NT, the Word of God is a title of Jesus - not scripture.

So no. Not all Christians view the Bible as the Word of God.

Along with many other religious texts possibly for 5 years at a world class university with lots of punting, or I may just be a bloke on the Internet.

A Catholic would disagree with you and say there are 46 books in the OT, may I assume that you are of a protestant denomination as you claim there are 39?

There are over 50 versions (or translations) of the Bible in English alone and a chasm (simplified) where protestants dropped the aforementioned few chapters out of the "Catholic Bible" - so before we got too deep into this we would have to pick which one we are discussing. But how would we agree which is the authoratative one to discuss?

NAT I'll conceed the instuction manual part to you, which was an easy target as I said it as a response to a suggestion that the books of religion should not be considered. (To many fundamentalist Christians it is the instruction manual. A Jehovas Witness takes the blood part as such, but have cherry picked it ....)

However "Not all Christians view the Bible as the Word of God" compliments my main argument, which you seem to have dodged in your response.

The Bible is subject to interpretation by different sects of Christianity. Who arbitrates which sect is making the correct interpretation apart from the leader of each sect?

As one's personal beliefs can meander from the main doctrine (assuming their Church permits them to do this), who is arbitrating them? Some may argue God, some may argue the individual themselves.

[NotAllThere]

It's the instruction manual. You can't have it being the word of God and not, it either is or it isn't...

Have you read the Bible?

OT: ~39 books, covering purported history, law, historical fiction (Job), poems, sayings, prophecies. NT: ~27 books, 4 gospels (life of Jesus), 1 books concerning what Peter, Paul and some other apostles got up to, 1 prophecy and the rest are letters to various groups of Christians across the then Roman world.

It's not an instruction manual at all.

Within Christianity, Liberal Theology is held by a significant number of people. Liberal Theologians teach that the Bible is the work of man. Even with non-Liberals, like Karl Barth, the Bible is held to contain the Word of God, but is not of itself the Word of God. There is Biblical support for this, as the term "Word of God" is never a term for scripture within the Bible. The phrase is often "The Word of God came to Isaiah" or some other bloke, meaning "God spoke to Isaiah". In the NT, the Word of God is a title of Jesus - not scripture.

So no. Not all Christians view the Bible as the Word of God.

[clearedforlanding]

Female emancipation is a hundred years old christian churches have appointed female bishops. Islam is still preventing its followers from going out without a male chaperone & wrapped head to toe.

how old does Islam have to be before it catches up with the present day?

Before anyone complains I moan about the christian sects as well.

Catholics don't allow female ministers so that's already 50% of the Christian sect that doesn't allow female ministers. I can't be arsed to count the rest. But hell the fact that 45% of Americans believe in Creationism shows the standard of the "present day".

When compared to Christianity on the timeline of evolution of an Abrahamic religion?

2016 years old. Give or take.

It's currently 1406 years old, so 610 to go.

[vetran]

Red herring. Islam is circa 610 years younger than Christianity. Christianity is the 20 year old, Islam the 14 year old teenager in relative terms.

You can't compare the age of a holy text to the age of a religion. You need to compare the age of a religion to a religion. The bible wasn't written the day Jesus was born nor the Quran the day Mohammed was born.

Female emancipation is a hundred years old christian churches have appointed female bishops. Islam is still preventing its followers from going out without a male chaperone & wrapped head to toe.

how old does Islam have to be before it catches up with the present day?

Before anyone complains I moan about the christian sects as well.

[clearedforlanding]

yet the new testament which is about the same age as the Quran

Red herring. Islam is circa 610 years younger than Christianity. Christianity is the 20 year old, Islam the 14 year old teenager in relative terms.

You can't compare the age of a holy text to the age of a religion. You need to compare the age of a religion to a religion. The bible wasn't written the day Jesus was born nor the Quran the day Mohammed was born.

This idea Islam has to grow up no longer makes sense, Christianty grew up from the Inquisition to now, Islam was a 600 years old is that too young to catch on? Was Islam still in nappies?

Does it matter? It's happening so let us look at the precidents of evolution of Abrahamic religions.

Replace grow up with evolve. The supression of people evident in many forms of Islam is quite comparable of the supression in Judaism (take women as an example).

With only supression as a common factor, and there are many more, would it not be more appropriate to expect Islam to evolve at the same rate as Judaism instead of Christianity? I would argue we should not be comparing Islams evolution with the timescales of the NT but rather the time scales of the OT.

Besides that,

Early Christianity was realtivley peaceful in terms of a religion. It had to be, if the Christians had marched up on the Romans they would have been annihilated.

They grew in strength.

During the French Wars of Religion when Catholics and Protestants battled each other to control France 3m people were killed.

During the Thirty Years' War when Catholics and Protestants battled each other to control what is now Germany (and was the Holy Roman Empire) 10m people were killed. This was was fought between 1618 and 1648. That's less than 400 years ago!

Islam started in 610. So now they are getting round to their "inquisition phase" only with cheap modern weapons. This removes a lot of the incentive to be peaceful. This is scary considering on the timeline of Abrahamic religions kicking off, they are just at the beginning.

(BTW The current deathtolls run at 15 million deaths for Christianity and a mere 2 million for Islam, this is not an academic paper so you can google it )

Yep. At the time christians had to learn to know better. Now that's standard, whether others follow the lead or not is simply a choice.

Christians haven't stopped killing people or "learned to know better", take a look at the recent genocides in Africa.

Even if they had, history has shown that human religions do not observe the religions they are competing against in order to learn from their examples. That would be akin to mass conversion

[SpontaneousOrder]

yet the new testament which is about the same age as the Quran is basically much less violent. To shock people about Christianity they have to compare it to a book twice as old as the Quran not one 1.25 times as old.

Also most Christians have evolved in the last few hundred years to be less violent as the world becomes more enlightened. I would argue its the world we currently live in that should set our minimum standard of behavior not a book that talks about 1.5 millennia ago. By all means the book can raise your standard but the minimum should be set by the law & morals of the land.


This idea Islam has to grow up no longer makes sense, Christianty grew up from the Inquisition to now, Islam was a 600 years old is that too young to catch on? Was Islam still in nappies?

Yep. At the time christians had to learn to know better. Now that's standard, whether others follow the lead or not is simply a choice.

[vetran]

This is part of the argument that because Islam is so much younger it is (depending on your perspective) so much more violent at the moment. Go back a few hunred years in Christianity and there were very violent times.

yet the new testament which is about the same age as the Quran is basically much less violent. To shock people about Christianity they have to compare it to a book twice as old as the Quran not one 1.25 times as old.

Also most Christians have evolved in the last few hundred years to be less violent as the world becomes more enlightened. I would argue its the world we currently live in that should set our minimum standard of behavior not a book that talks about 1.5 millennia ago. By all means the book can raise your standard but the minimum should be set by the law & morals of the land.


This idea Islam has to grow up no longer makes sense, Christianty grew up from the Inquisition to now, Islam was a 600 years old is that too young to catch on? Was Islam still in nappies?

[SpontaneousOrder]

It's the instruction manual. You can't have it being the word of God and not, it either is or it isn't.

The goal of Islam is to reach Sharia law, preferably through Jihad. There is an end to the world coming.

The core of Jesus' preaching is "take no thought for the morrow". Drop everything and follow Jesus. This is compatible with the eschatology of Abrahamic religions and possibly because there was a man who believed that the world was coming to an immediate end.

As soon as we start to consider interpretation of the Bible (there are a lot of different ones), who gets to arbitrate which interpretation is right, one of these Popes perhaps?

The Pope of The Roman Catholic Church?
The Pope of the Palmarian Catholic Church?
The Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa?
The Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa?

Or perhaps in the COE the Queen?

I could not begin to list the amount of other "authorities".

Who's arbitrating the Quran?

Sunnis?
Shi`ites ?
Sufis ...?
Baha'is and Ahmadiyyas?

Again, I could not begin to list the amount of other "authorities".

And that's only 2 religions, the are 16 large or medium religions.

Without books, what do we have? Chinese whispers. Which is why all religious texts are so wildly inconsistent in the first place, even before we consider editing.

That pretty much sums up my point exactly. The reality is the different authorities interpretations / teachings. ALmost all of the killing & destruction in the middle east currently is precisely because of the different manifestations of the very same book.

[SpontaneousOrder]

The politicians use the same criteria with ideologies believing what is the best for the countries, like Mussolini’s, Hitler, Stalin ........Trump (should I say this one)

If you do include Trump, it might be worth also considering FDR & Jimmy Carter.

[clearedforlanding]

Well I suppose perhaps the quran is more likely to be taken literally because of the reasons i mentioned in the other post. But it's still up to the leaders of institutions to decide how, and how much of it should be interpreted in what way.
Like you say, as far catholicism goes at least, the pope decides what's what and the book is, as Captain Barbossa says, more what you'd call guidelines.

The Quran is only 14% of Islamic doctrine. Sira comprises 26% and Hadith 60% - Hadith ebbs and flows as well as being interpreted.

Also there are 4 different Popes & two types of Catholicism. I assume you mean Roman in this instance.

[SpontaneousOrder]

With Christianity the book seems to be optional, certain sects adhere to it more than others.

Despite the old testament suggesting all kinds of unpleasantness there aren't many countries that stone people in the name of Jehovah.


In Islam the Koran is law. There are plenty of outwardly respectable countries that chop things off & kill people in the name of the Prophet.

If the book is used to underpin the whole of the religion and define its laws then it matters a great deal. Its just as stupid as denying the use of condoms if you are catholic.

Well I suppose perhaps the quran is more likely to be taken literally because of the reasons i mentioned in the other post. But it's still up to the leaders of institutions to decide how, and how much of it should be interpreted in what way.
Like you say, as far catholicism goes at least, the pope decides what's what and the book is, as Captain Barbossa says, more what you'd call guidelines.

[clearedforlanding]

Despite the old testament suggesting all kinds of unpleasantness there aren't many countries that stone people in the name of Jehovah..

This is part of the argument that because Islam is so much younger it is (depending on your perspective) so much more violent at the moment. Go back a few hunred years in Christianity and there were very violent times.

[clearedforlanding]

Seriously?

It's funny that people judge religions by their books at all

It's the instruction manual. You can't have it being the word of God and not, it either is or it isn't.

The goal of Islam is to reach Sharia law, preferably through Jihad. There is an end to the world coming.

The core of Jesus' preaching is "take no thought for the morrow". Drop everything and follow Jesus. This is compatible with the eschatology of Abrahamic religions and possibly because there was a man who believed that the world was coming to an immediate end.

As soon as we start to consider interpretation of the Bible (there are a lot of different ones), who gets to arbitrate which interpretation is right, one of these Popes perhaps?

The Pope of The Roman Catholic Church?
The Pope of the Palmarian Catholic Church?
The Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa?
The Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa?

Or perhaps in the COE the Queen?

I could not begin to list the amount of other "authorities".

Who's arbitrating the Quran?

Sunnis?
Shi`ites ?
Sufis ...?
Baha'is and Ahmadiyyas?

Again, I could not begin to list the amount of other "authorities".

And that's only 2 religions, the are 16 large or medium religions.

Without books, what do we have? Chinese whispers. Which is why all religious texts are so wildly inconsistent in the first place, even before we consider editing.

[Bee]

All the religions have the same problems, until a smart psychopath uses to manipulate the population ignoring what the coran or the bible says.

The 10 commandments are the guide for Christians, the 1st one is "Do not kill" but they created the inquisition time that it's a shame for all Christians these days.

With the coran I believe it’s the same. What ISIS is doing are a shame for the rest of the muslins.

The politicians use the same criteria with ideologies believing what is the best for the countries, like Mussolini’s, Hitler, Stalin ........Trump (should I say this one)

Brainwashers bright Psychopaths and the objectives is all about the money.

[vetran]

It's funny that people judge religions by their books at all. What matters in practise is the religion in practise. And we all know that the sum of pretty much all religions is far greater than that of it's books. It's the churches that matter - a book never hurt anyone.

With Christianity the book seems to be optional, certain sects adhere to it more than others.

Despite the old testament suggesting all kinds of unpleasantness there aren't many countries that stone people in the name of Jehovah.


In Islam the Koran is law. There are plenty of outwardly respectable countries that chop things off & kill people in the name of the Prophet.

If the book is used to underpin the whole of the religion and define its laws then it matters a great deal. Its just as stupid as denying the use of condoms if you are catholic.