Religion without God

It is important for a person to present their perspective, I can agree to that. Through communication, empathy, and understanding another person can understand other perspectives and more of existence because of these things. What I do not agree with is there is some divine rules imposed along with that. I agree in more of a social contract leading to an existence of a society as an entity of environment. To say that god declares not killing as a rule is wrong, where our society is defined by the respect for each others life and when that is not there our society becomes a different thing.

On a smaller note we have a certain social contract which creates wordforge society which differs from other society. Our participation and administration creates this entity and changes it.

 

Here is where I find the story of jesus plays the role of a philisophical parable. Not killing runs against nature. Nature kills to survive even down to the microscopic level. There are other ways to survive, and as humans we have a choice. Here is where the story of jesus comes in to illustrate where jesus wanted us to go. This is different from most of the church that is not jesus. In the story jesus is the son of god who can perform miracles. He can transmute things and heal. He could probably kill though I do not think we ever see him doing that. We can assume even if he could not kill with magic he could make himself a formidable opponent with it. He could turn all the whips into wine and walk on water to escape his punishers. Really, he has the powers of god and could smite the fuck out of who he wants in the story. Instead he allows himself to be brutally slaughtered by man without harming him back. He is the lamb, but he is the lion who lays down as the lamb so to speak.

If that is not a statement on how jesus felt about retaliation killing, killing for self preservation, and killing in general I do not know what is. He lead by example, and it is an example as humans we may not be able to keep, but as a parable we should strive towards WWJD. So there is no ambiguity in how jesus felt about killing. If he did not kill those who so wronged him as a man then we should not be killing those who wronged us according to his teachings. The church is different because I do not view the church as being very jesus like.

 

If you really love jesus you better hope he does not exist because the actions of you and your kind would break the fuck out of his heart. That is my biggest problem with how you personally take your religion. You should not be striving to find ways to get around his teachings, but rather embrace them as something you value and stop making excuses. I do not aspire to the christian dogma, but I do have my own. It is not something I try to find a way out of doing. It is something I try to be and live by because I feel it. I don't run from it. I do not abandon it when it gets hard. I do not look for ways to get away with things. Shit can be downright painful in my spirituality.

Do you really think jesus would be telling you it is cool to beat people up even if you are in danger? This is the dude who after being whipped carried his own cross to his crucifixion where he could have chosen a path of retribution, but instead forgave people their transgressions against him? Is that the sort of guy who is going to say it is cool to whip that guys ass or kill him? You don't have to answer me because I already know what I think of you. This is something you should be answering to yourself in some form of honesty without hypocrisy.

 

They were too busy arguing with the Ionics and Dorics about how to build columns.

Fun fact @Dayton3 : Paul probably changed his mind about something. I don't have my teacher's guide with me, but at one point he supported a Jewish convert's decision to go through with Jewish ritual, but later seems to have changed his mind and regarded such things as outdated.

To some unavoidable extent, yes.

Just like everything else in life, we have some responsibility for our own decisions, including the decision processes we go through. Would you really want it any other way?

But what is this context? Sometimes it means looking at surrounding verses. Sometimes it means looking at the rest of the writer's, er, writings. Often it means looking at the culture to which the message is addressed, and considering in what ways that culture resembles or differs from ours. This can change the meaning drastically, or it can deepen it as we recognize details that the initial audience would have understood immediately.

I'm sure you'd agree these are legitimate contexts. In all cases, though, it requires honesty and care, and to avoid the illegitimate context of what you just want it to mean. With God in one's religion, one doesn't need to go in self-defensive, because one's worldview doesn't rely on oneself or one's religous tradition, or even on the Bible being inerrant. All those authorities can have their shortcomings and there is still a true God being pointed to at the bottom of it all.

And yes, there's the possibility of leading others astray. That just heightens our responsibility to get it as right as we can, and for me, that translates into understanding what parts of that context are very subjective and what are safer to generalize to broader contexts. A lot of unnecessary conflict, I think, comes from someone from one generation (or culture, or class, or whatever) trying to enforce what works for them on others. A relatively harmless example: it bugs me when someone shows up in, say, a superhero T-shirt or a sports jersey. By my conception of holiness, bringing in other 'rooting interests' does not respect the time intended to be spent in community focused on God. But they don't mean anything by it, and if God doesn't mind then why should I?

 

Or else, the later epistles are chock full of fake Pauls.

 

with big air-quotes around "God wants me to do this"

If you're killing people and it's not out of genuine necessity (they're trying to kill you or your loved ones, that sort of thing), it's a good bet God doesn't actually want you to do that

 

If I read multiple verses that says something along the lines of "do not judge others, that is for God", "don't look down upon others" and so on, what is the special context I need?

Sorry, but this reads like bollocks to me. Putting aside that I have read and own the King James Bible, are you honestly telling me that one cannot read any verse alone and understand it without reading everything surrounding it? I'm sorry, I don't buy that. While I am sure that some verses are reliant on the surrounding content, there are many that are not. When a verse gives a variation of, say, "love thy neighbour", are you telling me I am incapable of understanding it without reading what is surrounding it? Nonsense. The intent of the verse is obvious.

Well this to me is meaningless since I do not believe in God. I therefore view the text on the basis of what the intended messages are.

Well, again your last question is a pointless one to ask me. From my perspective you have a human created myth. The Abrahamic legend of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. All three give a variation of the legend, with Christianity and Islam also giving a variation on the specific legends of the New Testament. So right there you have the same basic God myth interpreted in three different ways depending on how the legends were put to scripture. Within each of the three major Abramhamic religions you have various denominations and sects who cannot agree on their own interpretation of their third of the Abrahamic myth. So as you trickle down there are more and more branches of interpretation, different versions of scripture and before you know it the original Abrahamic God legend/myth has spawned countless versions and ideas of what the "truth" is.

Even within the three main religions and the various sects and denominations you will have thousands, hell millions of people whose interpretation will be different from the next man within their own subgroup, whether be little or lot.

So at the end of the day your admission in your first sentence that there will always be interpretation is born out by the millions upon millions of people on this planet who have their own personal interpretation of the Abrahamic myths and legends. For this reason your interpretation is no more correct than mine, let alone the next religious person. The tendency to assume that if one cites a Biblical verse one must not have read the rest of the surrounding text is patronising. It is just another way for a religious person to do what most religious people do, and that is to declare their personal understanding of it all the right one. But I am an individual looking at it from an academic perspective so my task if to read the text and decide what the original intent of it was either in part or as a whole and to do so without the third party influence of a sect or denomination.

 

God gave us free will. So God doesn't care what we do.....well until he does in scripture and when he gets to judge us at the pearly gates. God is confused.

It's a pity you can't ask him, isn't it?

 

How does various interpretations available indicate that the underlying text or message is or is not true?

 

The "something," IIRC, was that adult male converts had to consent to circumcision. Damn fool should have realized that was a non-starter. Obsessed with genitalia, our boy Paulie...

 

If a supreme and all-knowing deity intended to give clear instructions to his followers, he'd do so. The rules for getting into heaven should not be buried in obscurity. Ya'd think.

 

One could argue that the instructions ARE CLEAR. That any ambiguity is simply a result of many wanting to make the scriptures say what they prefer.

 

Which is what you do all the time.

 

If you read what I've posted in the past garamet you would find there are a number of things in the scriptures that I disagree with but follow anyway.

 

So the rules are clear to you, but you still feel the need to tailor them for your convenience...as if you think you're better than God.

Interpret this: What would Jesus say about your specious threats to do other posters bodily harm?

"Oh, Dayton. Pay him no mind. He's just kidding."

 

The stupidity of being religious ladies and gentleman.

What do you disagree with then?

 

What do you disagree with then?[/quote]

Personally I disagree with the idea of thoughts and actions being effectively the SAME sin.

For example looking upon a woman with lust being the same as actually committing fornication or adultery.

or hating someone being the same as murdering them.

I know the reasoning though. Virtually all evil starts within the hearts of people well before it manifests itself with actions.

I understand that but I still think that "actions should speak louder"

 

Eh, that's my point. Back in the Old Testament, people claimed that God ordered them to kill men, women, and children all of the time, and the Bible seemed to agree with them as long as it fell in line with what they believed God wanted. So if somebody killed a bunch of people today, and claimed God told them to do it, there would be a precedent for it. Personally, I wouldn't worship any kind of God who went around telling his faithful to kill other people, but I'm just speaking for myself.

 

You said "number of things". That's one.

And are we to assume from this that you do not wish to be judged on anything you think or say? Only what you act on?

Isn't that like, for instance, a racist saying don't judge me on my racist views, only when I attack someone because of them?

 

Well, shit, we owe Osama Bin Laden's family an apology then.
He didn't kill anyone, he just opened his big fat mouth to the people who did.
Ditto Manson.

 

One of my earliest "boy, did I overthink that!" moments was realizing that an Ionic Column was NOT in fact a piece of sci-fi equipment. I got confused because the Master's TARDIS in some of the early Doctor Who eps assumed the form of an Ionic Column and we'd never been taught classical architecture, so it sounded like a gadget to my youthful brain.

 

so when god flooded the entire world and killed every human and animal (except for Gilligan, The Skipper and the passengers of the SS Minnow) would that be violating "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder?" Asking for a friend......

 

Dude, be careful with that much irony, you might just rip a hole in spacetime then we are all fucked.

 

I think you are confused. It is not applause that you hear. It is actually the sound of everyone facepalming so often and so hard around you that you probably feel like everyone is clapping for you.

 

Technically god laid down the rules for men, not for god. It is sort of do as I say not as I do, or to put it in a nice way sort of like being a parent.

 

oh I see...."do as I say, not as I do" the very definition of shitty leadership.

 

What? A bit like......

 

Those verses provide context for each other. The more consistently the prophets tell us to do a thing through history, the more likely it is that that thing is a more universal truth, rather than something aimed at a particular culture.

Do you need to read all those verses to come to that conclusion? No, probably not, depending on how likely you were to not do those things anyway. But it doesn't hurt.

No? It depends on the verse, and how deeply you want to understand it?

Sure. It's going to vary. That's all I'm getting at.

Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes it's easy to take it out of context. (Sometimes it's hard, but people manage it anyway, amirite?) And sometimes understanding the context deepens the understanding, or allows it to stick with you longer.

And for the most part, the standalone meanings are probably good enough for most people. And that's fine. If God thinks you're doing well without in-depth Bible study, who am I to argue? At the Final Judgment, Jesus isn't going to give a pop quiz on the genealogies in the Torah, he's going to ask what we did to tend his sheep. But some people are very understanding-oriented, and they like to have clear guidance and to chase down shades of meaning. And they're part of the body of Christ too, and have their place along with the people who can just sort of instinctually do what's right.

What does it mean to love thy neighbor, anyway? Today we often think of love as this poofy, warm feeling in one's heart (or lower regions), but Jesus had an active, acting sense of "love" in mind. And who is our neighbor? Jesus answers with the parable of the "good Samaritan". It's easy to take away from that story that being an important religious figure isn't what Jesus cares about, Jesus wants you to help others. And that's fine. That's plenty. But Jesus deliberately picked a Samaritan as a religious and social outsider. And we see in his actions again and again, as Jesus spends time with women, Samaritans, children, and all sorts of sinners, that he's reaching out beyond acceptable Jewish society. And that is the point of "neighbor". The church is our "family", and of course we'll help each other out -- Jesus doesn't need to tell us that -- but Jesus is leading us by example to make a special effort to reach out to those we encounter outside our "accepted" social circles. And that is perhaps a point that our preachers should be driving home with special emphasis today, as we live in a society that increasingly urges isolation and tribalism, especially in politics.

So you see, even in the most innocuous phrase, one can miss out on further meaning.

And if you personally have no stake in what the intended messages are, you have no biases that cause you to be defensive about "being wrong" about what the intended messages are. Sure.

Yes. Yes. And it has to be allowed to be a little different to each person, because each person experiences life a little differently. People live subjectively, and the Bible's most important end result is (arguably) to lead people to abundant life.

Paul says that we are all different parts of one body, and as such we all have different capabilities. But that also means that we all have different outlooks on life. Just as a barrister, a judge, or a defendant all have different views of the law because of how they encounter it, we have different views of God because of how we encounter Him, and because of what "abundant life" means to us, and because of what matters most to us. When Jesus says to "tend my sheep", one person might respond by becoming a pastor. Another might respond with regular donations to a food pantry. Another might become a fantastic teacher. They all interpret Jesus's command differently, but all are responding with love or concern for others.

Part of the freedom granted by Christ is that, instead of a single prescriptive set of laws (as in the OT) that either have to stand for all time or be constantly revised as societies and languages evolve, we are given the ability to live by the underlying spiritual principles. We no longer have to waste time on nitpicking to find fault with each other, or lying awake wondering if we made God mad by picking the wrong technicality based on a fallible person's memories of a speech, written down in one language, translated into another, then translated two thousand years later into different language aimed at an immensely different society.

And one part of how we understand those underlying spiritual principles is by deep study and critical thinking about the contents of the BIble.

Funny, secular historians seem capable of arriving at interpretations deemed to be reasonably correct, despite not always taking eyewitnesses or previous historians at face value.

I did not mean to convey any such patronizing message. Apologies if I did.

And I am an individual looking at it from a "seeking God" perspective, so I likewise am freed to decide the original intent without worrying what a particular denomination thinks of it. And if one does interpret the intent based purely on what one's denomination thinks, well I don't see God directly involved in that process, do you? The answer might be tolerably correct, but that would indeed be practicing "religion without God".

Where can you remotely get this?

Remotely?

If my son turns say sixteen and has friends he goes out on the town with, and I trust him to go to the theater or wherever else he says he's going, allowing him freedom means I don't care what he does? I care very much what he does. If he uses his freedom to get drunk and run someone over, you can bet there are gonna be repercussions.

Somehow, it is very important to God that we have meaningful freedom. Why? That's a whole 'nother discussion, and not one that I've thought about much in concrete language. But "choosing to do the right thing" is evidently so much more valuable than "not having a choice in doing the right thing" that it's worth the risk that we will choose to do a very wrong thing.

 

God tried giving instructions of the clear, follow-these-steps variety you'd find in an assembly manual. It's called the Mosaic Law.

It didn't turn out so hot. Apparently humans are just too lacking to measure up without constant help.

But it did serve as a foundation for a system where we did have help from the Holy Spirit and through individual prayer.

 

Why did God try? Why didn't God just do? Trying allows for an implicit imperfection, that being the concept of failure. If God can fail, then God isn't as Godly as he lets on.

Sky gods are way too temperamental for me, what with their hurling lightning bolts and what-not, that's why I prefer space gods.