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There is a wee bit of ironic humour in that. Why would JC weep when he knew he could ressurect his mates anytime he felt like it ?Quote:
Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC
For Gods sake big man why did you wait four days to bring me back ?
To prove my ways are unknowable and confuse future generations. You really need to go and have a shower. :skep:
It's a wee bit more complicated than that, jocky. Jesus was weeping because he was being forced to resurrect Lazarus.Quote:
Originally Posted by jocky
That is the problem G L everything in the scriptures has been poured over by the God squad ad infinitum and simple teachings that most humans can relate to have been obscured and turned into intellectual debates. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I can relate to the Sermont on the Mount story which reflects the very best qualities of religion. This, in my opinion, is humanity at its finest but it is not divine. Cheers.Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
I too find it intolerable for my interpretation of Scripture to be judged incorrect when there is no one way of reading anything. Why should Scripture be judged a special case? The Bible like any other book should be used without fear in any way we see fit. As a humanist, I find that the most annoying people are mostly my fellow humanists who lack any sense of proportion and come down hard on any transgressions in fashion as if humanism was somehow a cult.Quote:
Originally Posted by jocky
I find that some people force their beliefs onto the text. If they believe, for instance, they interpret scenes that seem offensive on a deep, highly symbolic level that erases all the offense. If they don't believe sometimes they nitpick or twist.
It is very irritating. I am atheist but I will not force myself to believe that everything in the Bible is bad or wrong.
Most humanists reckon that if you quote the Bible that you are devoted to it but then most humanists are idiots.
:biggrin5:Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
There are a few notable exceptions:
I just can't think who at the moment. No doubt someone will let us know.
Christopher Hitchens is a free thinker if ever there was one. I'm one. You're one by the sounds of it, jocky. Young cl is a rather promising thinker. There are quite a number of free thinkers in the world; but no matter how many there are, there will always be a pile of idiots piled on top of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by jocky
I'm one, I think.
Clearly, Varenne, you are. But most people could have their heads punched in by a hammer and they would still go on talking the same as always.Quote:
Originally Posted by Varenne Rodin
I think that religions attempt to develop a meaning to life that goes beyond the everyday. In the past, most lives were shorter and death was much more apparent. People were brought up close to death sooner, and in all probability experienced death to a much greater extent than we do - in the West certainly.
How many dead people do we see? For most of us we may only see an open coffin, or view a relative in a chapel if that. Death these days is very sanitary. it is swept away by a very efficient undertaker/ morgue/ hospital system that really takes away the up close horror of what death might hold for us. I'm not saying this is a bad thing by the way, though it may weaken our appreciation of what death is.
In the face of no alternative, religions have developed in different parts of the world to address this issue. What is our nature? Do we end when our body dies? Is what I do therefore meaningful?
These are valid and important questions,and ones that may be dismissed, but they are ones which we will all face on a very personal level. Whatever your take on teligion, it is an attempt to come to terms with and explain this. This is the core of religions, and while science may provide us with the answers to lots of questions and discredits - for the good in my opinion - attempts by religious people to deny scientific truth - it does not answer these questions.
Religion is often seen only as a power play, and this is a superficial, political take on what a religion is about. Regarding it only in this way does not admit that it has been an effort to root out the meaning and truth of our existence.
Of course, some religions do not help themselves by their complacency, and disregard for other explanations. Bastions of supposed truth are built, and orthodoxy developed around this, and, as with all inflexibility, cracks in the theology, or inadequacy in ethics appear.
This does not mean that religions started off with these faults. They began as attempts to answer ultimate truths.
Some people have an agenda against religions in general, but following their orthodoxy may well be just as inhibiting as adopting a unquestioning religious orthodoxy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
There once was a moron named Moe
Who questioned the free thinker, Joe,
"So, you think that you're bright?"
And Joe said, "Yeah, that's right,"
As they wait for their nurses to show.
Once a person named YesNoQuote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
near Chicago
was asked, "What do you know?",
and she said, "I don't know,
I'm a little slow."
Glad you liked it, GL!Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
"If you want to be one of the nonconformists all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do" - Goth kids from South Park. :biggrin5:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo