does religion/God give people a voice?

[QUOTE=SentimentalSlop;1242784]

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Originally Posted by cacian

1) Animal and human instincts are similar a lot of the time, but we must be stronger than our instincts.

2) You're being vague. What doesn't make sense?

3) The whole victim thing is entirely untrue, by the way.

4) Usually the simplest answer is the right one.

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let's just rephrase that again an animal instinct is different from that of a human. if you cannot see that then I cannot help you.
you must help yourself or check with the bible.

usually the simplest answer is the correct one. whether it is right or not is another matter. right or wrong is neither here or there.
and as the saying goes: it is for me to know and it is for you to find out.
that is the correct way to any answer. right has nothing to do with it you may as well ask whether the question is the right one too in which case my answer is does it really matter? I have asked it and that is good enough.
so does religion give people a voice? the answer is no it does not.
that is a question with a correct answer.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

To be effective we need good theories, and we can only see that these theories are good by using empirical methods. Medieval man couldn't float away into space because he had bad theories, modern man could, using spacecraft, because he had good theories.



To say "God caused the Big Bang" is to cut short the possibility of further scientific investigation, such as the speculative theories of "universe from nothing", "multiverse", and so on. The church has always tried to put a halt to scientific speculation, trying to shut up Galileo because the Earth "must" be still, or Darwin because God "must" be the designer. The Roman catholic church is a bit cleverer than tea party fundies, these days, but here you reveal it is still encouraging scientific backwardness by suggesting God "must" have caused the Big Bang. If you then say "God caused whatever the physicists eventually discover that came before the Big Bang", then you are still left with an enigma: what caused God?

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Causation is the bailiwick of science; "God always was, and always will be," is the Christian answer to the multiverse extrapolation.

Just remember that Galileo was absolved - after 359 years of fire and brimstone, suddenly, in 1992

*POOF*

wings and an harp.














Y'ask me, I'd have held out for Guinness; Harp's just too light for my tastes.

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Originally Posted by SentimentalSlop

You hold rape and murder to be wrong, good for you. But there are people out there who find all sorts of logical reasons why rape and murder are not wrong. What are you going to say to those people?

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I'd avoid them, and wouldn't give them a platform, if I had a platform. If they tried to put their nasty views into action I'd lock 'em up. These people were around in Christian societies, whatever you had to say wasn't effective.

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Originally Posted by Eman Resu

Causation is the bailiwick of science; "God always was, and always will be," is the Christian answer to the multiverse extrapolation.

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I can see "Universe always was, and always will be," as a reasonable extrapolation beyond the multiverse hypothesis, but why bring God into it?

Light interlude:

There was a preacher who fell in the ocean and he couldn't swim. When a boat came by, the captain yelled, "Do you need help, sir?" The preacher calmly said "No, God will save me." A little later, another boat came by and a fisherman asked, "Hey, do you need help?" The preacher replied again, "No God will save me." Eventually the preacher drowned & went to heaven. The preacher asked God, "Why didn't you save me?" God replied, "Fool, I sent you two boats!"

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I'd avoid them, and wouldn't give them a platform, if I had a platform. If they tried to put their nasty views into action I'd lock 'em up. These people were around in Christian societies, whatever you had to say wasn't effective.

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So you'd just avoid the problem and throw them in prison? Not that they shouldn't be in prison, but problems need to be addressed in order to prevent further incidences.

Such people have always been around. Christians have changed the hearts of many, but some people don't want to listen. How can you get through to someone if they don't even want to participate?

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I can see the "Universe always was, and always will be," as a reasonable extrapolation beyond the multiverse hypothesis, by why bring God into it?

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Why not? He put us here; the least we can do is invite Him to the party.

;)

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I can see the "Universe always was, and always will be," as a reasonable extrapolation beyond the multiverse hypothesis, by why bring God into it?

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The universe might not always be here, and maybe the other universes may eventually go away, too. But Christians believe God is immortality. He has no beginning or end, but material things do.

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Originally Posted by Eman Resu

Why not? He put us here; the least we can do is invite Him to the party.

;)

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true but then maybe god has his own entourage and folks on earth are just mere second class citizens . god does look down on humans and humans look up right?

[QUOTE=cacian;1242793]

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Originally Posted by SentimentalSlop

let's just rephrase that again an animal instinct is different from that of a human. if you cannot see that then I cannot help you.
you must help yourself or check with the bible.

usually the simplest answer is the correct one. whether it is right or not is another matter. right or wrong is neither here or there.
and as the saying goes: it is for me to know and it is for you to find out.
that is the correct way to any answer. right has nothing to do with it you may as well ask whether the question is the right one too in which case my answer is does it really matter? I have asked it and that is good enough.
so does religion give people a voice? the answer is no it does not.
that is a question with a correct answer.

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1) Of course there are differences, but there are also similarities.

2) How does religion not give people a voice? Please explain. It gives me my voice, a better voice than I had before.

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Originally Posted by Eman Resu

Why not? He put us here; the least we can do is invite Him to the party.

;)

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LOL
It's also the best we can do.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

Volya asks you valid questions. Why not show him Christian respect and address them Sentimental.

Btw Jesus told the people in his sermon on the mount that the old laws would not be changed. So the OT is not obsolete at all and all Christians are therefore hypocrites for not following the word of God.

This is exactly my point about cherry picking. NEWSFLASH: if the OT no longer applies, why the hell do you folk keep quoting the parts that suit you from it????

But you won't kill a homosexual....

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I realize that this is from many pages back and that the discussion has moved on (at least as far as any God discussion ever moves on), but I wanted to try and clear up some of the OT/NT confusion -

Most of the confusion arises because of the highly diplomatic way in which the question is handled. No pastoral authority ever wants to come and say straight out that we do not follow the Old Testament any more, probably because Jesus himself was very diplomatic about it. Christianity, like Jainism, buddhism, Sikhism etc is a reformist religion. Jesus himself had no wish to supplant his own religion, Judaism, with a new faith. What he set out to do was to reform, or at least to disseminate his own passionate beliefs, and he did not want to be executed for blasphemy before he had even begun, and in the end he was crucified for just that, but not before he'd had his say. Anyway, I'm NOT trying to be God's spokesperson, like so many others here and in the wide world are doing. That's for each person to decide on their own. We are not living in the dark ages, when only a few learned people had access to the scriptures, and tried to impose their own (often idiotic) interpretation on a gullible public. The Bible is now free for all - literally, with online access and The Gideons and all that.

So, Matthew 5, 17 - “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." - so he starts off with a professed respect for the law, and in the same paragraph starts showing disdain for the Pharisees and interpreters of the law. As the sermon proceeds, he subtly disregards the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" OT laws and substitutes instead his own gospel of mercy and forgiveness. By the end of his life, he'd be proclaiming that He is the fulfillment of the law, the Lord of the Sabboth, The Son of Man, The Christ, the prophesied Messiah.

After all this, if we (those of us who profess to be Christians) insist on being bound by the law, we are like the foolish Galatians whom Paul upbraids so passionately, comparing those who are still under the law to slaves, and telling them that if they want to be enslaved by the law, then Jesus was crucified and died in vain.

Then why is the OT still a part of the Bible? Well, the question of why certain books were chosen for inclusion in the Bible is itself a complicated one and I do not know much about it, but even Christians do not all follow the same books (the Roman Catholic Bible has more books than the one followed by Protestants, for instance), but certainly no one is bound to follow every word in the Bible. That would be impossible anyway, in a work so complex and contradictory.

Secondly, Jesus was Jewish, so we need to know his background in order to understand his teachings. The OT is the root from which Christianity sprung, and roots are important.

Thirdly, Jesus himself and many Christians believe that Jesus's coming was a fulfillment of certain Old Testament prophecies, so that's reason enough to include it.

And most important, there are lots of good things in the OT which Jesus himself never challenged, like the Ten commandments. So there is wheat there as well as tares, and if you try to uproot the tares you could uproot the wheat as well. (Jesus's quote, but in a different context)

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Originally Posted by SentimentalSlop

Who are you to say that I can't act upon my beliefs? I do everyday.

The OT justified the killing of active homosexuals because it is a sin to act upon such desires, but Christ came not to eradicate the idea that active homosexuality is sinful, but to show mercy to sinners and offer them another way to heaven that is actually possible.

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If Christ never said anything for, against, or about homosexuality and indeed never mentioned it at all, how can you conclude that he regarded it as a sin?

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Originally Posted by mona amon

If Christ never said anything for, against, or about homosexuality and indeed never mentioned it at all, how can you conclude that he regarded it as a sin?

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You quoted the passage:

Matthew 5, 17 - “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."

From what you say, by abolishing "eye for an eye" he actually contradicted his statement that "not the smallest letter... will disappear from the Law", but if we are as generous as we can be, and assume he actually meant "not the smallest letter, except for the bits I explicitly contradict", then by not saying anything about homosexuality he is tacitly backing the Law on homosexuality as it stands. This, of course, makes him complicit with some of the worst excesses of the Old Testament ogre, and explains why burning heretics & witches could so easily become part of Christian practice, and why Roman Emperors (of all people!) could so easily take up the Christian faith.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

If Christ never said anything for, against, or about homosexuality and indeed never mentioned it at all, how can you conclude that he regarded it as a sin?

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Because he never once mentions marriage consisting of two men or two women. Nowhere in the Bible is it mentioned as such. He mentions it solely as a man/woman relationship.

19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there.

3 Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” 8 He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.”[a]

10 His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

I think it is very convenient to use what Jesus says as a basis for argument as well as what Jesus doesn't say as a basis for argument.

Furthermore, Any God that had to do anything is not omnipotent so having no choice but to put a tree in the garden of Eden completely discredits his almighty power.

Add to that the annoying fact how Christians can answer for God's actions some of the time and not for others.

Constant inconsistencies all the way through