Christian Marriage is a lifelong 1m1w covenant

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The answer is that the Law doesn't apply to soteriology (the study of salvation), but rather hamartiology (the study of sin/ethics). So what we have is many Christians that simply place it in the wrong category. We study biblical ethics in order to benefit the lives of ourselves and others; it is like taking a doctor's prescription, as in not imperative but restorative, and not general but specific. As you've noted we no longer have the same concerns about parasites, leprosy, psoriasis, preserving a national identity by keeping a whole country in line with the faith, etc.

There is a milk in the Word and a meat in the Word, and learning it is much like the development of human digestion from infant to adult. Some Christians are never weaned, so they condemn people and espouse meaningless and/or arbitrary platitudes alongside the gospel. The Word becomes diluted and it's effect is lessened. This is because they have no familiarity with criteria like 1-5 that I listed earlier, and they are familiar only with the received text.

I understand that these ideas may not make a difference for you personally, right now. But if you would like to understand Christians then you must be able to entertain Christian ideas. It's just the same if I want to discuss such matters with a Taoist without coming at him/her with unfair notions and confusing anecdotal evidence of Taoism for the genuine article, confusing those who "digest milk" for those who "digest meat".

You're right that it is terribly easy to cherry pick verses and come up with basically anything. On the other hand it is entirely harder to assume some responsibility, and discipline one's self to systematic and rigorous methodology, in order to share meat.

As for your reference to insects, that's actually a pretty easy query. In biblical times there was no such thing as taxonomy, and the word "insect" wasn't around yet either. Another similar instance to note is in the story of Jonah where translators have given renderings either of a "great fish" or a "whale". They weren't making claims of a scientific nature. All they were doing was "sharing the mouth noise we use to refer to this thing that we've seen". For their purposes, lumping bug species together regardless of taxonomy functioned perfectly fine. No one was dissecting such organisms and asking themselves what exactly were the functions of their bodily parts, what their ancestry might be, or thus and such because their interests didn't extend that far.

You said that you would bite. When you said that, I had assumed that you were willing to share some of your political principles and discuss their historical origins.



Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a renowned biography of Lincoln and his cabinet members, portrays clearly the significant contributions of William Seward (his Secretary of State) and especially the effect of his "Higher Doctrine" arguments on the issue of slavery.

See also:

http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC0 ... =titlepage

It's a pretty ordinary and accepted notion that religion has been part of the political conversation from antiquity until now. And I should hardly be responsible to give a half dozen citations attesting to something you must have come across numerous times over your life, if you've been reading historical material of any kind of reputable quality that sees fit to quote from the original sources. If you really are so skeptical of such a regular and critically accepted notion, I would be happy to provide direct quotations from some original sources.



Philosophy and religion (religion being the expression of general philosophies regarding purpose and ethics), with their interplay, are not just single cogs but the primary cogs of society. Whatever your opinion is of the rationality of religion, and however you might think it reduces down to the explanation that we were merely expressing the evolution of our survival and proliferation, says nothing to detract from the fact that these two cogs have had the greatest import.



I'm not arguing for so much as noting the presence of. What I was noting was the inconsistency of saying "you believe in bronze age ideas", criticizing such as primitive, and then espousing humanitarian or other ideas that have their origins in the same periods and from mostly the same thinkers.



You have no reason to assume either because I've never even remotely expressed that I believe in such. Neither is it my responsibility to give you a bunch of direct quotations, given the exceedingly simple point I was making and especially the fact that you've already basically agreed to my premise, that religion is a cog in the development of society. All that's left to accept for my point to stand is that secularists have ideas with an origin just as early, ideas whose chief proponents in a number of instances were religious people.

The hypocrisy and haughty nature with which militant secularists address the religious is identical to the hypocrisy and haughty, condescending nature of religious people. Crying meaningless platitudes like "flying spaghetti monster", "bronze age fables", and "fairy tales" that are carried on by "primitive people" is no more than base condescension and it in no way addresses directly the issues. Are people interested in glutting their vanity, or engaging in meaningful discussion? Their notions that dehumanize and make a caricature out of the other camp(s), abuse only themselves and their own learning opportunities.

It is entirely too easy to hide behind ad homs and careless oversimplifications, and other misrepresentations of your interlocutors, and entirely more difficult and rewarding to candidly and carefully entertain their ideas. Serious thinkers ought to be proud of the times that they have conceded, proud of their ability to play devil's advocate, and proud that they can even take pleasure in disagreeing with someone. In spite of that example seen in much of the academic community, people take pride only in their foregone conclusions and their supposed superiority in holding them. All I can say for many of the more militant secularists that I've discussed these issues with, is that so far as I know theirs must be a lonely and fickle world where everyone else but those in their camp are apparently primitive and inferior.

What an absurd assumption. When I said I'd bite, it was in response to your request for a "direct answer" to the quoted text, which I provided as pcuser seemed unwilling/unable to.



This is suggested reading, not citation.



I asked for citations that support your assertion that specific laws were religious in origin. This waffle about religion being "in the conversation" is a shifting of the goalposts. Either support your assertion or do not.



Language is the primary cog of society. Religion has, at various times in history, played a huge role, but the ethics of religion are informed by society and not the other way around. Human societies predate any modern religion or philosophy, as religion and philosophy are constructs of society.



I'm puzzled by this explanation on two grounds, the first being that you seem to be implying that I criticised your beliefs on the grounds you have provided. I have done no such thing. Furthermore, you presented Plato's Republic in response to my request for evidence that specific laws were religious in origin.



In that case, you'll have no problem withdrawing your implication that an aversion to religious involvement in law-making is fascist.



It is, however, your responsibility to provide substance to any assertions you present as statements of fact. You have yet to provide a single example of a law which has its origin in religion.



Whereas all religious people are paragons of virtue, who would never stoop so low as to (e.g.) label secularists as fascists? Are you debating with me, or simply using my responses as a platform for your address to a militant straw-secularist?



You won't find any disagreement here.



How is any of this relevant to our discussion? You've rather descended into the realms of emotional appeal.

Let's try to simplify things. Which of the following two statements do you consider to be true:

A society cannot function without religion.
A religion cannot function without society.

anus

Yes, they do cherry-pick the Bible, but that's perfectly understandable when one considers the fact that what we now know as "The Bible" was never intended by its many authors to actually be a single book in the first place. It's more like one of those miniature encyclopaedias they used to print aeons ago (ex. Pears), that one could hold in one hand and look up for all kinds of useful facts. It's history, poetry, mythology, law - but not science, by the way, which did not exist back then. Much of it should be taken literally (ex. Ten Commandments), but other parts of it are purely allegorical (ex. the Parables).

The mistake that Christians and atheists make is to assume it is one solid, clearly-defined, consistently literal, single book for all times, situations and possibilities. It can't be due to, among other reasons, the clearly self-refuting nature of it.

Just because a theologian writes something about marriage being between one man and one woman, it doesn't mean anything other than that is his religious definition. But here in America, the civil marriage ceremony is a legal contract, which has recently come to include gay and lesbian marriage. As private organizations, churches can exclude whomever they wish from a religious ceremony, but their choice has no bearing on the legality of civil marriage between consenting adults.

How is this thread still going.

You all missed an important about the OP... They refused to accept the church Jesus ordered the apostles to create!
By history and tradition, the Catholic Church is the only real church of Christ.

Saint Peter (the head apostle and first pope) had a vision that the devil would come in the form of a member of the clergy and break up the church.
This person who fulfilled this vision was Martin Luther, the founders of the protestant movement.
Ironically Martin Luther was full fledged schizo.

The place of Greek Orthodox, is up for debate since they haven't severed full ties with the Vatican, though their head was the head of the Byzantine Empire.

Jews claim that Jesus wasn't the Son of God and all those who follow Jesus are following a fraud are living in sin...

So to sum up, if you claim to be christian and refuse to be Catholic, then you are going to hell!

Eh, which incarnation?

The one that fraudulently took possession of the vatican?

Also you are supposed to pray and hold services in Latin.
Latin, Ancient Greek, and Aramaic are the only three languages which one must hold services, print holy texts, pray according to God!
Any other language is deemed sinfu!

In 1545, the Holy Spirit appeared before the Council of Trent telling the Bishops, Cardinals, and Pope spelling out the terms of marriage in Gods eyes.

God said the terms as are as follows:

1) One of people must be Catholic
2) The other person must be willing to convert to Catholicism and be baptized Catholic.
3) A member of the Catholic Clergy must ordain the marraige
4) The territory were the marriage was ordained must be under Catholic jurisdiction
5) The member of the clergy has to be in good standing with the church
6) The Pope has the power to null the church
7) The children must be Catholic, failure to have your Children take all the Catholic Sacraments (Baptism included).

Last edited by xenocity on 05 Jul 2015, 11:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All Popes are successors to Saint Peter, including Benedict the IX, who held the post 3 times.
Both Popes during the brief schizm are officially counted as well.

Unless you're referring to someone else.

A Lutheran here. I was tempted to respond to your rant, but I've learned a long time ago that it's pointless to argue with crazy people. And if I'm going to hell, at least I'll be away from pedophiles jabbering in Latin.
And by the way, Luther was probably a fellow Aspie.

the episcopalian church will perform gay weddings. so that's a christian marriage not between a man and a woman.

No he wasn't.
He suffered from schizo and other mental illnesses all his adult life, culminating with him commanding the protestants overthrow the German Kingdoms and France.
His protestant movement upon those words started an outright revolt and uprising destroying everything and everyone who stood against Martin Luther's beliefs.
Austria and France sent aid and troops to the German Princes to subdue the protestants revolt against them to prevent it from spreading across Europe.

They arrested Luther and locked him away in castle in Bavaria as punishment for trying to overthrow the German Kingdoms.
Luther became more crazy as time went on, with the voices in his head growing more frequent and louder.
He also had regular hallucinations, which also worsened as time went on.
He still found away for many years after his imprisonment in the castle, to communicate with his protestant movement.
Though he kept commanding them to exact revenge on all those who locked him away while continuing to advocate the overthrow of the governments of Europe, which led to his unexpected death in his early 70s, supposedly by poison.

He also believed it was demons and his enemies that were trying to get him, not actual illness.

I suggest you read up on the history of Martin Luther.

Anyways my post was in response to the OP, was a theological history lesson.
Whether or not anyone follows them, is non of my concern (nor I do I believe in most of it).
I don't take religion too serious

I have read plenty on Luther's history. He actually had been condemned by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V on grounds of heresy, and had been declared an outlaw. Luther had been "kidnapped" by friends serving his Duke in Saxony, who was one of his number one supporters. He had been hid for a year in the castle in Saxony - not Bavaria - where he translated the Bible into German. He did not try to overthrow any European kingdoms; in fact he gave them support against the peasant revolt. And yes, Luther had had bizarre hallucinations - everyone did in those days, as the grain from which the people's bread and beer had been made from had been was covered with a naturally occurring mold that produces a natural form of LSD. Luther did not try to harm his opponents, save with his intemperate verbal abuse - so no, he never tried to have anyone killed. In fact, it had been the Catholic church of the day that had persecuted and killed it's opponents. And no, Luther had never been poisoned, he died following a stroke. Germany had been invaded by other European armies in the wars of religion only after Luther's death.
I suggest you read a real book on Luther, not some inane fantasy dreamed up by fanatics who cling to the Latin Mass.

Why do you assume anyone who doesn't follow your beliefs is an atheist? I don't follow your religion or worship your god...my choice, even if he is 'the one true god' like any fundie would say, I still wouldn't want to follow a god that would send people to hell for such things as sexual orientation or choosing to follow different beliefs. But anyways its not just athiests who disagree that your beliefs should dictate law.

I think most atheists I know understand that the bible was ultimately edited by Constantine in the Council of Nicea. We simply don't acknowledge it's 'divinity'...