Bibles, Religion and other uncomfortable topics

[bloss]

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I am leander - possibly meet you in a few weeks!!!

did it ta!

Custardo
on the top of this page it says find discussions, next to that it says topics click on this and scroll down the page click on any of the topics and at the top of the page it says start new discussion or something like that click on that and off you go It took me a while to find it. Hope this helps.

Hopefully Tinker

LMFAO@ snugs that was so funny! i actually told my children i was a witch ( which BTW being a catholic is a burning offence anyway i think) and told them i had a magic book and that i could do spells but only to help other people - they thought it was brilliant - in fact my daughter was having trouble with a girl at school and i did what i told her was a confidence spell - pratted about with a candle and mumbled something from a book and told her that the next day she would have all the confidence she needed to deal with this girl - and she did - she told her to leave her alone! it worked!! however i started to give this much more thought when a colleeague told me that some years ago (on the council estate where i was working at the time) children had been taken by social services after allegations of witchcraft and satanic worship ( all came to nothing apparently) so i stopped my spellbinding performances! how sad is that?

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You've got me really confused, now Bloss! (I'm Suedonim, BTW, not SueW!). From your post about judging others, (para 6) you seem to be saying that everyone will go to hell anyway because we are condemned by God's law, so what is the point?

Also, I still don't see how taking part in secular law where one has to make judgments can be squared with non-judgmental religious beliefs esp as it was mentioned earlier that it is the sin that is loathed, not the sinner. And some countries, of course, use the religious law as their secular law, anyway, such as Shariah Law.

If Stonehenge was a bad example - how about going further back in time to Neandertal man, or to the time before man had effective language. How could they have known of the existence of God? Were they condemned because of their 'unknowingness' (good term, Janh!)?

And what about other religions? They are just as ardent in their beliefs as Christians and presumably not everyone can be correct. Are they condemned too?

Well, I'm just off to the swimming pool and I'll be mulling over this thread again, no doubt. It's even kept me awake at nights, there is so much to think about.

It's cold and raining in the "sunny South" as well.
Is this the longest thread in the history of mumsnet?

Janh, hope you didn't take offence at my posting! I do not consign anyone to anything, I just tell people the facts, not necessarily my beliefs I might point out. The pagans, as I'm sure Snugs will verify, will have heard about the worshipping of one God as this message was being preached from every continent as the human race spread out, from Moses to Abraham and their descendants and so on. I think it was the Egyptians who were so interested in having other gods, such as sun gods and so on, but even they knew of this 'one god religion'.

Also, the God that the Muslims and the Hindus worship is not far from 'our' God, they just give him different names. But Hinduism is a bit like Egyptology, perhaps they got their influences from there, as they have lots of different gods too, but I think even they have an all-powerful God, one who is above the rest. I don't say what will happen to these people when they die, I don't even know what happens to us when we die. All I can say is that I believe we will all be judged according to what we have done in life. There are many better Hindus out there than me, and I'm sure some of them are more deserving of Heaven than me. But that is what I mean about not judging - no-one should say that anyone is going to hell as that is not for them to decide.

Just for the record, I do respect everyone's beliefs, whether you worship Marilyn Manson, like I know Custardo probably does or Mother Theresa.

Bloss - about judging. Here is an example, if someone came up to you and told you they were gay, would you judge them 'unclean' because of it? Would you think how wrong and perverted they were? What if that same person then told you that they do not however practice gay intercourse as they believe that is wrong? Where does that leave your judgement? I used to know quite a few homosexuals who did not practise, for one reason or another. I accept that some men and women are born differently, or are made differently by society (abuse and so on) and I can quite happily live with these people. I don't like homosexual intercourse however, but then I don't like sex with animals either, which many heterosexual people practise. I have an opinion on this, but I don't judge the people involved in it. I can say to them, "I think that is wrong" but I would not say "You are wrong". That is the difference. I hope that is understandable!

Hi again, Snugs. I know James Michener's work is fiction (honest) but The Source is a fascinating account, apparently very well researched, of all the layers of civilisation on one site in the Middle East, going back many thousands of years, who worshipped what, when and why.

Rhubarb, no offence taken of course! But I still don't see how anybody can say "these people knew this and chose to ignore it" of periods so far back in history that there is no documentation - of times when man couldn't even speak yet - aeons before the Egyptians, for example.

What is the history of religion in China, do you know? (From goodrock I thought you might.) They have been "civilised" a lot longer than Western people - what sort of faith system did/do they have? (At least before the Cultural Revolution knocked all that back?)

I have just found this site via google and I think it will interest most of the people who have been posting on this thread:

www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

The home page is headed "This is a quiet place in cyberspace devoted to religious tolerance and scholarship" - which is nice! - and the list of topics is as follows:

African
Age of Reason
Alchemy
Ancient Near East
Atlantis
Australian
Baha'i
Bible
Book of Shadows
Buddhism
Christianity
Confucianism
DNA
Egyptian
Esoteric & Occult
Fortean
Goddesses
Gothic
Greek and Roman
Grimoires
Hinduism
I Ching
Islam
Jainism
Journals
Judaism
Legends and Sagas
Mormonism
Native American
Neopaganism/Wicca
Nostradamus
Oahspe
Pacific
Paleolithic
Piri Re'is Map
Sacred Books of the East
Sacred Sexuality
Shamanism
Shinto
Sikhism
Sufi
Tantra
Taoism
Tarot
Thelema
Timeline
Tolkien
UFOs
Utopia
Women
Zoroastrianism

Something for everyone here, I think!

bloss - I don't have a particularly comfortable veiw of Christianity, and I am most certainly not godly. I'm just not kept awake at night by the thought of gay people having sex or the fact that I don't obey my husband (which I don't think would be fair to either of us, although it might make my life a lot simpler.) The stuff that does? Material wealth - the fact that I have far more than I need. Having to forgive my enemies - the drunk drivers, the drug dealers, the paedophiles, the rapists, who make me fearful for my daughter's future. Turning the other cheek (as you can probably tell!) And not only forgiving my enemies, but loving them. And the biggest thing of all - that I don't trust in God as I should, otherwise I wouldn't find myself praying to God to look after my little one so often when I know that God loves her far more than I can imagine and has her in his care always.

I don't believe in the infallibility of the Bible. To do so only leads to arguments about creationism and the like which may be interesting but ultimately detract from the real issues at the centre of our faith. I do obey God; I try to love him and love my neighbour. But I feel uncomfortable with pointing the finger at people if their lifestyles don't fit in with our ideas. The only thing which I would be moved to speak out on is cruelty, such as a man physically or mentally abusing his family; or behaviour likely to cause pain, such as an adulterous affair. I understand your point about it being okay to judge providing you admit your own sin but to know your sins you have to be incredibly self-aware. I know that I sin every day and that I actually notice only a tiny percentage of it.

It may seem like universalism is a comfy idea, with the whole of creation living in a Disney-style heaven and Hitler et al suddenly turned into cuddly bunny-huggers. Actually, it isn't like that for me. Firstly, it means that I have to accept that my reward will ultimately be the same as Hitler and all his ilk. Secondly, because I also believe in a just God, it means that I also believe in a process of judgement and cleansing that I don't think is going to be all that pleasant.

I do object to the idea that if you believe as I do then you are not a 'proper' Christian. I am fully committed to the God that I love and to his Son who gave his life for me. I don't see gentle Jesus, meek and mild (although he was undoubtedly capable of great gentleness); I see a revolutionary figure calling me and challenging me to take my life out of its safeness and into places that frighten the hell out of me, and with people that I don't know how to deal with.

At the end of the day, Christians have always disagreed. Paul argued with Peter. A thousand years' ago they argued about how many angels you could get on a pinhead. Disagreement about transubstansiation and teh worship of saints tore Christianity apart. More recently Anglicanism nearly split because of the ordination of women; it may yet do so if homosexuals are ordained. If I had voiced my veiws a few hundred years'ago I would have been burned at the stake as a heretic!

Have a look at "Timeline" - it lists all the sacred texts for all the religions along with various other factors such as the world's physical history (the scientific one - it also gives a date for the "Creation".)

Janh ? I am going to try to get the James Michener book ? I have read some of his work but not the one you mentioned. I?m not doubting that he did a lot of research, but all research can be flawed (including that which my beliefs are based on!).

Anyway, just for interest, a Pagan perspective:

Aion; Attis; Antiochus; Osiris; Dionysus, Asclepius; Adonis; Bacchus; Mithras;
You might know 1 or 2 of those names but you all know his pseudonym better: Jesus, Son of God (Zeus; Ra; Allah etc).

'Paganism' has existed for all of known history (and probably way beyond that) and many pagan legends tell the same stories as those told in the Christian Bible and the holy books from other religions. The majority of religions, regardless of where or when they started, have a common thread running through them: An eternal source of power which created (or populated) the earth and a saviour(s) or helper put on the earth to guide it's inhabitants (there are of course numerous other repetitions of themes). Everyone has free will and free choice and can worship (or not) accordingly.

I personally find many Christian ideals difficult to live with (not going to say which ones ) and don?t believe that God (by any other name) would wait countless millennia before allowing us to know of his existence, only choosing to appear 2000 odd years ago. I also don?t believe in Hell or Satan - they were political creations of the Christian (Romanised) church, invented to use as a weapon against those who chose not to follow their laws. However, that is my personal belief and I in no way would wish to criticise anyone who believes otherwise ? free will, free choice.

The basic principle behind Pagan beliefs is that we love and respect the earth that gives us life and wish harm to no-one ? surely points that pretty much anyone would agree with ? so maybe we are all just pagans who wear different hats.

I shall now quietly leave the room before I get yelled at ? oh and try beliefnet , excellent site covering all faiths and religions.

Sorry, that last link was rubbish (never get it right first time!)

beliefnet

Snugs - paganism sounds pretty cool.

Snugs

I agree with Tinker

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Bloss - it's ok to say that a particular act is wrong, but you should not judge the person doing it. And if some people are not 'born' homosexuals then what did Jesus mean when he said that some men do not marry because they were born that way, and others because men made them that way? Is this not an acknowledgement of homosexuality?

Janh - I think that everyone's view of the start of human life differs. The view of the Bible is that life started from Adam and Eve, their descendants were Noah, Moses and Abraham, we are in effect, these men's descendants too. Therefore, as Snugs has pointed out, everyone had heard of God, but some chose to interpret God differently. Basically humankind branched out from the time of the tower of Babyelon and each took their own culture. I'm not saying that this is my belief, just that this is how the Bible sees it. I don't really know where I stand on that issue.

I don't know about China. I haven't gone that far back on it's history. I do know that religion of any kind was suppressed by Mao and is only just being allowed now, although it is still frowned upon in some parts. They have a lot of martyrs in China who were killed for practising their faiths. I should imagine though, that it's principle religion would be Muslim. But don't quote me on that!

Would just like to say that bloss sounds very non-judgemental to me and I'd like her on the jury if I decide to take up any criminal activities.

And Christians can sit on juries. Judges, juries, etc, only consider whether or not the accused has broken the law and how he/she should be punished for that demeanour. God, however, judges of all us and sees our hearts. We cannot judge the state of another person's heart and that's what we have to leave to God.

Am intrigued by the idea that we're all going to heaven regardless of what we do here on earth. From this point of view, what was the point of Jesus' atoning death? And does this mean I can do what I want because I'm going to heaven anyway?

I must say, I find it very hard to understand how anyone who believes the OT would think God was perfectly pure and good. The deity depicted in the Bible (OK, mostly OT) was a cruel, capricious, ill-tempered monster (an archetypal god really) who ordered all sorts of deaths, massacres and even rapes. What about the nasty practical joke with Abraham and his poor son? I know he let them off in the end, but imagine that child's fear and suffering. Why did this loving, perfectly good God allow the unutterable horror of the Nazi death camps where babies were stripped of their clothes and thrown into gas chambers to die? Did the babies reject God??? I'm infinitely nicer than that. If I was an omnipotent God who had made the world (for what reason? was God lonely??) I would have made a better one and would ensure such horrors didn't exist. In short, I certainly wouldn't think this God could possible have the right to judge anyone, including me. As you have probably gathered, I believe in the Christian God about as much as I believe in Odin, Thor and Osiris, but if the Bible was true I honestly would think it was terrible, awful, blood-curdling news. Imagine, say you went to heaven, how could you possibly enjoy it when so many of your dear friends and family were suffering eternal torment in hell? What kind of pleasure would you have in eternity knowing the sufferings of others? So for sensitive, loving people wouldn't heaven be a kind of hell? Also, what on earth was God doing sacrificing his son? A. Why is it justice to punish one person for the wrongdoings of another? Downright injustice, I'd call it. B. Why does a single human death atone for the sins of the world? Who says? God? If so, why? It doesn't make any sense to me. If God's in charge and made the world (and therefore the rules) it seeems pretty mad to decide that the world can be saved if you kill someone. Why not just forgive us all anyway (if you loved us)? C. Why do you have the right to kill your child by sacrifice? Do you believe your children belong to you and have no choices or say in your future? That is what God's 'sacrifice' seems to imply to me. It is a view that very firmly belongs a couple of thousand years ago, yet God is supposed to be beyond time - so why are his views so dated? I know this post will offend some people, but they are my true and honest views. I feel much happier with a slightly chaotic evolving world than with a divine being who is so very scary.

aloha - glad you're back. You've just articulated most of the points I wanted to make, especially about why does sending your son to be killed save us. Can't see any logic in this at all.