Tom's comments (member since Nov 17, 2008)

Tom's comments from the Debate Religion group.

The article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...

The revision will "reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship." If i understand correctly, one of the anticipated changes is that use of the male pronoun will be changed where warranted by the "original" text. The example given is "sons of God" changed to "children of God." What i don't get is that some conservatives have a problem with this. If you actually believe that the bible is the literal and perfect word of god, how on earth can you justify not coming up with the closest literal translation possible?

If you actually read all the "begats," then i'm impresed.

It's been quite a few years since i've read the bible and frankly, i've no desire to do it again... but what i took away from it is that it's such a large book that incorporates so many different ideas and stories, you can pretty much take away whatever you bring to it. Don't like gays? For a man to lie with another man is an abomination! No hangups about homosexuality? David's love for Jonathon was like a man's love for a woman...and David was a man after god's own heart! You get socialism from the bible (the book of Acts, if i recall correctly) but you also get the so-called Prosperity Gospel-- be a good believer and god will make you rich. And as fractured and fragmented and different as christian beliefs are today, it's my understanding that the beliefs of people calling themselves christians was even more diverse before the first Council at Nicea.

C. S. Lewis? The wikipedia article on him doesn't focus much on his "atheism," though he refers to himself as a former atheist in his writing. The impression i get from the article, possibly incorrect, is that in his early adult life he was semi-pagan, interested in the occult and pre-christian european religions...which doesn't sound too terribly atheistic...

According to this article, a Turkish TV station is planning a "convert an atheist" game show, involving priests or equivalent from a number of different religions. They've upset some of the local religious authorities who say that this makes a mockery of religion. I wonder about the premise, and the execution... how "atheist" are the atheists to begin with? Also, i think i might become a christian for a few weeks to win an all expense paid trip to the vatican (Muslims are much more hostile to apostates so the trip to Mecca isn't as appealing, and i'm somehow not all that interested in visiting Tibet).

I can't view youtube at work, and i'm on dial up at home. How about a synopsis?

World Net Daily (yeah, i know) is reporting that the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia will be displaying the Ark of the Covenant to the world, and is supposed to make the public announcement in Rome on Friday. I somehow doubt they'll let archaeologists anywhere near it, to date the materials or contents or determine if it contains modern materials. The kind of troubling thing is that there's some end-of-the-world types who believe that the return of the ark is one more sign of the end times...

I just don't get it. The Southern Baptist Convention-- the largest Protestant denomination in the US-- just kicked out a church for not being hostile enough to gays. The story: http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=...
The church that was kicked out claims that it "never has taken any church action to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior." Presumably the fact that they allow gays in the door is enough to merit the boot. Why, though? Why does homosexuality merit such hostility when such a multitude of other sins do not? Yes, i get that someone in a homosexual relationship is "continuously sinning" and unrepentant, but isn't an alcoholic the same? Or a divorcée who gets remarried?* Shouldn't a christian church embrace sinners? Witness to everyone? Judge not lest ye be judged? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone? What is it about homosexuality that's so terrifying?


*Yes, i know, some of you don't acknowledge the concept of sin, and some of you who do don't consider homosexuality to be a sin. But what i'm trying to figure out here is why, exactly, homosexuality is so much "sinier" than other sins.

R.C., next time you have a heathen gathering on the East Coast, i'll bring the corn bread.

For me, the comfort was mostly from "knowing" that "god would make everything right." All of the injustice, misery, and suffering in the world was part of god's (ineffable) plan and would one day right all wrongs. Of course, as others have mentioned, this comfort was countered by the whole fear and guilt thing.

I tend not to do much debating anymore, myself. When i was new to the internet i spent a lot of time in the MSN chatrooms, specifically the religious debate rooms. While they did help me to refine my views somewhat, i gradually realized that rather than debates these rooms simply fostered an endless (or not so endless, since MSN closed down their chat service) rehashing of the same ideas. For the most part no one was convinced to change their views, and some were quite obnoxious in presenting their opinions (on all sides). Mostly i stuck around just to mock bad arguments.

To paraphrase some great statesman or other, the great problem of democracy will always be excercising the will of the majority without trampling the rights of the minority. Regarding the constitutional question, any gay rights opponent would dismiss it simply by saying that any homosexual has the same right to marry a member of the opposite sex everyone else does, so it doesn't apply. On the plus side, gay Californians can now go to Iowa (IOWA!!!), New England, or Nevada (sort of) if they want to get hitched. What's kind of sad is that the overwhelming majority of younger people are in favor or at least indifferent, so that all of these bans that are so popular now are a last hurrah of the anti-gay rights crowd, and will likely be repealed in 20 years or so.

Hey, God answers prayers far less than 40% of the time, and he not only passes but gets exemplary marks. By religious standards, 40% is an epic achievement.

The usual christian response to this is that "god answers prayer, but sometimes the answer is 'no.'" Granted, this is more a way of telling other christians that they can't always get what they want through prayer and should be humble about it, but i have seen it come up in religious debates with non-believers.

Awww....and now he's broken the cycle of "Free Will Yes! Free Will No!"

A somewhat related story about a Sikh, initiated into the religion AFTER she took on the job, being fired by the IRS for wearing a (blunt) symbolic knife to work that too large per federal guidelines: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metr...

On the one hand she knew the guidelines in adviance (or should have) and was given legitimate workarounds (according to another Sikh interviewed in the story, the size of the knife carried doesn't matter). On the other hand, it's a shame (and a bit silly) that we have to forbid people from bring to work a religious symbol that is in practical terms a letter opener.

I think Stephen's got it exactly right. It's not usually phrased this way, but the whole abortion debate revolves around what point that little glob of cells becomes a person. Those of a conservative religous inclination tend to think the soul goes in at the moment of creation (how does that work, exactly? does the combination of sperm and ovum spontaneously create a soul, or does god put a ready-made soul into the waiting recepticle?) Those of less conservative christian views, or of non-religious views, tend to think person-hood comes a bit later on.

The US EEOC has sued the Aldi grocery chain for firing a woman who refused to work on Sundays for religious reasons. The article is a bit sketchy on details, but it got me wondering. At what point, exactly, does it become discrimination if an employer asks people to act contrary to their religious beliefs? Where is the line between special treatment and discrimination? My inclination is to say that expectations of both employer and employee should be made clear from the moment employment begins, and whoever changes the expectations is in the wrong, but i don't know where the law stands on this. I can imagine a situation where an employer chooses not to hire someone who won't work Sundays, and gets sued based on their hiring practices. Certainly we need to protect people from unfair discrimination, but at what point does it become absurd? What happens when the Orthodox Jew sues Honey Baked Ham for declining to accomidate his refusal to have anything to do with the pork? The observant Muslim sues a bar for declining to hire him because he refuses to serve alcohol? What happens when a person's religious beliefs change after they've been hired?

And to answer Tom.... I think I stopped praying for material stuff when I was six. Congratulations on your moral and theological superiority. I was in high school before i stopped asking god for "stuff."

If you expect God to drop down a Benz in your front yard, you are a little confused. Material items.... there are a lot more important things. The Benz comment was a reference to a moderately well known song by a moderately well known, deceased singer. You, and your church, seem to hold to a point of view that i would consider biblically / theologically sound. However, not all churches hold similar views. Ever hear of the Prosperity Gospel? Any event, i was merely pointing out that sometimes people who call themselves christians do things that are clearly not biblical as part of their routine religious practice.


Incidentally, i noticed you only answered the 2nd point, about what people pray for. How about the first? Jesus in the Gospels seems to say that prayer should be in private, and that people who pray publicly do so primarily to show off their piety to others. I know that once i read the verses i referenced, i steadfastly and utterly refused to pray publicly. Prior to that i would find myself planning out what i would say in a public prayer, worried about how it would sound, so i came to the conclusion that i should stick to private prayer.

People have been fearing and looking for the end of the world ever since it was "predicted" by Jesus and St. John the Divine. When i was a kid there was a widely read book called The Late Great Planet Earth. Basically, the author used a close reading of biblical prophecy and an analysis of world events to conclude that that the book of Revelation described a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union, and that war would take place before the turn of the century. It was a huge bestseller. Oops, the world didn't end. Now it's terrorists and/or climate change and/or asteroid impact instead of nuclear war. Forty years from now it'll be something else.

I suspect the interest in this sort of thing has a number of causes. One is that people simply want some vindication in their religion. If the end of the world comes as described in Revelation, christianity must be right, yes? Another is that people like to be scared, or have things to worry about. This the same sort of sentiment that drives ticket sales to horror movies and leads evening news shows to run segments warning that virtually every surface in your home has more germs on it than your toilet seat. A third is that it helps people make sense of the world around them. Things are horrible! It must be that the end times are coming, and not simply that people are simply horrible to each other and always will be. I'm sure there are other reasons people are fascinated by the end of the world.

Myself, i think that if the invention of iron chariots didn't end the world, and the barbarian sack of Rome didn't end the world, and Muslim invasions of Europe didn't end the world, and the Mongol hordes didn't end the world, and the Black Death didn't end the world, and World War II didn't end the world....we'll probably be ok.

Totally different subject, but i must confess that i, for one, would like to see some fossil evidence of these herbivorous lions and tigers. Or is it only appropriate to ask for fossil evidence of a missing link when arguing against evolution?

As to animal suffering... if causing animals to suffer due to the actions a human, when they had no power or control or influence over the actions of that human, and this is the act of a benevolent god...what would be your idea of a malevolent god?

Allow me to rephrase the question a bit, in a way that excludes any possiblity of human agency. Have you ever watched any of those wildlife shows that graphically depict predators hunting in the wild? The predator doesn't always kill the prey before it starts eating, so you'll sometimes see a hungry lion gnawing on an antelope that's still feebly kicking, blood spurting out of ruptured arteries and obviously in agonizing pain. Wouldn't a benevolent god had found some way around this? Predators that always kill their prey before eating, or something? Yes, yes, i know, all animals were vegetarians before Adam ate the apple, but surely the animals were innocent? Or are they so insignificant to god that their suffering doesn't matter?