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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Need Some Bibble Help

Amanda just shared this article from the Huffington Post. Now, the article gets to the heart of why I really despise religion. Thanks for sharing it. At any rate, not too far in, you have the line:
The Bible says you should leave your family and join Jesus Christ. The religious right pretends that Jesus was about family values. He wanted you to abandon your family. Read the Bible.


Stephanie, I was wondering if you would be able to justify this claim or maybe just give a hint of context. I'm a hater on this issue, but I'm not about to go out and actually read a "book" which I know I will ultimately end up burning.

Aaaaand STAGEFREEZE! (you don't say stagefreeze, you just do it!)

8 comments:

alm said...

I'm glad you liked it. I thought you had a bit of a bible collection, though? Since you don't read them, did you perfect the hollowing-out technique, or are they moldering on your shelf?

wingsofadove said...

The Bible says eating shellfish is an abomination. Yet there are no Red Lobster Amendments. The Bible says you shall not wear two different types of cloths at the same time. Yet there are no Propositions against cotton and wool combos.
these questions were sloved in the first century, when more gentiles than jews were converting, and after a lot of fighting, the apostles and assorted hangers on esp (s)Paul. they decided that rabbinic law was not applicable to non jews. thus, eating pork, shellfish and meat and dairy were not banned. Blood was for a while i think, but we still have blood pudding:(

wingsofadove said...

also, i do agree with the picking and the choosing
the first reason i read most of the bible as a kid was that it was like a soap oprea, but i was getting kudos to heaven. theres rape, murder plots of intrigue, beautiful women and brave men. its a great story minus leviticus, as its just a law book. how entertaining is the hammurabi code? i always liked act of the apostles, its got prison breaks, murder, shipwrecks! plus lots of demons and possessed people, aka, people with epilepsy
also i find it amusing im prolly the only one on this blog who has actually studied the text, read it more than once and knows the historical context the pieces have been used in and for. it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

alm said...

I don't agree with censorship. But if there is one book in the world that I wish had never been written, it's the bible. That's the one book I would love to blink out of existence.

It isn't the book's fault, and I know that. It isn't even the fault of the people who wrote the book. The fault rests with those who use its content to justify the injustices they perform. The people who believe that homosexuality is an abomination believe it because of their own insane prejudice, not because the bible says so. The bible merely reinforces their hideous ignorance and coddles their backward hatred.

The bible lets people remain children (perhaps sheep is a better word) their entire lives, relying on their invisible daddy's list of rules to tell them right from wrong so they never have to learn reason. The bible lets people believe on Wednesday what they believed on Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday. It absolves them of the burden of thinking for themselves; of setting and keeping their own standards of behavior; of being uncertain and trying anyway.

/polemic.

That felt good. Also, I just wanted to point out that to the religious fundie crazies that think the bible is a literal history of the world, there is no such thing as "historical context." If you believe that water turned into wine (without the aid of fermentation) or that the earth was created in seven days, you cannot just dismiss "shellfish is an abomination" because that was just a jewish thing.

You CAN pick and choose what things from the bible YOU believe to be TRUE. You CANNOT pick and choose which things from the bible you believe to be ABSOLUTE-TRUTH-word-of-god for all peoples and all times. It can't be sort of absolute. Either the bible in its entirety is debatable and open to interpretation and criticism, or the entire text is a literal set-in-stone account of history. You can't say, "But god REALLY REALLY MEANT THIS PART!"

wingsofadove said...

amanda i absolutely agree with you. it never made sense to me that all parts of christianity accept the bible as a historical record, esp the new testament. and agreeing with some parts of "law" and not others

David Zwerdling said...

Steph, you havent answered my initial question:
Does jesus ever encourage people to leave their families?

On a related note, I found another awesome blog:
http://www.vexappeal.com/lolgod/

wingsofadove said...

oh yes, but its not necessary for everyone
or it is in the context that they thought jesus was comming back within their life time. so it was every enlightened persons duty to go out and spread the news of jesus's life and his "miracles".
you were supposed to leave your house,family, wife, ect, take a walking stick and go - and hope that the good people of the world would provide for you- food bed, ect.
now clearly everyone, aka male could not leave their home or there would never be anyone in the world now. but then like the shakers, people came up with excuses to not continue this practice, or restrict it to certain vocations of the population.

alm said...

I don't think I ever knew that about christianity, but that practice was a big part of life in India back in the good ol' days. It was a life stage: you get a certain age, and it's time to go camp out in the forest, be an ascetic, and meditate. Your wife would be taken care of by your family, unless they were dicks.