Discuss.
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This thing – the Bible – is an interesting cultural artifact. However, the primacy it enjoys among believers, as variously the inerrant Word of GOD or as a twisted morality tale or a catechism of identity, appears very nearly idolatrous and certainly destructive to rational thought.
How much more mature and enlightened and vital is a morality based on unswerving respect for each others’ humanity, based on a humble view of our place on this planet, based on a selfless desire to learn and share and nurture, based on the Golden Rule and being good because it is good?
I suppose the problem is not this book, per se, but rather attitudes about it and power projected upon it, combined with its relentlessly bloodthirsty and desperate and judgmental contents.
The notion that some huckster with a pompadour and a shiny suit, flag lapel pin and a podium, bible in one hand and offering plane in another, can wield power and influence over so very many human minds leaves me profoundly sad.
Very cute, but she knows too much.
@2
Knowledge is dangerous. See Eden, Garden of.
And the lesson for today is???????
Why is My True Prophet obsessed with this book Christians call the Bible? Was he, as a youngun, better served by browsing the Sears’ catalog for lingerie ads? Did I say to the nubile young Goldy that I hid My truths in the well fingered ages of Playboy?
The lesson the Prophet offers his followers today is a simple one. Pubescent young girls need to explore many places.
Should this pre teen turn to this Blog for her lessons for her lessons?
So, as a gift to the followers of the Prophet, I today reveal more of My truths.
I approve the piercing of ears, placement of small rose tattoos in intriguing places, and removal of the foreskin. Heed not those who say otherwise.
I am that I am
It is this sort of thing the Taliban in Afghanistan are working to prevent.
No wonder the modern American Christian identifies with them so much.
SJ @4
Is not circumcision genital mutilation?
Love your handle, Lib Sci.
From the mouths of babes. Click around, she has a whole series. Smart girl.
Goldy, nubile?
(1) I conclude that “God” is blogging while under the influence (which never ends well), or,
(2) I suspect that someone is schtupping himself with SJ’s schtick.
…Leaving aside that you never want to use smut previously used by “God” because he apparently thinks the spooge crusts he leaves behind are “truths”.
…And WTF is a “well fingered age”? In the context of the posted clip, that’s just creepy.
Sermon on the “mound”:
Drunk priest offers oral sex to police officer
Zotz Lib Sci
First, your fascination with SJ is probably welcome. Buy him a beer sometime, tell him I commanded you to do so!
Seems to me that some here need to read Hamlet. Shakespeare was my greatest prophet and in Yorick is more truth about Me than in the ages of commentary the Prophet Goldy dredges up each week.
Yes, Zotz seems to have begun to understand the first steps of entry into mysteries. Be assured, as long as you keep trying. Think especially about the the relationship of age, page, Playboy, turning the age, getting older, and a nubile young Goldy? Zotz, you should listen to Master PO.
Now we come to circumcision and Lib Sci. Why does this bother you more than aural lobe mutilation, facial depilation, destruction the hymen that I created?????
Did you know that the nose is erectile? Does this make nasal surgery a form of sexual mutilation?
Human fascination with body parts is a lot like canine needs to lick their touchases.
Look forward to one of My favorite of your holidays, St Patty’s Day is coming. This year I have told your SJ to use that event to reveal a new truth .. the real origins of the Prince of Danes!
@10
Wow. Seems a serious closet-case priest – color me shocked.
This topic came up in a discussion last night – when I lived in San Francisco after college, my housemates and I would travel extra blocks across the Mission district to go to a laundromat that was Hollywood-themed and showed classic movies.
On one of my first visits there, I met the owner, who was working behind the counter – an obviously out gay man that I was startled to realize that I had known in a previous life – he had been my junior year homeroom teacher, and at that time had been a young Jesuit-in-training!
Lucky for him he escaped imprisonment in a culture/tribe/cult that despised him and would have enforced a corrosive and relentless denial of his very being.
Well that was a waste of five minutes…
Is it a sin to surf the web during church, like I’m doing right now? This is seriously dull.
Ummmmm, no!
Here’s what happens to people who listen to Masster Po (scroll down for photo)
Then why are you there?
Here is definitely more fun. Not even close.
@15
Funny enough, I’m working right now. I help run a grouphome for autistic adults and a couple of them go to church, the person that normally takes them to chuch isn’t working today so I took them.
@15
Your tax dollars hard at work!
@13, 15
That was my thought exactly. If church is not fulfilling, what’s the point?
And you say ‘seriously dull’, not challenging or difficult, but dull – is there not more to stir the soul outside?
Or where Zotz is?
I’m in my basement trying to figure out how to reconfigure the water and gas pipes and heating ducts to accommodate my teenager’s incipient mancave, all without breaking the bank – I could use some help!
LOL. Thanks for your service to others (even though you’re getting paid), BTW.
@16
Oh. So you’re there sort of by accident? Not out of religious fervor unfulfilled?
That’s different – sorry for your predicament, but good on you.
(Or should I say ‘Allah’s peace be upon you’ just to piss off the Teahaddists.)
@18: Just fix ’em so he can’t hurt ’em and tell him the (totally straight, honest!) decorator you consulted says it’s “industrial chic”.
clock test @12:04
Yay, I’m free! They need to find these guys a more lively church.
We had a childrens book of bible stories from the 1800s when I was growing up. It had wood cuttings of Jael killing Sisera, children being torn apart by bears, the destruction of the midianites , Absalon catching his hair int eh tress and being stabbed, and loads of other wholesome stories..
“Is not circumcision genital mutilation?”
Yes, it is. If we were slicing and dicing little girls’ areas, everyone would be up in arms. but it’s OK to circumcise little boys because “God told us to!”
What bullshit!!
A while ago, somebody disagreed with my claim that the Jews did not kill Jesus. Well, I read a small article in the newspaper a week ago wherein the Pope said the Jews did NOT kill Jesus. So, if the head Catholic is not blaming the Jews for Jesus’ death, I think we can rule them out as suspects.
It was the Romans who killed Jesus, using a common method for Roman executions. It was not the Jews because the Jews at the time were more likely to use stoning to death as a method of execution, not crucifixion.
Whoever it was that disagreed with me, eat shit! You’re wrong!!
@26 Well, yeah…it was the Romans who whipped Jesus and then nailed what was left him to a cross—while the Jews applauded. All in all, rather like the rabble in a great many places attending public torture and executions as a form of entertainment.
As Mel Gibson said (when he was only half crazy) “There didn’t happen to be any Norwegians present.” The real point is that there were people present, pretty much getting their rocks off watching horrific brutality performed on someone just like them. No matter the details, it’s all pretty perverse.
Absolutely not!
@25 Politically inane
Only someone with a fix on his penis would compare removal of the foreskin .. ritual or not … to the physical harm done when a woman’s labia are sewn shut.
You, the Saudis, and Lloyd Schofield all seem to have this fixation.
Sad.
PI and Arffart
You are both wrong. The Roman Bible is fucking ROMAN. It was written by Roman citizens who wanted to worship a savior deity and were certainly not interested in blaming his death on Rome.
That said, if the stories in the Roman Bible are true, then Jesus might well have been stoned to death, under Jewish Law, for blasphemy. Josephus is tells us that James, perhaps Jesus’ brother, was killed for blasphemy.
Now I am hardly one to endorse capital punishment, but why would anyone but a Christian see this as an unusual story?
History and Torah are full of stories of folks getting killed for unbelief. Was Jesus’ life MORE precious than the lives of the Egyptian first born? How many injuns did the missionaries kill to spread the word of Jesus? Anyone here ever read the words of Isaak Stephens or Jefferson Davis justifying slavery because of the good word it brought to black folks?
Art @ 27
I’m quite sure Norwegians would not have promoted Christ’s execution. Some mead would have been located, ribald stories told, and all would have stumbled home.
Church would be far more entertaining with sword wielding Norsemen, booze, and bonfires.
Hmmmmm ………
Did Christianity pacify the Normans?
I guess so! Look how badly they did in 1066 against the pagans!
OTOH, my image of the Vikings pillaging a town is more cheerful then the image of grim monks burning blasphemers.
BTW ,,
is today the first of Goldy’s prayer meetings not to be disrupted by an unbelieving Troll? Is our religion really triumphing?
Down with the believers!
Seems atheists are just as certain of their beliefs as evangelicals. Why discuss if the groupthink has taken over?
@33
Neo-Norse-Paganism (for lack of a better term) makes a few appearances in S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse (Dies The Fire) series of books. The books are quite a good read and the religion seems every bit, if not more believable than modern American Christianity.
@36: Certain? I’m certain that if there is a “god”, it ain’t the “god” of the Abrahamic religions.
That craziness doesn’t withstand the merest scrutiny as demosntrated so well by the young woman in the posted clip.
@32: Pretty sure the Norweigans of the era would have raped, burned, pillaged, and impaled rather indiscriminately. Not so much a fun-loving bunch by our standards.
@ 39
Whats not fun about rape, pilliage, burning, and impaling?
It must be a great time. ALL the great religions of the world have been doing it for thousands of years. There must be some fun in all that. Otherwise, it just becomes work.
@36
I’m with Zotz.
My criticism above was about the Bible, and a critique of Christianity as a cultural force for bad, and abdication of reason in the face of myth-spewing hucksters.
I did not address whether there is/was a God. However, I hear this often from belivers – that their faith is somehow placed on the same level with skepticism (and refusal to believe in what there is no evidece for) in terms of rationality – which is completely nuts. Go ahead and make stuff up and demand belief based soley on faith, and make that activity paramount to your world view, whatever.
Whether there is a God or not aside – there is no need for one to explain the world, and there is no positive evidence for one. Skepticism is rational, god-belief is not.
@41, an interesting response by one better prepared to discuss this than I:
“It is not fair to say such because empirical evidence does not define existence. The flaw in this type of logic is that it assumes that something does not exist if it is not scientifically proven. Following this way of thinking we would be led to believe that atoms did not exist until the 19th century, that the various species of plants and animals on earth did not exist until they were discovered or that the celestial bodies of the universe came into existence because they were seen with the Hubble telescope. You can’t measure emotions or even life itself, so this logic would propose that these matters don’t exist until experienced. This would be an absurd conclusion that is itself more incredulous than the claim you assert against the belief in God. – Shaheed Williams”
Also, @38, I do not think this video demonstrates that if there is a God, it is not the God of the Abrahamic religions. I think it demonstrates the Bible cannot be the infallible and literal word of God. As an Episcopalian, neither I nor my church accept the Bible literally or on its face. I believe that the Bible is God inspired, and calls us to live the two great commandments: 1) to love God and 2)to love my neighbor as myself. I do not believe that Christianity is the only path to God, but I believe it is one path to God. I also do not pretend that the church has always been a force for good in the world, it is a human institution after all.
In closing, I am a progressive, socialist, pro-peace, pro-LGBTQ, pro-choice, pro-people in poverty, anti-extreme wealth Christian and I believe that Jesus was too as do many of my fellow progressive believers. Since we all seem to share political views, it seems rather than spend energy on outright derision for believers, energy would be better spent working together to counter the right wing’s messages of hate and intolerance.
Peace.
@39
Sounds like Blackwater/XE.
@30 Seatttle Jew-boy,
No, yours is the religion that specializes in genital mutilation. Go fuck yourself you arrogant asshole!
And I’m not wrong: the Romans killed Jesus, you twit! Maybe the Jews of the time were cheering, but the Romans did the deed because it was easy for them to do to placate the crowd. They could have given a rip about the religion of the peoples they conquered.
@42: Episcopalian: Tudor Catholic.
What you “believe” basically boils down to a “warm feeling”.
But hey, you’re entitled to your delusions. It’s in the constitution!
Just don’t expect anyone rational to take you seriously.
@42, Mr. Believer
I certainly like your politics – good on you, and welcome to the club (I haven’t seen your handle before – I assume you’re new here)
As Zotz said @45, believe what you like, but don’t ask those of us who like observation and evidence to not think you irrational.
I have no idea who Shaheed Williams is, or why his thoughts should be taken seriously, but he makes some glib and shiny logical fallacies. Does the existence of something depend on the perceiver? Heisenberg would certainly suggest that it’s influential.
Or, is my belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster akin to your belief in God? Not much evidence for either, as in none.
Ramen.