h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Err, modern Christians are not reponsible for whatever was done before by the Church and other Christians.

And, in a different topic, there is a difference between being a Christian and believing in Christianity.

No, but Christians are to blame for what is happening right here and now:

1) Religious persecutions underway by ostensibly Christian forces in Africa and Ireland.

2) The growth of censorship in the allegedly "free world."

3) The blatant attempts to remove science from our children's science classes and replace it with Creationist dogma.

4) The parallel effort to indoctrinate public school kids into their religion by posting the Ten Commandments, introducing school prayer time, and other such counterproductive drivel.

5) The attempts to buy and bully politicians into passing their rediculous agenda.

6) Street-side revival meetings and door-to-door proselytizers.

7) Tammy Faye Bakker.

"This myth of Christ, it has served us well." - Pope Pius the somethingth.

Well, on most of that I can't comment as it does not happen where I live. My school is non-religious and any time the Bible or any other religious text is mentioned, it is mentioned as literary rather than religion. About the Africa and Ireland, being a Christian.. continue it later

You missed the anti-contraception line of the Vatican being responsible for a fair share of suffering in the third world. The anti-abortion line has caused a fair few unnecessary deaths too, I suspect.

(and you can't blame the Ireland thing on religion...)

But what does it *matter* if people suffer through their lifetime - better a life of misery on Earth than never to be born into the faith, and after all, the suffering will make their eternity in heaven seem even sweeter.
Oddly enough, the leaders often don't seem to think they need to share the suffering. Still, maybe their extra holiness counterbalances their relative lack of earthly torment.

I guess if religious dogma was more convincing to grown-ups, there would be fewer religions trying to convince their followers to breed like rabbits in order to boost the believer count. And after all, God will provide, even if He does rather seems to take a back seat to social security in many developed countries these days.

The anti-contraceptive thing is archaic. Just like eating pork for the Jews. One of the most important things of religion is a code of behaviour. Before, people were needed (and now we don't want any!), so the Church has to change. Even if the church doesn't change, if I have sex, I'll use a contraceptive, though. And abotion, in my opinion, is the same as solving the population problems by killing people. There is no difference if the human is under-delevoped, it is still a human.

Heh... even though my faith has been lacking a lot, these ideas stick to your head.

I agree - it is archaic. That doesn't stop it causing real damage to real people, though, does it?
The problem with religious codes of conduct is generally that they are developed for the world at one time, and then become partially or totally incorrect when times change. This wouldn't be a problem if such codes weren't written in tablets of stone...

Abortion is a whole other issue, which we probably should steer clear of in this forum. I'll just note that I did not mean to imply that the purpose of abortion is to solve population problems. I just said that it has probably caused unnecessary deaths. The classic case is of the woman who becomes pregnant, and, for whatever reason, if she attempts to carry the child full term, there is a 95% chance that she will die. That's the sort of time you DON'T want to be encumbered with religious codes of conduct developed in the days of the stork delivery service.

MyRedDice - arrogantly claims to be worth more than a day old embryo.

Yes, I know. What this means, though, is that religion just has to change now. That is why I want a liberal Pope... even if the chances of that are slim.

I agree about abortion, if we discuss it here it could turn into a flame war and won't do anything good or something like that. And I agree, if you can die, better to get an abortion and survive.

Frood - who claims with pride that he once was a day old embryo.

Let's also not forget that the religious codes concerning women were developed by men, a significant number of whom were celibate, misogynist, or similar. Barring an act of God, they were exceedingly unlikely to suffer pregnancy-related-problems themselves, so they didn't care. However, I suppose many men in positions of secular power were no better

I must also agree to an extent with the original poster - even from my atheist perspective, I make a definite mental distinction between someone who classifies *themself* as a Christian, (which doesn't give me any real idea of the kind of person they are), and someone whose actions *I* would class as properly Christian, (which would include the traditional positive values of love, compassion, etc.)
I wouldn't want that to be taken as any indication I consider Christian virtues any better or worse than any other religious or secular kind, as personally I'd claim they are a product of simple humanity, but I would definitely draw a line between what people truly believe, what they claim to believe, and how they actually behave.

To an extent, it's similar to my views on science. There are people who really are scientists, people who think they are scientists, people who pretend to be, and there's science itself.
Even a true scientist, being human, will be unscientific part of the time, and when someone claims to be being a good scientist, I'll judge them my the quality of their deeds and arguments, not by their status, what they claim to be, or how vehement their claims are.

Agreed. The problem is, though, that a changing religion finds it hard to lay any claim to know ultimate truth, which has traditionally been one of the reasons people turn to religions in the first place. After all, if you can be wrong about something - why not everything?

True, and that is something that bothers me. People should understand that religion is made by humans, not by God, and IS imperfect and it will be wrong many times. Religions can change some things, though. Christ taught that doing good was more important than rules, that excuse can be used.

Oh, and BTW on the Darwin being dumped for the Creationist theory, I'm completely agaisnt that. This reminds me of my confusion when I was first learning about the evolutionary theory and all fo that in school. I tried mixing them... but then I decided that whenever I discuss science, God does not exist. Am I going off-topic?

Well - taking xtianity as an example everyone is familiar with, if christianity is correct, then it was made by God. Between divine inspiration, and direct lines to heaven for spiritual leaders, it ought to be pretty darn perfect. In practice....

(Christ also told off the temple leaders for not killing children who "curse their parents", so it would appear that when it suited him he could be as much a rules-lawyer as the next guy...)

Can we add "confusing young children" to the list of the evils of xtianity then?

Mixing science and religion is a fascinating subject, but I'm finding it hard to talk about without getting insulting/patronising, so I'll leave that to another day...

Even with a direct link, humans are imperfect and therefore any religion would be imperfect. Besides, any organization has corruption so it lets some people take advantage of the sheep.

Well, you could add that. But that'd be an evil for everything. What does not confuse young children?

MyRedDice,

In your:

'Christ also told off the temple leaders for not killing children who "curse their parents", so it would appear that when it suited him he could be as much a rules-lawyer as the next guy'

One of us has got it wrong unless there is more than one such reference. If I recall correctly the point at issue was that the lawyers were being denounced as hypocrites for their selectivity in applying their own constructs in contravention of Moses' teachings when it suited their purpose. In effect: " Don't come whingeing to me about whether my pals are eating their butties without washing their hands, put your own house in order. Moses says 'kill' but you have devised a getout clause. You should either follow all of Moses' teachings to the letter or use your loaf about everything; e.g. love god and love your neighbour as yourself. It's a much simpler system."

Just a posting to bring my previous to the surface.
I am mindful of the "scourging" issue in another forum which continued for a spell but was resolved before I found it.
Incidentally, the "scourge" was a cat o'nine tails type whip with the added refinement of small bits of metal threaded on to the lashes to peel back or take out portions of flesh.
Imaginative folk, the Romans.

Christ was very much a rules-lawyer, viewed from outside. The whole temptation thing was basically him pitting his bible knowledge against that of the devil, for example. It ran much like a court argument. As does the passage about cursing your parents.

Your "in effect" is just that - an in effect. You interpret it one way, I interpret it the other. And my interpretation makes more sense - go read the temptations in the desert again - jesus says "but in XX:XX:XX it says 'do not test God'." He doesn't say "sod off you annoying so and so, I love god, and I have no desire to throw myself anywhere".

MyRedDice,

I decline to move from your previous extract of "cursing parents". I have re-read Matt 15 & Mark 7 and it is as I said: telling off the pharisees for their hypocrital complaint against his disciples despite their selectivity in promoting their own teaching to the exclusion of Moses'. My "in effect" is an "id est", it's not a "for instance" and I'm sorry we don't seem to agree on our present day terminology. Perhaps it's a generational difference but it doesn't bode well for any common ground.

"Christ was very much a rules-lawyer, viewed from outside."

H'mm, not in this example. Well versed in the law, certainly; able to spot and exploit inconsistency, clearly; but he then goes on to deny one of the long held tenets of the old regime.
"Case" lawyer rather than "rules" lawyer, wouldn't you say?

Language is a tricky thing is it not, eh? By "rules-lawyer" I certainly don't mean to imply an unnecessary reverance for the rules, nor a slavish obedience - just what you've said :- "Well versed in the law, ... able to spot and exploit inconsistency, ..." - and someone happy to use the rules as a means to an end, whether that be dispatching pharasees or dispatching the devil.

Incidentally, I think we both are using the same meaning of "in effect" - I was just commenting that the same words can often be taken to mean two completely different things "in effect" by different people.

And with that we are firmly off-topic, and should leave this conversation and it's residents alone...

I suppose that's the trouble with topics. If there isn't any "drift" then you have the same people saying the same things repeatedly with increasing vehemence and we know where that leads. The skill comes in remembering to check the original intention and draw a line when a sufficient distance has been travelled.
I've checked the rear view mirror and I think you're right.

Let's get this back on track then, shall we?

In reference to your "scourge," you are right, it was a horrible weapon of torture. However, the Romans most likely knew nothing about it. The word doesn't even come to us from Rome, and doesn't enter the English lexicon until the 13th century. But don't believe me, believe Merriam-Webster:

"Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French escorge, from (assumed) Old French escorgier to whip, from Old French es- ex- + Latin corrigia whip
Date: 13th century"

The Romans who would have known this little device would have been Roman Catholics.