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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Yet today, using the exact same book and religion, you would chose to read it differently...
That is only proof that religion falls in line or evolves with our norms and morals, NOT the other way around
We also do that with .... the constitution. The Right the Privacy was a recent interpretation of an old text. One of the major - MAJOR - arguments for a great number of more humanitarian interpretations of the constitution is that these principles are inherent in the original document, but had not been addressed until now.
I took Dr. Benway's comments to mean that our particular moral system has been shaped by the particular religions we are used to. For instance, child molestation and incest were no problem during the Roman Empire. Nor homosexuality. If Constantine (a weirdo in his own right) hadn't converted, my particular views on morality would have been shaped from a different history. Even though I am agnostic. As you point out, morality often comes from those who oppose religious leaders. The particular things we oppose them generate our moral history. The Bible itself is a document of these types of changes. Jesus, John the Baptist, the apostles (whether real men or figurative) are offered up as an evolution of growing moral awareness.
Many people make the constitution argument about the Bible. These people are not the same as those who read the book as a syllabus of the history of the world and the future. I must have missed the poster who came into this forum and claimed that the Bible is the literal word of god. I have no problem pointing out all the crap in the Bible in that case. I saw that LeftWingPharisee (who is Jewish) corrected a translation, as someone who can actually read the original text. There are some people I saw who posted that they believe in a higher power. As an agnostic, I think that is inherently unknowable. But talking about David's census (which BTW is directly contradicted in the two books that talk about it - Samuel says God incited David to do it, Chronicles said Satan did. Is God Satan?) is kind of a moot point.
Very good point. Why should you believe me, as opposed to the people who translated the King James, etc.? Well, it's simple.
There is an Oral Tradition (a.k.a., the Oral Torah) that explains and elucidates the Written Torah (i.e., the 5 Books of Moses). The Written Torah is incomprehensible and illogical without it. The best analogy that I like to use is that the Written Torah is the tip of the iceberg above the water, the Oral Torah the great mass below. The link below is a very good detailed explanation:
http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/The_Oral_Tradition.asp
BTW, the Pharisees were the ones responsible for maintaining the Oral Tradition through years of persecution.
The "liberal defenders of religion" that Salon publishes are generally not theologians and they are not representative of the contemporary, progressive theological dialogue in this country. For that you should look for people like Borg, Spong, maybe Norris (I'm going off the top of my head here so I'm probably not giving the best examples). But even they are lightweights compared to some of the thinkers who have gone before them (Tillich, Kierkegaard, to name a few). I'm sure you do not actually expect Salon to be a repository of serious intellectual discourse, do you?
"Don't you at least find it a little odd, that in this book, which is "God's Words', God can not find time to come out and condemn slavery, warn against incest, or provide some useful knowledge about the world like that we are part of a solar system or that germs make people sick……."
Hashem explicitly condemns what we in the US call slavery in the 8th Commandment. "Slavery" in Torah is either a punishment for theft or a means for a gentile to become Jewish. Incest is explicitly prohibited. Finally, have you ever heard of the phrase "Cleanliness is next to Godliness"? That's from Talmud, which is where the bulk of the Oral Tradition is recorded.
"Yet can devote an entire paragraph to outlining the procedure for dealing with what to do if two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from the man who is beating him, by grabbing the other man's genitals?
And even so… Why is the woman in the wrong here? She was trying to break up a fight! Shouldn’t she be rewarded?"
Very very good question, like all your other questions. Unfortunately, I can't answer all of them, nor could anybody in 1000 words. Here's a good place to start: www.aish.com. Should you want reference materials, www.artscroll.com. Good luck with that.
And yes, the King James Version of the Bible should be pulped.
Honestly speaking, do you see no absurdity in this?
Silly cut and paste thingy!
So religion is responsible for all those wars? Hitler and Stalin were such religious men. Not to mention Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar and also those 300 Spartans.
Here I thought wars were fought over influence and power, ideology, land and other wealth - The so called "spoils of war." I must have missed that class where we were taught how the Spanish just converted the natives to Christianity in Central America and left the gold behind. But wait - wasn't it Maher himself who told us a short time ago that Bush's Iraq war was all about oil, and money for Cheney's buddies? What happened to that?
The fact that religion was used as an excuse for wars, suppression, slavery and other evils in history isn't exactly controversial stuff in the year 2008. Maher is just targetting religion in this way because its an easy mark, will upset a lot of people, and get him a lot of publicity and controversy. I don't buy it that he's doing it because of the "religious idiocy that threatens to deliver America to Sarah Palin.." That's really a non-issue in this election, except for the real fringes.
Maher just wants to drum up publicity and controversy, just like a promoter for a prize fight, or professional wrestling, to help the box office for his movie. And to do so, he's more than willing to insult millions of decent Americans who find something inspirational and of value in their faith. I'm not particularly religious myself, but I know a lot of good people that are. Their churches do a lot of good in my community, things like kitchens, homeless shelters, and free medical clinics. They are the ones acting as the real safety net for many suffering families while our fine government worries about "bailing out" its wealthy friends who caused this mess.
So who cares whether Christian theology is scientific or not? For Maher to just mock religious people, while ignoring the good work many congregations do is outright dishonest and fraudulent. Why is Salon giving him a podium through this article?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
