pc71 wrote:On all matters refererring to God or lack thereof I always go the complete series of father Ted. Should be shown from infants to university....
legaldinho wrote:That post positively oozes rationality. No sirree, not emotional at all.Vela wrote:I'm guessing they were only joking in the various texts when slavery, spoils of war and comfort women, genocide, infanticide and human sacrifice were all celebrated and demanded by petty a vengeful deities, right? Fuck apologising for stone age dogma that has gone through the ringer of various translations including a number of hardline interpretations in the intervening millennia. I'd trust a schmuck from Surrey all day every day before any goat herder from two millennia back.legaldinho wrote:Good to see hair knows what the texts intended. Centuries of religious doctrine, debates and interpretation, if only they had asked a dumb fuck from Surrey, he'd have saved everyone the time and trouble.
Vela wrote:legaldinho wrote:That post positively oozes rationality. No sirree, not emotional at all.Vela wrote:I'm guessing they were only joking in the various texts when slavery, spoils of war and comfort women, genocide, infanticide and human sacrifice were all celebrated and demanded by petty a vengeful deities, right? Fuck apologising for stone age dogma that has gone through the ringer of various translations including a number of hardline interpretations in the intervening millennia. I'd trust a schmuck from Surrey all day every day before any goat herder from two millennia back.legaldinho wrote:Good to see hair knows what the texts intended. Centuries of religious doctrine, debates and interpretation, if only they had asked a dumb fuck from Surrey, he'd have saved everyone the time and trouble.
So?
A dude from Surrey has the collective wisdom of human civilisation at his fingertips if he chooses to value facts and evidence. A person who defers solely to texts written in a different context anywhere between 1500 and 5000 years ago has less credibility.
I don't doubt that older knowledge has its value. The entire tradition of indigenous Australians relies on oral tradition, song lines and geographic reference points which are absolutely essential to survival and that worked for tens of thousands of years.
If you're looking for truth or reality though, we have better understanding of our place in the universe and how it works, and that leads us to more informed decisions.
I don't know why I typed even this much though. It's probably only going to get snark in return.
legaldinho wrote:Good to see hair knows what the texts intended. Centuries of religious doctrine, debates and interpretation, if only they had asked a dumb fuck from Surrey, he'd have saved everyone the time and trouble.
GooberTheHat wrote:legaldinho wrote:Good to see hair knows what the texts intended. Centuries of religious doctrine, debates and interpretation, if only they had asked a dumb fuck from Surrey, he'd have saved everyone the time and trouble.
Would that not be the "lens of modernity" hair mentions then?
Vela wrote:Depends on what you consider an extremist now, doesn't it?
It's not the gun wielders or suicide bombers only. It's the faith healers, legislative "good men" (doing harm as per Bertrand Russell), and evangelist types who fleece honest believers out of their life savings.
When bad hair day referenced this: "extremists twisting the words to suit their agenda' the fact is they are adhering to the scriptures as they were intended. Non believers are off to hell, hurry up Armageddon, I want to see heavenly paradise." I see the following (colour coded for your convenience):
Morning TV televangelists ak Jerry Fawell and Ted Haggard
Westbro Baptist Church
Zionist Republicans
*Not* Jehova's Witnesses
I've not even attempted to define religion by the actions of extremists. I've made arguments about how little was known when they were formulated and said nothing specifically on the misappropriation of religion until you went off on an entirely predictable word rampage.
You narrowed BHD's post into a specific, singular context and that is coloured by your own bias. Hopefully the colour coding might become a regular feature to save you the effort.
bad_hair_day wrote:Regarding 'extremists twisting the words to suit their agenda' the fact is they are adhering to the scriptures as they were intended. Non believers are off to hell, hurry up Armageddon, I want to see heavenly paradise.
Luckily for us, now most read the texts through the lens of modernity.
GooberTheHat wrote:I don't think hair's post did that though. The fact he said most read the text through the lens of modernity suggests that he thinks extremists are the minority. Saying they are adhering to the scriptures as initially intended is provocative, but then I presume that that is what extremists believe they are doing.
bad_hair_day wrote:Don't really know why you're getting in such a tizz about it Gonz, most are moderate and as I don't have the actual percentages - it's a best guess.
Extremists/fundamentalists are characterized by a strict belief in the literal interpretation of unambiguous religious texts such as stoning someone to death for the crimes of working on the sabbath/blasphemy/adultery/being gay etc. Now we can all go trawling through the Quran and the Bible to find some nuggets of morality and sense but it's rather like digging through shit for sweetcorn. There's a little there but is it really worth it? Nope.
+1.Literal is a difficult concept. Which text, which part? If, literally interpreted, a text means we should hurry to our death and the after world, that is interpreting many other parts of the same text teleologically: eg proscribing suicide, praising a life well led, no murder, do not harm, etc etc. Ultimately interpretation is coloured by external factors and agendas. The less cohesive a text as a whole the less helpful a literal interpretation is.Long and short of it is that It's not for me to say, I can't tell you what the intention is, my best guess is: these texts were written by lots of people at different times who had different and differing priorities and agendas, but what cuts through them is an idea of unifying societies behind certain approaches to tackling coordination problems eg justice, family, inheritance, property, inequality, etc. We have invented better tools than those antiquated solutions imo. But even ours are only as good as those wielding them.
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/june/1464703200/robert-manne/mind-islamic-stateNot really, not if the debate goes backwards..eg salafist/Wahhabi islam definitely took Islam back.
I can only assume you missed the point I was making.bad_hair_day wrote:A 15th century apologetic might have said something similar? There's been capitalism for centuries, just smaller scale.
GooberTheHat wrote:This is too ridiculous not to share.
Pastor eaten by crocodile trying to walk on water
Deacon Nkosi, a member of the church, told the newspaper, “The pastor taught us about faith on Sunday last week.
“He promised he would demonstrate his faith to us today, but he unfortunately ended up drowning and getting eaten by 3 large crocodiles in front of us.
“We still don’t understand how this happened because he fasted and prayed the whole week.”
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