are the gracies religious?

[Balto]

Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. - Peter 2:18

You have to read all the books together from beginning to end. Otherwise you miss the context and overall message.

The Bible is like the movie The Sixth Sense. Once you know what the ending is, all the stuff that comes before it is seen in a completely different way. You are going to look at the exact same words much differently when you go back through the second time, same as you do with the movie.

And that quote you took out of context is not even a bad one. Peter is writing a letter to people, some of whom are in shitty situations out of their immediate control -- slaves, or it is also translated as servants. He is telling them to just bear it with grace because their reward will be in the afterlife.

The parts that actually condone slavery are in the Old Testament. You should at least pick those out. Leviticus explicitly condones slavery in certain conditions, but like I said before, read the Bible all the way to the end and then reread Leviticus to see the same words in a different context.

 

[100%Jiu-Jitsu]

You have to read all the books together from beginning to end. Otherwise you miss the context and overall message.

I'm an atheist. But I was raised Presbyterian. And the more I looked at the Bible, the more I found that the most persuasive interpretations came from the joos who argued that Jesus was not the Messiah.

 

[seatea]

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of ringworm, I shall fear no infection: for Helio art with me; thy leverage and thy submission holds comfort me. You prepare the acai in the presence of wrestlers; you anoint my waist with belts, my stripes overflow. Surely heel hooks and toe holds shall avoid me for all the days of my life; and I will roll on the tatame of the grandmaster forever.

This turd of a thread is saved.

Atheists have become as bad as bible thumpers nowadays.

While many atheists are annoying, they are not the ones influencing law.

why would this be lucky?

you have christians who are commanded to love their neighbor as well as love their enemy, to not lie or cheat or steal or fuck someone else's wife

vs atheists who believe in nothing

history tells us we all like living better in christian countries

or try living in communist china or any other atheist shitholes

High quality of life correlates heavily with low levels of religious belief.

 

[seatea]

I'm an atheist. But I was raised Presbyterian. And the more I looked at the Bible, the more I found that the most persuasive interpretations came from the joos who argued that Jesus was not the Messiah.

Don't they believe him to be a messiah? That there can be more than one? Fairly sure Cyrus the Great was also proclaimed a messiah for freeing the Jews from Babylon.

 

[Balto]

I'm an atheist. But I was raised Presbyterian. And the more I looked at the Bible, the more I found that the most persuasive interpretations came from the joos who argued that Jesus was not the Messiah.

Yes, the Jewish way of looking at it is sensible too. That was the majority view right after Jesus's death. The early Christians were a minority sect of Judaism initially. The big growth in the religion was mostly from non-Jews who came in increasingly greater numbers, especially after Emperor Constantine converted.

As for why I believe in the Christian interpretation, it's a little much to go into here. But if you are interested, PM me and I'll let you know why I believe as I do.

 

[Oldguy]

Jesus Christ fullfilled the Jewish Old Testament prophesies of his first coming. He was

Born of a virgin.
Came from Bethlehem
Called a Nazarene
The exact date he rode into Jerusalem
His miracles
Betrayed
His crucifixtion
His rising from the dead

There are more. But, you get the picture.

The intellectual part is a slam dunk. People reject him because they love their sin more than God.

Even the fact that Israel would reject him was foretold.

 

[Kim Jong Un]

why would this be lucky?

you have christians who are commanded to love their neighbor as well as love their enemy, to not lie or cheat or steal or fuck someone else's wife

vs atheists who believe in nothing

history tells us we all like living better in christian countries

or try living in communist china or any other atheist shitholes

What you may not realize is that all communist countries are great places when you take into consideration all the world's countries. When you look at the real shitholes of the world, they are not communist countries, they are religious capitalist countries.

 

[Musheen]

do you understand that this is considered a prophecy not to be taken literally? it is not a science book.

Don't really have a dog in this fight, but this stuck out to me as ridiculous.

How do I find out which bits are to be considered literally? How do you know it's not to be taken literally? Common sense perhaps, yes, one might think so, but on the outside, common sense would tell me that someone can't die and then rise again three days later.

 

[Musheen]

Jesus Christ fullfilled the Jewish Old Testament prophesies of his first coming. He was

Born of a virgin.
Came from Bethlehem
Called a Nazarene
The exact date he rode into Jerusalem
His miracles
Betrayed
His crucifixtion
His rising from the dead

There are more. But, you get the picture.

The intellectual part is a slam dunk. People reject him because they love their sin more than God.

Even the fact that Israel would reject him was foretold.

Historical evidence suggests that Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth, hence why he was called: Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[Dayman1984]

Why would you care at all if someone is religious or not? You've never met a good person who was religious? You've never met an asshole who was an atheist? And vice versa? A lot of very nice people are religious, and a lot of very nice people are atheists. Let's say you found out Marcelo Garcia was religious, would he suddenly change into a bad guy even though he has a reputation for being an excellent human being?

 

[Balto]

What you may not realize is that all communist countries are great places when you take into consideration all the world's countries. When you look at the real shitholes of the world, they are not communist countries, they are religious capitalist countries.

Lol amazing screen name to post correlation.

 

[wordspeaker]

I'm going to bite tho...while those people might be academically more intelligent than me, they lack an aspect of intelligence that I posses which is rationality

If you think your rational, you are far from rational.
You are a human being. Rational humans dont exist.
If you think not believing in god makes you rational, you are even less rational.
If you judge people by what you disagree with them about, you will never like anyone.

I guarantee your world view is as full of of dumb ass shit as most peoples is.

Dont be so arrogant and judgmental. You sound like a tool. And this is coming from an agnostic/atheist.

 

[Balto]

Don't really have a dog in this fight, but this stuck out to me as ridiculous.

How do I find out which bits are to be considered literally? How do you know it's not to be taken literally? Common sense perhaps, yes, one might think so, but on the outside, common sense would tell me that someone can't die and then rise again three days later.

In the particular example Oldguy gave (Revelation), the first couple sentences of the book indicate that what follows in the rest of the book is a prophetic dream.

The Bible is not one book. It is an anthology of a bunch of different books. Many of these books have different purposes and different contexts.

Genesis is a book of prehistory. A book like Exodus is written as more current history. There are other later history books like Kings that most secular scholars accept as being pretty historically accurate accounts of the dual monarchy period in Israel. There are books that literally just full of songs like Psalms. There are the three synoptic Gospels, and there is the Gospel of John which is much different. There a bunch of letters written to the early Christians. And there is the prophecy of Revelation which we talked about above.

All of these things need to be interpreted pretty differently. It's not just one book written in the same voice from start to finish. Something like Psalms is way, way different than something like Revelation. You just know that by studying the historical background and context of the book.

 

[TsukinoKage]

Referencing communism and atheism as a negative example of being non-religious is silly when you can point to the Inquisition or any of the modern theocratic states as an example against religion.

Simple fact is bad people will do bad things. Communism is great in theory but sucks when you have a bunch of greedy tyrants running the whole thing. Same could be said about any religion.

The way I see religion is it's a social/psychological construct. It's a reflection of the current culture and beliefs, or a form of organizational control.

My view of religion is that it's dangerous by the nature of not being rooted in rationality or empirical evidence, rather belief, that it can be just as harmful as it is helpful. If you can convince yourself that a man in the sky you have no proof of existing wants you to live a life of love and charity, you could just as well convince yourself that God wants you to strap a bomb to yourself and exterminate infidels.

 

[Balto]

My view of religion is that it's dangerous by the nature of not being rooted in rationality or empirical evidence, rather belief, that it can be just as harmful as it is helpful. If you can convince yourself that a man in the sky you have no proof of existing wants you to live a life of love and charity, you could just as well convince yourself that God wants you to strap a bomb to yourself and exterminate infidels.

It is the same with or without religion though.

What empirical evidence can you produce to convince me that it is wrong to bomb people? You can't do an experiment in the lab to show that bombing people is wrong. A moral question like that has nothing to do with science or evidence, no matter whether you are a religious person asking the moral question or an atheist asking the same moral question.

 

[Musheen]

In the particular example Oldguy gave (Revelation), the first couple sentences of the book indicate that what follows in the rest of the book is a prophetic dream.

The Bible is not one book. It is an anthology of a bunch of different books. Many of these books have different purposes and different contexts.

Genesis is a book of prehistory. A book like Exodus is written as more current history. There are other later history books like Kings that most secular scholars accept as being pretty historically accurate accounts of the dual monarchy period in Israel. There are books that literally just full of songs like Psalms. There are the three synoptic Gospels, and there is the Gospel of John which is much different. There a bunch of letters written to the early Christians. And there is the prophecy of Revelation which we talked about above.

All of these things need to be interpreted pretty differently. It's not just one book written in the same voice from start to finish. Something like Psalms is way, way different than something like Revelation. You just know that by studying the historical background and context of the book.

Fair point!

 

[TsukinoKage]

@Balto so are we talking about the Bible as a historical text written by a bunch of different people in the desert during ancient times, which is what it is, or the Word of God?

I find it odd that an omniscient being would be all fire and brimstone like in the Old Testament but then flip flop to all love and peace later on. I also find it weird that this omniscient being, when laying out universal principles for all of mankind, past and future, would make no mention of electricity or biology or any of the really important stuff, only makes mention of stuff limited to the scope of what an individual living in that time period would know of.

 

[Balto]

Fair point!

Yeah Revelation has pretty much always been seen as a prophetic dream not to be taken literally because of those sentences.

Other books have been more controversial. Obviously you have Genesis and the Creationism people. Whether Genesis should be taken literally has been debated for more than a thousand years, well before evolution was even known. Personally I think it's not meant to be taken literally, and you would get from the context that the traditional author (modern scholars think it was written even later) was Moses. Clearly Moses was not alive until well after all of the events in Genesis were over, so it's a book of legendary origins and not literal history like some later books.

The Pope just said something about he agrees with Genesis not being literal. So it's pretty widely accepted.

http://christiannews.net/2014/10/27...tion-argues-god-and-evolution-are-compatible/

 

[Balto]

@Balto so are we talking about the Bible as a historical text written by a bunch of different people in the desert during ancient times, which is what it is, or the Word of God?

I find it odd that an omniscient being would be all fire and brimstone like in the Old Testament but then flip flop to all love and peace later on. I also find it weird that this omniscient being, when laying out universal principles for all of mankind, past and future, would make no mention of electricity or biology or any of the really important stuff, only makes mention of stuff limited to the scope of what an individual living in that time period would know of.

The Bible as a historical collection of texts written by different people in different times and the Bible as the Word of God are not mutually exclusive ideas. So I would say the Bible is both, and I was talking about both ideas simultaneously.

To your second point, I would say that I do not find those things odd.

 

[TsukinoKage]

It is the same with or without religion though.

What empirical evidence can you produce to convince me that it is wrong to bomb people? You can't do an experiment in the lab to show that bombing people is wrong. A moral question like that has nothing to do with science or evidence, no matter whether you are a religious person asking the moral question or an atheist asking the same moral question.

Regarding empirical evidence, it's historically demonstrable that murder and theft is harmful to society, which is why we have laws in place to prevent this. The moral aspect of murder is a philosophical debate which also tries into religion.

And moral reasoning between a religious and non-religious line of thought is completely different. "Should I do this?" is vastly different than "Should I do this? (and am I going to be rewarded in heaven in some future time for doing so?)"