Rejecting Some Myths, Believing In Others

[Zhade]

Okay gang, time for another tough question designed to try to help me understand believers. Today's topic: the random nature of cherry-picked beliefs.

(Christians, please don't feel picked on because I use your beliefs as example - I just know Christian mythology way more than any other, from repeated failed attempts in my life to buy into it; rest assured that these questions can be asked of virtually every organized religion.)

Some - most? - liberal believers here have expressed disbelief in some parts of their bible while rejecting other parts. Let's take two important bits of Christian beliefs to examine the question, why do most Christians not believe in the totality of the Christian mega-story, and why?

The resurrection of Jesus versus the Creation.

Pretty much every Christian here believes in the first as a literally true event, while most here do not believe the Earth to be mere thousands of years old.

Why the disconnect?

Why believe the first and not the second, when there's no more evidence for the resurrection than for the relatively young age of the planet?

Now, maybe it comes down to interpretation - many interpret the Creation myth to mean perhaps billions of years equals a day to god. But then, isn't the matter of the resurrection likewise an interpretation issue? After all, why isn't it metaphorical? Could it be that Jesus (assuming he existed, which is another issue entirely) did die, and the 'resurrection' that occurred was more a rebirth and re-dedication on the part of his followers to living out his teachings in honor of his memory, rather than a literal bodily return from the dead?

This last does not seem a popular take. For some reason I do not understand, the resurrection is read as 'literally happened' by most Christians.

Again, why? What, besides subjective internal feelings that may or may not be connected to any god, leads most Christians to believe Jesus literally rose from the dead, while they easily discard likewise impossible myths like the Garden, the Great Flood, and other purported miracles and events?

Have you, as a believer, ever really asked yourself that question? If so, what was the answer?

[Don_1967]

1. If one doesn't believe in the resurrection then why be a Christian

[Zhade]

4. That completely misses the question.

For the record, though, I've met what we could call 'philosophical Christians', both here and offline. They believe in the purported teachings of Jesus, but don't buy into the supernatural stuff at all.

[bigmonkey]

2. There are different kinds of belief.

The story is literally true, like your Mother's name or your address.
The story is metaphorically or analogically true.
The story is an allegory.
The story is an traditional, and to be memorized and believed as a cultural duty (i.e. you might have personal doubts, but would never reveal them.)
The story is an important social control factor (supposedly the Straussian position, but you can let your guard down among other members of "the elite.")

Another way of looking at this is to think about the position of someone who has an experience that no-one else has had, say in relationship to a discovery or an new invention. Is their experience suspect until they have other witnesses? How many are necessary to make the experience a reliable report?

[Zhade]

5. I would hope my OP made it clear I was talking about...

...those who believe in a literal resurrection.

[bigmonkey]

7. Profession of belief has a conviction and a legalistic part.

The profession of belief in the literal resurrection may have a number of different variants. Its requirement in many, although not all, Christian sects is the result of an historical process, and may have been coercive either in a contemporary or ancient context.

What if you have to profess that belief to be part of a community?













Edited for spelling

[hughee99]

3. I think for many it's a matter of evidence...

The creation of the earth was such a big event that it's pretty easy to find evidence that the Earth is not just a few thousand years old. Someone can show you a rock or a fossil and prove that it's older than biblical scholars claim the earth is. In the face concrete evidence to the contrary, faith doesn't usually hold up. Jesus's resurrection is a much smaller event, and while there's no evidence that this is possible, there's also no evidence that it didn't happen either. If you've already made the leap of faith that Jesus is the son of God, then it's much easier to keep your faith if you don't have to face concrete evidence to the contrary. Just my opinion.

Basically, many people of faith are open minded enough nowadays that they will be willing to concede some "biblical truths" in the face of scientific evidence. In situations where scientific evidence isn't there, they'll fall back on their faith. Some people just need more evidence than others.

[Zhade]

6. That's a point I considered, too.

But it still doesn't explain, in the utter absence of any corroborating evidence, why most Christians believe in a literal return from the dead, but not (e.g.) The Great Flood.

Heck, there's more evidence that a Great Flood COULD have happened (unless you know the science and realize there's not a chance of it ever happening under our physical universal laws) than Jesus coming back from the dead - after all, geological evidence does show a flood, just not a worldwide one.

Yet some rightly reject the Great Flood myth, which has some kind of nugget of possibility, while believing wholly in a return from the dead which is impossible and has not a shred of evidence to back it up.

I don't understand this. What is it in a believer's mind that causes one to reject the first and believe the second?

[hughee99]

9. I don't really understand it either,

but I suppose if someone is willing to take it on faith that Jesus is the son of God, and that God is "all-powerful", then that same faith would allow for God bringing Jesus back to life.

Of course, if you believe that God can do anything he wants, then I don't know why someone wouldn't also take the Great Flood (also caused by god) as literal truth. It's quite a contradiction.

I guess it also comes down to Biblical importance. The Great Flood, while a big event, can be dismissed because it is not necessarily central to the basic religious beliefs. The resurrection, if disbelieved, sort of shatters most of the religious doctrine that Christians are brought up to believe. People will concede points more easily if it doesn't force them to reevaluate their entire religious belief structure.

[kiahzero]

10. I think there's something else to it too

Of course, if you believe that God can do anything he wants, then I don't know why someone wouldn't also take the Great Flood (also caused by god) as literal truth. It's quite a contradiction.

In order to believe that the Great Flood happened, you'd have to believe that not only did God cause it, but he suspended all sorts of natural processes to make it look as though it didn't happen - much like the YEC "argument" that "God planted the fossils to test our faith." I don't think the same can be said for things like the Resurrection.

[hughee99]

12. Again, I don't really understand why some people believe

some parts of the bible and not others. From my experience, though, it's far easier to get someone to concede something trivial than it is to get someone to concede something central to their beliefs. As to why people are willing to concede some parts of the bible and not others, there probably is more to it, I just can't put my finger on it.

[kiahzero]

14. I don't think it's a matter of believing some parts and not others.

I think it's a difference in how to interpret the various parts, where some are literal and some are figurative.

[hughee99]

17. Isn't this basically the same, though...

Since there's really no "users guide" to tell you which parts are supposed to be literal and which are figurative, it's up to the reader to decide which ones they actually believe are true, and which ones they don't believe are true, and they take to be figurative. Interpreting parts figuratively is sort of a way to disbelieve something but accept it as well. It seems to leave us with the same issue, why do people accept some parts of the bible as truth, but accept other parts as allegories. I completely agree that it's what people do, I just don't understand why, and how they make the determination.

[Zhade]

28. IMHO, yes.

NT!

[Silent3]

42. I should have read hughee99's response...

...before I made a very similar response further down in the thread a day later. :D

While I can't really get into the head of a believer (much less the composite head of some conveniently representational Resurrection believer/Flood disbeliever) my feeling is that, no matter how incredible and unlike day-to-day events bringing someone back from the dead is, belief in the Flood takes a much, much greater suspension of disbelief.

First of all, the Flood is both stupid and cruel. If God is GOD, he could and should have been able to reboot life on Earth without all of the Cecil B. DeMille histrionics and without causing so much needless suffering.

The Flood couldn't be just a single miracle. It would require dozens of miracles to pull off. You've got to gather all those animals from disparate environments all into one tiny enclosed space. You've got to keep them alive in captivity for 40 days and nights without disease or predation reducing their numbers. You have to summon forth more water than exists on the Earth in order to flood the entire surface of the Earth, and then you have to make it all miraculously disappear. The animals have to leave the boat, traveling over flood-ravaged land back to their proper environments, while somehow surviving with little or nothing left to eat for a long time. Most vegetation will have been killed off, and predators will have nothing to eat at all until their prey are re-established in sufficient numbers to survive predation. The whole of the biosphere then has to re-establish itself starting from an incredibly limited gene pool. Etc., etc., etc.

On top of it all, for some strange reason God would have had to have gone out of His way to scramble the geological record and muck around with genetic clocks and the like to create a deliberate illusion that something other than this Flood is what happened. (Maybe he was feeling embarrassed about how stupid and cruel it was? ;) )

Compared to all of that raising one man from the dead seems much more plausible to me.

[Zhade]

46. There's the possibility of him not dying at all, as well.

(Assuming he existed, which is another matter.)

Heck, someone could have done ancient CPR, and BAM! instant 'resurrection'.

You make a good point.

[Selatius]

8. I used to believe in both, but not anymore.

I'm not speaking up as a Christian because I don't believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ or the idea of the Holy Trinity or any other construct inserted by Roman emperors and others who came after. By that standard, I am not a Christian because I won't recognize anything beyond Jesus as a historical figure assuming he was a living person.

I'm perfectly fine with the theory of evolution or the idea that Earth is several billion years old. I generally describe the agent behind the Big Bang as the Creator or simply God, not to be confused with the Bible's version of God though. I don't know God's nature or God's will, and I won't be foolish enough to attempt to describe God's purpose; that would be just plain arrogance on my part. What I do know is that we are given the Gift of Reason. It seems to follow that this Gift was not given just so it could be thrown away in favor of religious dogma, superstition, and blind faith.

Holy texts, messiahs, prophets, or anybody claiming to have "secret knowledge" from a divine source should be held in suspect. Anybody claiming to be a religious authority higher than you should also be held suspect. If he is human, then he is no better than you are at using Reason to decide what is moral or immoral for yourself.

At about the time I disavowed the young earth creation idea was when I rather rapidly also abandoned the idea of Jesus rising from the dead or the idea that he had divine powers or that he was the Son of God. The only thing of Jesus left was a man, like any other man, who was a radical rabbi who was crucified for challenging one too many powerful people for the sake of the poor and less fortunate.

Even if I strip all the divinity out of Jesus, I still find his story remarkable. Thomas Jefferson did the same thing I did. He stripped out what he believed to be fantastical elements and left in everything else. The result was the "Jefferson Bible" that described the life and times of Jesus and his crucifixion except without the superstition and magical elements added in over the centuries.

I find myself largely in agreement with modern Deism now. Jefferson, as well as others like Thomas Paine, were also Deists.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Divine powers

Jesus said that everything he did his disciples would be able to do, and more. Enlightened beings never pretend to be special, as all is available to everyone, if they choose to seek it. But here's the key: it's ok not to seek it, too.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. How about not looking at beliefs at all but rather at experience?

I'm not talking about the experiences set down in some book somewhere, but an invidual's personal experiences, both with individuals and with All That Is.

Why bring this up? Because it does have a direct relation to your OP where you talk of "myths" of religion and, using Christianity as an example, wonder how Christians can accept the Resurrection as real while the Creation story is mythical, according to science.

Some here question whether you can even call a person a Christian who does not believe in the former premise. I find that very interesting, because I was raised by a woman who calls herself a Christian and yet doesn't think the Resurrection is the main focus of Christianity-the teachings of Jesus are. From a very early age, she discussed and debated whether or not Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, or whether there was a Passover Plot (a book she read and had me read as well). So in my family experience, one can be a Christian and not have the Resurrection be the main focus of your beliefs.

And then there is direct experience. Some people have them, and they aren't all pius religious people, either (google Eckhardt Tolle, for example, and read his story). People that have such experiences rarely talk about them, namely because it is nearly impossible to put the experience in words. Tolle comes closest, I think, to explaining, and even he says words are inadequate. So I can read the Bible and look upon the words there as simply trying to describe something (the Resurrection) that is basically indescribable. As for things like Creation, the stories about it again are words trying to describe, in terms the people of the time would understand, that which is indescribable. Even modern terms, like the Big Bang, don't really describe the process of what happened, or how or why it happened (or why it is still happening, for isn't creation really a continuous process?)

I hope these paragraphs give you a new perspective on viewing the Resurrection and Creation.

[Finder]

16. You seem to have a distinct gnostic view. n/t

[Zhade]

19. Assuming these experiences even happen, and are what believers believe they are...

...(and that's not at all conclusive), please explain to me how I'm supposed to evaluate someone's alleged experience when I'm not the one claiming to have them.

I can't get inside anyone's head, hence the reason personal experiences (which may or may not be related to any gods) are useless as evidence except as subjective evidence for those who say they undergo them.

[bryant69]

15. I believe in a literal creation described in poetic, not exact, language

So I believe in both.

I think you might run the risk of picking one interpretation of the Bible and holding Christians accountable for not believing it (to follow on your example).

I also believe in the Garden, the Great Flood and other purpoted miracles and events.

I might not be the best person to respond to this question.

Bryant

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. bryant, you made a good point

in that whenever one looks at the holy books, it is a good idea to keep in mind the language in which they were first written. Check out any of Neil Douglas-Klotz's books on the subject. For example, in "Prayers of the Cosmos", he takes the words of the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic and does a direct translation from them to modern English. You get a far different picture, and a much fuller picture, of what those words mean. "Desert Wisdom" contains writings from the ancient Middle East, and I believe his latest work deals with Genesis, called "The Genesis Meditations"

Find out more here:

http://www.abwoon.com/genmed/

[Zhade]

20. Do you believe in Hell for nonbelievers?

If not, you're well-qualified to answer the question.

[bryant69]

22. No I don't

In that my faith doesn't teach Hell in the same way that most Christians seem to believe in it.

Bryant

[Zhade]

27. Perfect! You absolutely can answer the question, then.

Why do you believe in the literal return from the dead by Jesus, but not Hell, which is in the same book?

What makes you accept one and not the other, when they both lack any corroborating evidence?

As RH said below, I also am not trying to trap you. I'm trying to get you to think about the question, and share your answer - whatever it may be - with us.

This is well-intentioned, I promise.

[bryant69]

33. To answer this question I'd have to talk about my specific faith

Which I generally try to avoid doing. But there's no way around it in this case, I guess. I'm Mormon - while we believe the Bible to be the word of God insofar as it is translated correctly it is not the only source of our theology. We also have the Book of Mormon and the words of modern prophets.

So Modern Prophets and the Book of Mormon have testified to the resurrection of Christ, while clarifying what happens after death.

Hope that answers your question. Let's see what happens now.

Bryant

[Zhade]

47. Yikes. I better end it here.

I'm ex-Mormon, mostly because I learned about Joseph Smith being a known fraud in his own time (well, plus the huge 'can't believe in things for which there is no corroborating evidence' thing).

If we continue, I'll probably just piss you off.

[bryant69]

51. Seems like it.

Which is why i don't bring it up all that often. As has been pointed out elsewhere, even the cursory respect given mainline Christians is out the window when it comes to the Mormons and other sects of that nature.

Bryant

[Zhade]

30. So...not interested in giving your insight?

Could be illuminating for us both.

[bryant69]

32. I'm sorry I went to bed before seeing this question

I'll answer it when i get to work - since this requires more thougth and time than i have at this moment.

Bryant

[Zhade]

45. No worries!

NT!

[Realityhack]

21. Interesting

Are there parts of the bible that you beleive use more 'poetic license' than others?

[bryant69]

23. It depends on how we are using poetic liscence

If we are using the term to mean "didn't really happen" than I'd say there may be a few, but not very many. On the other hand the Bible has a specific purpose and that purpose isn't to teach science or history or languages or any subject other than faith - it touches on those other issues, but that's not its core role.

Bryant

[Realityhack]

24. So...

What you seem to be saying (correct me if I don't get this quite right), is that there are stories that you beleive happend but not quite in that way (ie poetic rather than literal language), and perhapse a few you think didn't realy happen (at least that way) at all...

But am I correct in thinking you beleive certain other parts to be prity much accurate? ie. you think that some parts are more literal than others?

Are there parts that you think are completely accurate?

[bryant69]

25. Accurate in what they teach

And I seems like I'm being led.

Bryant

[Realityhack]

26. I am not trying to trap you. n/t

[jgraz]

29. The myths are one thing, but it's hard to defend cherry-picking the teachings

There are many, many websites that talk about the degenerate, savage teachings of the Old Testament, so I won't bore you with them here. Many Christians dance around this issue by saying that Jesus established a new relationship between humanity and their god, replacing the old barbarisms with peace and love.

At least that's what I was always taught in Sunday school. So you can imagine my surprise when I found that Jesus himself advocated killing children who did not properly honor their mother and father:

Matthew 15:4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

He goes on to lecture the Pharisees for their hypocrisy of insisting that people wash their hands before eating when the Pharisees themselves ignore God's word by refusing to execute misbehaving children. For some reason, the Pharisees seem offended by this (Matthew 15:15).

Now, this ain't some old chestnut pulled from Leviticus or Deuteronomy (although those books are horrifying in their own right). This is Jesus Christ, your Lord and Saviour, telling you that you should kill your children.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad the Christians have decided to ignore this particular piece of parenting advice from the Lamb of God. But where in the doctrine of Christianity are you allowed to ignore it? And if you can ignore these words spoken directly from the mouth of the Messiah, how are you able to establish an imperative to follow any of the Bible's teachings?

[Zhade]

31. Wow, that's an even better example than mine.

I'd forgotten that verse - guess I blocked it out. Because if I'd remembered, I'd have been wondering why the heck people call Jesus peaceful and merciful with those words allegedly coming out of his mouth.

Yikes.

And this is explained away as metaphorical when brought up, no doubt. Again - why would this be metaphorical, and not the return from the dead?

No more evidence for the one than the other. In the same book. One rejected, one accepted.

It boggles the mind.

[jgraz]

35. Jesus? Peaceful and merciful?

Turns out not so much:

Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Matthew 10:35-36 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

Matthew 15:4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

Luke 12:51-52 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.

Luke 14:26 If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.


Finally, why did Christians burn witches? Because Jesus told them to:

John 15:6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

[PinkUnicorn]

37. Well

The return from the dead raises a slight problem if it is taken as 'metaphorical'. He was nailed up and died so either...

A) He wasn't who he said he was, just some nutter.
B) We just killed god for good. Whoops

So you can't dodge it without having some sort of 'out'. It more or less forms a core concept and without it the entire house of cards falls over (Well yeah he died and didn't rise, so um, we're worshipping a dead god...isn't it pointless?). But the whole rising from the dead thing brings up other problems as well...

Q) Why did he die?
A) He died to save us from sin

Q) What sin? I wasn't born, neither were my parents, grandparents, great grand...
A) Original sin. Everyone is born in sin

Q) Original sin as in the whole apple, talking snake, vegetarian spiders and lions and so on?
A) Um...

So the actual point of the entire resurrection is based on false grounds (not to mention it bears startling resemblances to the Osiris myth, the Mithra myth, etc).

But in any case I put religion in the meme category - it evolves and adapts to it's current environment, if it doesn't it dies. Imagine if a religion with a 'child killing' clause popped up today, it wouldn't last a week and hence the strain would 'die'. But like any sort of organism it still keeps the remnants of its past, even if they are not expressed. Humans have junk DNA which holds old nonfunctional genes of our past, we don't see them but they are there if we go looking.

Modern religions based on old ones (ie: most of them) also bear those ancient junk statements - killing children, cursing fig trees, rains of frogs etc. They are not 'expressed' as they would not assist in propagating the meme (people would laugh at them and dismiss them as nuts) so they keep quiet - or more correctly they disappear into a 'temporary memory hole'. This is not to say they go away - if the environment is right they will promptly pop out again - you can bet if there wasn't religion independent laws keeping a lid on it they would run wild. Take any theocratic based nation for an example.

It also helps that hardly anyone actually read through their assorted holy books, but are spoon fed the 'edited for publication' version. The nice bits are kept to assist propagation while the nasty bits are swept under the carpet until condition are better.

[kwassa]

34. nothing like a simplistic reading of a verse, out of context.

including the failure to indicate that Jesus was quoting the Old Testament.

http://cresourcei.org/biblestudy/bbmatt12.html

In verse 4 Jesus quotes two Old Testament commandments, one from Exodus 20:12 (to honor father and mother) and one from Exodus 21:17 (that whoever curses a parent shall be executed). He introduced the quotations by the expression, "God said, . . " This is much stronger (in Matthew 15:4) than in the parallel passage in Mark 7:10 which states, "Moses said, . . " The shift in Matthew is important. He wanted his readers to understand that the issue at stake in this passage was not just a difference of opinion about interpretation of the Law as Mark presents it. Rather, the issue at stake is the word of God versus human interpretation.

The Pharisees acknowledged the two commandments that Jesus cited, but they had developed a scheme of interpretation that enabled them to avoid certain duties to aged parents. Using the biblical commands against false oaths (Leviticus 19:12) and requiring keeping of oaths (Numbers 30:2 and Deuteronomy 23:21), they had developed a way to make oaths (or vows) to God that effectively kept them from supporting their parents. The process involved swearing that all one’s resources belonged to God, but of course were available for personal use until death. This meant that they could not give money away to support their aged parents, since that money had been promised to God. The spelling out of this process required a whole chapter of the Mishnah when the oral traditions were committed to writing between A.D. 180 and 200. Jesus concluded that this process had effectively nullified God’s intention in the commandment to honor one’s parents.

[trotsky]

36. That interpretation of the text doesn't address the problem, kwassa.

Jesus is indeed quoting the OT and quite plainly endorsing that commandment, since he calls the Pharisees hypocrites for NOT following it. Point still stands.

There's a funny part just a little down in Matt 15, too. Jesus calls people stupid for not being able to figure out his obscure parables (verse 16). Great guy.

[kwassa]

38. It does address one problem

People citing Biblical passages out of context, and attributing words to Jesus when he is either quoting something else, or the words come from a character in one of his parables. I've seen this happen a few times in this forum.

I don't think Jesus is quite plainly endorsing that commandment, though it is problematic, due to the limitations of the quote itself, and the lack of greater detail. In the larger context of the chapter, the thrust of the lesson is as described; the Pharisees creating their own version of the law to change the purpose of the law in the first place.

[jgraz]

39. In this case, context doesn't change the meaning

Jesus had plenty of examples to choose from if he wanted to point out the Pharisees' hypocrisy, yet he chose the law that requires you to drag your disobedient son to the city gate and stone him to death.

Sure, he didn't include "Blessed are the Child Stoners" in the Sermon on the Mount, but it's clear that at the very least, he's more bothered by the fact that the Pharisees withhold money from their parents than the fact that other Jews are stoning disobedient children.

[hunter]

43. Or he was casting the question in a way the Pharisees couldn't win.

So, are you starving your parents or killing your children?

The misinterpretation of so many of these things arises from differences in the way the people of that time viewed the world and the way we view the world.

Two thousand years ago the view of the world was deeply cyclical. Parents had children who became parents who had children, and if you were lucky, not much changed between your grandparents time and your time. Disruptions in these cycles -- wars, droughts, etc. -- were generally BAD things, and these bad things were cyclical too.

In contrast our modern view of the world is almost entirely linear -- there is a beginning, a past, a present, and some undetermined future. Disruptions can be good our bad.

Jesus, man or God or myth, is a very well-read subversive. That He uses this Old Testament fire-and-brimstone language is in no way surprising. The Pharisees, who were used to having their interpretations of the Law simply accepted as authority by the community, could not respond to this sort of argument.

When you get right down to it, it doesn't matter if Jesus is "real" or not -- His arguments as described in the Gospel threw a very real monkey wrench into the existing political machine, a political machine that was based largely in religion.

A similar pattern exists with the Baha'i religion and Islam, and there very clear historical records for that conflict, as the Baha'i religion was founded in the 1800s.

http://www.bahai.us

[okasha]

49. Or, "You're starving your parents (thereby breaking the Law of Moses)

while telling everyone else they have to live strictly by that law. Uhm, by your own showing, shouldn't we be stoning you to a bloody pulp?" It's an attack on the Pharisees for ingoring the spirit of the law while observing its technicalities to the letter.

[hunter]

52. No, it was more subtle than that.

If Jesus had gone around saying to the Pharisees directly, "You hypocrits, by your own showing, shouldn't we be stoning you to a bloody pulp?" he wouldn't have been around long. He usually phrased things in a way that demonstrated the disconnect from God, rather than as direct or even indirect accusation -- quite especially when dealing with authority.

It is the exceptions that are notable, for example the outburst at the temple with the money changers. It is specifically stated here that the crowd was with Him and thus the authorities were fearful of confronting Him.

[okasha]

53. Agreed.

Just my version of the unspoken subtext, which the crowd would have picked up on. One of those he that hath an ear, let him hear, moments. The Pharisees would have picked up on his meaning, too, but since nothing overt was said, couldn't claim offense.

[trotsky]

40. You're kind of missing the point, I think.

Yes, the context is that Jesus is quoting the OT. But the context is ALSO that he's chastising the Pharisees for finding ways to get around the commandment - meaning he clearly supports the commandment itself. Honor your father and mother or die.

Now when quotes are taken from a parable, that doesn't necessarily invalidate them either - especially when the quote is taken from a character in a parable who is supposed to represent Jesus. But then Jesus would probably think I'm too stupid to understand it anyway.

[kiahzero]

44. Not necessarily.

When we criticize Haggard for not following the rules he articulated for others, does that mean we support those rules?

[trotsky]

50. Ah, but we aren't quoting our divine dad when we do that.

Supporting the commandment, in that case, is pretty clearly implied.

[Brentos]

55. Only if....

Only if you believe you don't realize that not all of the old testament is directly from God's mouth. The old testament is a dialog between man and God. God gives some commandments, man quickly changes them, adds to them, alters them. The Bible tells us that the Law was added to by at least several different people during the time of David (or around there, I'd have to check later). Which leads to the questions of what is from God and what is from man?

To answer that, read the stories of David-Solomon in samuel and Kings for one side of the story (pre-exilic Davidics).

Then flip to Chronicles for a post-exilic interpretation (also from man's view).

Then, check out the psalms (written by David and others) for a very glorified version from David's POV.

Then- flip to the prophets. Here you will read the consistent voice of God discussing the same topics.

Then, when you are confused as to which of these sources is correct, flip to Jesus, who, on the sermon on the Mount will tell you. The best example, the old Testament tells us (approx. quote) "An Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth." Yes, that is Hammurabi's code slipped into the Bible. Jesus tells us this (approx quoting), "you have heard it said, 'Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth', but I tell you this, when someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other..."

The Law had been horribly abused and changed by the time of Jesus. He came, not just to die for our sins (which he could have done in a quick weekend), but to become the Law. He became a living example of the Law. Follow him, not words that can be changed and twisted out of context. This is what the Law meant.

Jesus didn't get rid of the Law, he clarified it, by fulfilling, or becoming, the Law.

Another example, the laws regarding food. Why were there laws originally about food types? Because those are the foods the pagans ate, and God wanted his people to be different. When those same rituals where no longer being done by pagans, the law didn't matter. The intent of the Law, not the literal words of the Law are what Jesus was teaching, so he told them of course they could eat pig, etc.

[Zhade]

48. False, as trotsky and jpgraz explain well enough.

It's okay to dodge the question, just don't cast aspersions where you're wrong.

[Silent3]

41. As a non-believer, I'd say...

...that there's an important difference between the two myths. Neither myth is supported by good evidence, but the Creation myth suffers additionally from a great deal of contrary evidence. Other than by a very, very loose and poetic interpretation of Genesis (old bail-outs like "Who knows how long a day is to God? A God day could be millions, even billions of years!" are far from enough to salvage Genesis), the Biblical account of creation is patently false.

The Resurrection myth can more safely live in the "Well, it could have happened! There's no proof it didn't!" side of things. Even as a non-believer, for a long time I bought into the popular meme that, even if not divine, there was a real, historic person named Jesus around which the stories of the New Testament were based. It's only in the past few years that I've caught on to how weak the evidence is for that person. Most people in this country probably have the impression that an historic Jesus is a well-supported fact, making belief in the Resurrection less of a giant leap.

[Danger Mouse]

54. Hmm

Well, I think one issue is translation. I often wonder what is REALLY written in the Bible, since it has been translated and interpreted in different ways. I don't think it's possible to take the Bible at face value, literally word for word, since we don't know whose words it is we're reading. The King James version was a translation that favored authoritarianism. Depending on the translation, meanings can be vastly different. For instance, the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that people don't go to Hell when they die...in fact, they don't believe in Hell at all.
They interpret passages referring to 'Gehenna' and 'burning' to mean 'death' rather than 'Hell,' basing their conclusions on the cultural context of the times, which I found very interesting.
My point is...I think the Bible has some lovely passages in it, and some lovely teachings...and is the core of our faith. However, it is not all that there is...the Bible is in some ways unreliable, and the translation issue really bothers me.
People shape their own faith, make it into what they want it to be. Even people who claim to take it all literally, only believe what they choose. Otherwise, people would be out stoning their children and killing rape victims and taking slaves and the like.
Therefore, i can give you no insight into the rationale for this.
It doesn't make sense, but faith doesn't make any sense either.
My head hurts, trying to make sense of all this, and I just can't. I can't.