Christian "belief" is sometimes due to the Stockholm Syndrome

[fccool]

Now, the universal explanation for the sectarian nature of Christianity is that "people inject their imperfect self into the God-written book". The problem is that Bible is not dictated by God. It's a human take on God and history. It's not written by a single person. You have hundreds of stories, perhaps being orally transmitted before these were written down in narrative format.

Just to give you an example of this in Catholic realm... there's a town in Portugal called Fatima. There was nothing special about the town until 1917, when a group of youth seen a apparition of Mary. In mere 50 years, this town became legendary part of Catholic tradition with millions of pilgrims paying homage. I have a friend who thought it was an "out of this world experience" to go there.

The point is that religious myths don't take too long to form and be justified by millions of people. We have to inject some common sense when determining the myth from reality and to recognize certain inconsistencies. Such could be:

1) God is a God of unlimited power and love

2) Evil exists because God has to let his creation exercise free will, and he respects people's decisions

3) If you choose to believe He does not exist and don't do what He says... you'll be resurrected after your death and violently killed again... as opposed to being stoned to death by His command for picking up sticks on Sabbath.

We can't make "such was the culture" an excuse for the unlimited God with unlimited resources and knowledge. One of the possible explanations is that OT is rather a human take on God, with attempt to rationalize a culture of violence and desire for justice.

There are some deep questions that we have to answer before we assume Biblical infallibility:

1) Can infinite love be reconciled with extreme violence? Can you imagine what it would be like to be a woman in a tribe slaughtered by Israel. Imagine you've had children that you loved, and by command of God to leave no one alive you'd be slaughtered. Is it consistent with love or human justification for such slaughter to ascribe God's action to a certain atrocity? You may say... well, the culture was violent and all of them were idolaters? Yet, what happened to the personal choice? Why such inconsistency there. On one hand, the Satan is allowed to murder and go unpunished for ages... and on the other hand certain humans are being violently killed for being associated with certain culture of unbelief? Is that what God with unlimited power and resources would do?

2) If you know anything about the history of humanity, until very recently it was priest-dominated. It was ruled by strictly religious authorities. The shamans were the power behind the tribe elders, and priests of Maya civilization were rolling the heads down the steps of pyramids to pacify their Gods.

We are being told that God of the universe if a personal God who can talk to us, yet this is not quite the case if we look at it honestly. God seems to "talk" though mediators, who end up being the rulers... I.E. God seem to talk through rulers. This is not an exception with Biblical take on God. The people who God talks to... end up in authority over many other people who God does not talk to.

In the OT, the prophets were telling kings what to do and how to act. In NT, the apostles were telling the congregations how to behave. The books were written by the "people in charge" who other people followed. So, we have impersonal God who is rather choosing the mediated route (talking to people through a books written by people who He talks to directly). He is only personal to the people in authority, to whom he reveals himself directly. I.e.

(See Numbers 12:5-8)

So, Go is personal, but He is only personal to a chosen few. The Israelites, by God's admission were not speaking to God, neither Did the prophets. So, when we come to the idea of "having a personal relationship with" or "spending time daily with" or "communing with"... such concept become very vague and meaningless if you understand the concept of personal relationship. It's rather a romanticized version of the NT.

I have a personal relationship with my wife... yet no matter how I've tried, I have not had this kind of relationship with God. He seems to talk to me through preachers and Bible. What's so personal about that?

[fccool]

In conclusion:

Religious dogmatism negates pursuit of the truth. The "god" of religious dogmatism takes the place of the truth and thus it becomes the ultimate truth according to which everything else is measured to and fitted to. Anotherwards, the religious dogma becomes "the god" of itself. Any attributes of God contrary to it become a heresy, and in doing so there becomes only one version of "truth" that everyone else supposed to arrive in.

That's why the preachers always hover repeatedly around a single passage of the Bible attempting to find some "deeper meaning" and some "deeper spiritual lesson". There's only so much you can learn from the real of dogma when it becomes so boring and outdated that everything revolves around repeating the same old thing showing you the significance of the word "the" before some noun.

If you really want to pursue love, justice and peace... then why not step outside of the church and do so? Modern Christianity is cloistered, and modern Adventism is likewise a Sabbath cloister that exists in collection of meetings, and an organization that in the end hardly compares to what organizations like United Way or Red Cross do for money. How can these organizations have more humanitarian impact and compassion than the "people of God"? I guess, people in churches could be a mirror reflection of their view of God that they are trying to be like?

[JawgeFromJawja]

Recently, and for the first time, I read the entire book of Genesis together with my Adventist wife, the NIV version. (I usually prefer KJV.) She was appalled at the violence, the terrorism apparently directed by God, and the inappropriate and constant sex, sex, sex. (Neither of us is a prude, by any means.) Our goal is to read the Bible through together. Lest she fall into a crisis of faith such as I had beginning at age 15, I am explaining to her my positions on The Bible, both Old Covenant and New Covenant as we read. (Message to you guys and dolls: try this with your special others. Very bonding, even romantic, believe it or not.)

I began having crises of faith at age 15, when as a devout Baptist kid, I first read The Bible cover to cover. Much of Genesis is inappropriate for anyone who is not quite mature and experienced. By the time I was graduated from college, the riotous, quasi-barbaric University of Georgia, I was a professing Atheist. Not to worry: The Baptist Student Union and other Christian student organizations were, and remain, well entrenched at The University of Georgia.

Christ seeks his strayed sheep. That is made clear in The New Testament. I had strayed - But I definitely was not lost. Such loss does not happen to Christ's Children:

(See Rom 6:23 and Rom 11:29)

From 1970 on in my practice of medicine, I experienced too many inexplicable events for me to honestly hold an atheistic position. If anything, I am intellectually honest, but with the curse that goes with that mind set: I am my own worst critic. Believe me, that has been frequently painful.

As they say, "long story short", through the guidance of The Holy Spirit, I realized that FCCool is right that there is a progression in the perception of God from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.

Of course, it was The Holy Spirit Who led me to the realization that mankind's perception of God changed from The OT through The NT.

There are a sufficient number of examples in that Sermon to convince any thinking person of the change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.

God is not the brutal, barbaric, ill-tempered, terroristic, arbitrary monster portrayed in the Old Testament, portrayed in writings scribed hundreds of years after Israel escaped the Egyptian enslavement. God is loving, gentle, kind, and infinite. That infinite trait extends to His forgiveness, which also is infinite. Thank God, Praise God.

(This ole boy is an educated professional. Even so, for many years I have tended towards a charismatic stance. My daughter, bless her heart, has even threatened to leave me permanently because of her embarrassment over my ecstasy in my faith. She needn't worry: I am usually quite well behaved in public.)

All of this verbal diarrhea leads to one admonition:

read The Bible cover to cover constantly, under the

guidance of The Holy Spirit. I have been amazed at how

many Christians have not done this at least once. That

reading and repeated reading will prove to be a blessing

beyond your present comprehension.

JawgeFromJawja

Now a full member of Club Adventist

[JawgeFromJawja]

FCCool,

About the idea of being violently killed again... God's Mercy. Cool, you need to prayerfully read I Corinthians 12: 31 through the entire 13th Chapter about five times. It is quite nicely rendered in the NIV. While yer at it, re-read somma yer own recent posts.

Agape (Uh py)

JawgeFromJawja

[phkrause]

Excellent posts JawgeFromJawja. My wife and I have done just that. We've read through the Bible from cover to cover in a number of different versions. My favorite so far has been the "Complete Jewish Bible", which we have not as of yet finished. We've read the KJV (which I totally do not like ), The Living Bible, NIV, New English Bible, The One Year Bible (NLB), The Clear Word, some others which escape me right now. Each time we read through I find something we missed the previous times we've read it through.

[JawgeFromJawja]

Cool posted, and I misread the context(especially point 3). My apology, FCCool.

Of course we have to answer deep, even disturbing, questions, each and every one of us, before assuming Biblical infallibility. In fact, I can never again accept The Bible as infallible historically or scientifically. But spiritually, if the passage of focus does not depend on some obviously unlikely historical event or fact of science, then under the guidance of Holy Spirit, The Bible is infallible. Infallible taken in the context of one's total life experience.

Okay, for a Baptist, that whole paragraph is heresy. It may even get me kicked off this forum. But it works for me. After all, Jesus was judged blasphemous by the priestly powers that were.

George

[JawgeFromJawja]

Fantastic. Unless you start asking, you would be astounded at the number of Christians who have not done a cover to cover even once.

What's The Complete Jewish Bible?

Regards,

JawgeFromJawja

[Tom Wetmore]

George,

Rest assured that heresy will not get you kicked off of this Original Thoughts forum!!

(However, heresy hunters may get the boot...)

Tom

[phkrause]

Its a Jew named David Stein who translates the OT directly from the Hebrew to English. Not from the Greek, which was translated from Hebrew first. Also he does the NT also, of course this is translated from Greek. There is also a "The Complete Jewish Bible" also translated by Jewish Rabbi's on the internet, but this one is only the OT. Most Jews do not except the NT. Here's a link to the one on the internet:

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/63255/jewish/The-Bible-with-Rashi.htm

This is the only Bible most Jews accept.

[phkrause]

Which one the internet one or the actual Bible by DS? Either one I hope you enjoy.

[phkrause]

Available I believe at B&N. Not sure the cost. If I recall it wasn't expensive.

[cardw]

I think there is a narrative within the Bible that appeals to our need to have an explanation and we adapt the narrative of the Bible so that it makes sense and attribute this to the holy spirit.

I think you could do this with any reasonable wisdom writing.

The problem is that if the OT writers were so poorly informed of the nature of god, of what use are they as any kind of authority?

The gnostics solved this by calling the god of the OT the bastard offspring of the goddess of wisdom and essentially an evil god. This was a common way of expressing a philosophical narrative through the anthropomorphic transformation of ideas into gods.

The problem with many of these writings is that later readers began to take these literally And the OT, which was probably put together some time in the 6th century B.C. took many mythical tales and created a monotheistic version transferring gods into prophets and men.

[Twilight]

God is leading all of us and we will not be able to deny that when we stand before Him in the judgement.

All these types of rationalisation will be totally worthless, when they are seen in the light of Gods Glory.

They will be seen to be defenses and mechanisms that are little more than very poor excuses for our rejection of God.

[Y]our arguments do not sway me in the slightest, I pray they do not sway the other sincere Christians here as well...

:-)

[cardw]

Mark,

That's the problem, it ultimately boils down to your god is going to show everyone that you are right and then you can say, "That'll show them. Ha!"

It's ultimately fear based.

All I've asked for is evidence and ultimately all I get are threats.

[Twilight]

Cardw

You can claim it is fear based all day long, but those that have responded to the Love of God will never agree with you.

Mark :-)

[Twilight]

Coaspen.

I do not serve God out of fear in any sense whatsoever...

[Twilight]

Have a look at the cross in the New Testament.

Then have a look at the cross in the Old Testament.

And see Jesus hanging there.

Then explain to me, how Jesus being nailed to that cross would inspire you with fear?

[Twilight]

You see, when one wants to "depict" God a certain way, then they become blind to any other depiction that goes against their stated position.

This is not about how God is depicted, this is about depicting God in a certain way.

[Tom Wetmore]

With the ad hominem commentary now removed, this topic is unlocked.

To everyone:

Please refrain from making this personal. Stick to ideas. Be respectful of other points of view. Add constructively to the conversation. Tearing down another's point of view does little to add to the conversation. And if you have made a point once, that is enough. Repeating the same old stuff is tiresome, and goes against the whole premise of the Original Thoughts forum. We heard you the first time.

I would prefer to not have to free anyone up for the exclusive opportunity to post elsewhere.

Tom

As moderator

[cardw]

Mark,

I think CoAspen has expressed very clearly what I am saying in her last post.

There are some real problems with the OT god and the ethics that are derived from a literal understanding of those actions.

[cardw]

The cross has some problems too.

What Father would require a blood sacrifice in such a tortuous way to gain the ability to forgive the human race from rules he made up himself?

It appears that the OT god has the ability to bend all kinds of rules which allows him to order genocide, promote slavery, treat women as property, make death penalties for minor actions, etc. etc. but when it comes to his ability to forgive he needs a tortuous blood sacrifice.

Without blood there is no forgiveness.

This is a pretty scary god. This also causes many Christians to treat every little detail in life so seriously that it drains the joy out of life.

These are common observations of many non believers and it is not hard to demonstrate. And the more Christians ignore these problems the more it becomes apparent that many aspects of Christian culture are fear based and share many common elements with harmful cults.

[cardw]

Mark,

If you have love in your life, I don't want to negate that even if you attribute it to the god of the Bible.

This is not about who you are as a person. This is about what I observe to be true in SOME Christians. It is what I observed in my Christian community growing up. I lived in many different Christian communities because we moved a lot. I think I have a pretty good sample. I also have come in contact with many Church groups outside of Adventism and there are similar problems in each one.

And when Christians let their guard down these questions fearfully come up. I know because for much of my life I was on the inside. I also know the burden and the pressure to make it all look nice. I'm not saying you are doing this because frankly I don't know.

But, to deny that this happens simply creates a deep sickness. A very dear mentor told me that we are only as sick as our secrets.

[skyblue888]

cardw, as for myself, I hear what you are saying and that is why we need to sink the shaft deeper into the mine of truth in order to reconcile some of the teachings of Christ in the Old Testament with those of Christ in the New Testatment for the God of the Old Testatment is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. (1 Cor.10:4)

Jesus referred to the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth law (Lev.24:20) and then said not to resist an evil person, even to turn the other cheeck. (Matt.5:38,39.)

When He said that they had heard it before, it was Jesus Christ Himself who had told the Isrealites the thing about an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. But now He says, not to even resist an evil person.

Did we miss something?

sky

[This is how we deal with specific texts - paraphrase, refererence or summarize in your own words. - TW]

[cardw]

skyblue,

You are welcome to try and reconcile the OT with Jesus. I ultimately found that to be futile.

I find that Jesus is essential to many modern ethical concepts and Jesus holds up well even without all the trappings of the OT, prophecy, and theology. I find that Jesus is actually far more understandable without those. This makes me suspicious that Jesus was co-opted into the whole myth or is a personification of centuries of mystery religions focused on an anointed one or Christ.

I think we see the need for the OT coming from the Roman need to legitimize Christianity as an OLD religion since in their minds only ancient religions held any legitimacy. That is pretty much true today as well.

What I see is a transformation from a sect of Judaism or possibly a blend of Jewish/messianic/Egyptian mystery sects into the imperial religion of Rome. What we have today is such a syncretic blend of many different influences that to call it anything other than a complex myth requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief.

[skyblue888]

Okay coAspen, so In Old Testament times Jesus called for "equal treatment" in retaliation but in the New He is calling for no retaliation at all, not even "equal treatment," but why? Why did Christ allow any type of retaliation with the Israelites?

That's the question.

sky