Ethics of religious discussions?

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The slaves were to be set free in the years of the shmeetah (every seventh year). And the former master was required to send his former slave off fully provisioned.

ruveyn

You can be arrested for speaking about Jesus in a positive way that oversteps their rules.

I also see no conflict between science and naturalism. In fact, they complement one another perfectly. But I see no way to reconcile a naturalist philosophy with any kind of theism.

In Sweden, Denmark, Norway or Japan? That is news to me.

In Germany, about 50% of the population is non-religious, but we still have an anti-blasphemy law. The Christian world view enjoys more protection here than the naturalist view (not that I would want any world view to be exempt from criticism).

Someone already made a thread about the EEAN as I was reading this one.

See you there CCL?

Yes, it's more of a "freedom of (or from) hearing" than freedom of speech.

I don't quite understand how many that profess Christ want to be separate for the natural world though, I'd think God or Jesus would prefer a nice forest rather than a huge cathedral.

Jesus ain't worried about getting called names!

Your thoughts on the quote from Christ is exactly why discussions about scripture tend to become inert, because interpretations of scripture are a lot like zombies, regardless of how many you kill more keep coming. However, that is a Meta topic that we aren’t dealing with here.

When it comes to individualism Christ says it fairly clearly, unless you love him more than your own family, your wife and your children you are not worthy of him and those who are not worthy of him will be tortured for all eternity. This is not individualism, nor is it egalitarian unless you completely redefine the word. This is compulsory love or eternal torture.

Even the most repeated saying of Jesus (which he ripped off from Confucius among others) “Do onto others” is the very antithesis of individualism as it affirms that what is right for you is right for another. I tend illustrate the problem with the golden rule by saying “A murderer is only a suicidal person acting according to the golden rule”. I had a better one but I figured it may be offensive.

The reason why I call what Habermas is doing revisionism is because he is taking a contemporary interpretation of the scriptures and comparing them with contemporary values then ascribes the “birthplace” of those values to the scriptures. He’s confusing correlation with causality. If you were to trace modern values backwards you would see that the values of the scriptures do have connections with the development of modern values; however that stems from the interpretation of the scriptures changing.

Christianity has strived to keep their values “compatible” with the values of society, whereas Islam has done the exact opposite and has controlled the values of society.
On the topic of the catholic church and HIV/AIDS in Africa, part of me want to say that I’m glad the Catholic Church is doing so much to aid people suffering from this horrible virus. However, part of me thinks “Since much of the blame lays with them for the spread of HIV throughout Africa its only right.”

Edward Green despite his comments about risk compensation also said that condoms should be a part of the game plan against HIV/AIDS together with abstinence and being faithful. The “issue” I have with Green’s statement and this may be because I haven’t read his report in full, is that 14 studies showed that consistent use of condoms lead to an 80% reduction in HIV incidence. (Weller SC & Davis-Beaty K (2007), 'Condom effectiveness in reducing heterosexual HIV transmission)

Given the premise that condoms are used correctly in every case of sexual intercourse, this means that people would have to drastically increase their high risk behavior in order for the conclusion to be probable. Or the premise is false and people are in fact not using condoms correctly, in every instance of intercourse or both, in which case he just did a study where the conclusion came out to be the equivalent of “Bike helmets are not effective in protecting children who are out cycling if they either aren't wearing the helmets or are wearing them on their behinds”

Show me. Christ says very clearly that hell is not made for you or me. It's funny, I repeatedly show eternal damnation for mortals to be false, yet it is still said.

because theology can and is discussed even among members of the same denominations

Matthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

Matthew 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell.

Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matthew 11:23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. (I guess Jesus could be speaking of just condemning the city structures to hell and not the people)

More Matthew:

Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'



Revalations:

(11) And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

(12) And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

(13) And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

(14) And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. [

(15) And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

There is also that charming story of the rich man in Luke 16:22 - 28.

I honestly see no point in listing all these quotations from scripture, because if there is one thing I know after 15 years of debating with Christians of various denominations, is that they always have some scripture quote that they judge to be more valid to counter yours or some interpretation of your quote which makes it mean something completely different. Such as the scriptures of Paul for antinomianism being more valid when one is discussing Old Testament law and the Old Covenant but the Old Testament and Old Covenant being fine when one wants to fight abortion or gay marriage.

It's a bit like :

Scripture "And if your wife does not obey you, hit her in the face with a great big shotgun"

Atheist "Here the scripture clearly says that a man should shoot his wife in the face if she doesn't obey him"

Believer "You are totally wrong, what the scripture means by obey is "stab you" and what it means by "shotgun" is "kiss" so what the scripture is saying is that if your wife doesn't stab you, you should hit her in the face with a great big kiss".

Yup.

I think I covered that in the 'words have definitions' bit of my rant on this thread, nice to know I'm not the only one who feels insulted and persecuted by such childish behaviour, the mods really should do something about this.

Feel free to rape my virgin daughter anytime you want TM.

By 'rape' I mean 'give lots of money to' and by 'virgin daughter' I mean 'me'. Isn't it great we can communicate in the same language like this?

You do realize that it is for ALL EARS to hear... hell is not made for man. Therefore, who else has ears and can understand the words...Hmmm...



And Matthew is certainly allowed to have his opinion. (That was a joke, I realize it is Jesus speaking.)

Where is that quote from? I can't seem to find it in any of the 3 bibles I have, but considering that there are at least 10 versions of the one true word of god there is a reasonable explanation for that.

I always felt that language exists as a means of communication and to have clear communication your long post is correct, we need to use words as they are defined or make it clear that we are defining them differently. In my training for formal debates I was told that it is permissible to redefine words as long as you clearly state "In this case I'm using word X to mean Y" in order to clarify an argument. Furthermore that it is permissible and I even encourage people to say what definition they are using if there are multiple but different definitions. The whole "it's just a theory" in regards to evolution in part comes from the difference between a scientific theory and cousin Bob's theory that the CIA are working with the Area 51 aliens to keep the Reptile people from taking Atlantis.

When it comes to religion specifically you also have the problem with interpretations of the "literal word of god" and one would think that if there was such a thing as a creator of humans, he would be aware of the consequences of consciousness, therein skepticism, exploration, systematization and so on. So, the need to be crystal clear, especially if we are talking about the prospect of eternal damnation should be rather obvious. There is a reason why we need lawyers, because laws become complicated as a result of having to be as clear as possible. If you have 100 believers in the same religion, from the same denomination odds are you'll have between 100 and 300 different interpretations of the exact same scripture.

If you watch William Lane-Craig debate, he moves between an almost evangelical Christian, to a plain theist to a deist within the same round of a debate without pointing this out. Those 3 have different names and definitions for a reason.

When you add that there are multiple versions of "the literal word of god" and each version has multiple definitions and meanings of each verse, not even based on what denomination the person belongs to, you can have different interpretations within the same denomination and within the same church.

Add the final straw that breaks my back, which is that scripture that stems from the Bronze/Iron Age, where we cannot verify who the authors are in many cases, where every single piece of text is hear-say, where there is a list of scientific claims that are incorrect and even stories that can be proven not to be historical fact. Where the first half consists of the equivalent of an all powerful Josef Stalin randomly killing people, causing natural disasters, famine, plagues and dealing out capital punishment for thought crime and the second "good" half consists of a guy threating with eternal hellfire, demanding everyone love him or die and whose moral teachings are questionable at best. Is treated as the equivalent of scientific, peer reviewed facts, scientific theories, in fact in some cases as superior to them.

Not really, the text specifically prohibits handing over fugitive slaves to their masters. The rules of ancient Israel with regards to slavery were very liberal for their time, they were even liberal for the 18th Century and are still liberal in comparison to what occurs in Mauritania today. The matter is not quite so simplistic as you seem to think it is, I suggest you pick up Paul Copan's work on the subject; 'Is God a moral monster?' a pretty decent analysis of the OT.



The Bible no more condones slavery than it does divorce. The OT allows for divorce and regulates it but nowhere states that it is a good thing; the same is true of slavery.

Wait. That's the metric for god's ideas? "Well, it's better than what they do in Mauritania?" I didnt realize that apologetics were running that thin.

I really think an ominipotent being might aim a little higher.