Kraichgauer wrote:
But when did Jesus ever advocate burning and killing anyone else?
He didn't have to. The laws and the prophets before Him did all of the necessary advocating. All he had to do was "Complete" the law.
Thus, we have the Inquisition, the persecution of Galileo, the Crusades, and the burning of witches.
Dragoness wrote:
Well, I guess we should be glad that not all Christians take the entire Bible seriously, and that not all Christians are
literalists who take the Bible word for word.
It only takes a few.
Thus we have all of the above, plus pedophile priests ("Suffer the children..."), Jonestown, Branch Davidians, and filthy rich televangelists.
Tequila wrote:
Most Christians have rewritten the Bible in their own heads to something that they can live with.
Most, if not all ...
Kraichgauer wrote:
It has to be remembered, the perception of God was reflected in the times the Bible was written, and being written of. Desperate, xenophobic Bronze Age Hebrew tribesmen fighting tooth and nail with their Canaanite and Philistine neighbors are going to have a different picture of God than their later civilized descendants would have.
Trying to excuse evil acts because of its cultural context is as bad as excusing evil acts by labeling culture in a "hunter-gatherer" context.
Both make assumptions about a culture or race in which the people simply "can't help it".
Evil is evil, no matter what the context.
Frederick Douglass told in his book "Narrative" how his condition as a slave became
worse when his master underwent a religious conversion to Christianity that allowed him to "justify" slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham.
Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubts about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will.
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes
religion.
Ecce Fidelis.
Jesus never would have accepted anyone being killed in his name. Remember the story of the adulteress, and how the crowd were ready to stone her, when Jesus stopped them, and said, "Let any without sin cast the first stone." By the way, what sort of seminary did you attend that had promoted the notion that Christ fulfilling the law meant that killing in his name was justifiable?
And no, I don't try to justify or rationalize the bad behavior by bringing up historical and cultural context. I'm only pointing out the fact that different people have molded God into different images throughout time. But I never said people like the early Hebrews or Medieval Christians should be forgiven for their bad behavior.
10 Feb 2013, 12:18 pm
