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Whole Lotta Love !
You have quoted plenty. The English translation. There are many Hebrew words that translate to the English "love" e.g. ahab; ahabah; chashaq; dod; hesed; racham; ra’yah; reya.
These have different meanings and contexts.
I don't think it's fair that anyone with any remotely faithful views should be treated like an idiot and in such a hostile way.
What I am saying is, if you're going to use "common sense" to "filter out" the "good" bits from the bible and the "bad" bits, you're not basing your morality at all on what the bible says, but on what your "common sense" intuition tells you is right and wrong. That is absolutely fine, but why bother with religion at all in that case? Do we as rational, intelligent, capable human beings with the capacity for love REALLY need to religion to tell us that respecting one another and reducing human suferring are good things? And if all we're taking from the bible is acceptance that some of the stories in there are pretty good and worth thinking about, we're still not accepting it as the word of god or providing any true moral guidance, just that it has a few good ideas that appeal to us.
If your going to use your "common sense" to decide what is right and what is wrong, then you aren't viewing what the bible tells you as ultimately true, because you're choosing to accept some bits and ignore others based purely on your own feelings and thoughts/observations about the world. Which is entirely fine by me, but why then claim to be a Christian - you can do everything jesus talks about re: humanity and love without needing to revert to religious superstition at all.
Why not? On what grounds do they accept other bits and reject these? If it is "common sense" then all they are doing is using their intuition or reasoning to decide what is reasonable and what isn't, which you can do completely independently of religion and kind of negates the whole purpose of religion in the first place - i.e. (amongst other things) to inform you as to what god's ultimate moral laws are and to help you live by those.
I think the whole lot is absurd, but it really depends what you mean when you call yourself a Christian doesn't it - are people that do simply saying they are people that have been raised with sympathy for religion, combined with an emotional need to believe in an afterlife/something bigger than ourselves, using their own personal thoughts and feelings (also a result of their upbringing, experiences and society) etc. to decide which bits of the bible they approve of what which bits they don't? Because to me, that is a very loose interpretation of what it is to be a follower of that particular religion. I guess a big part of this (which I won't ramble about any more here) is what exactly does it MEAN to say you are a christian/muslim/buddhist etc., and personally I think just picking "some bits" from the bible that you like and having a vague notion of a god that you pray to doesn't really make you a Christian (and I'm sure if you asked many people "what is a xian" their definition would not fit many people who do, in fact, call themselves christians).
Have you ever considered looking at the Bible as a law book ?
Me personally? No.
You are not alone.
However, a lawyer once informed me that, until around the 1930s, the Harvard Law School had the Old Testament and Blackstones Law commentaries as the two essential readings for 1st year law students.
If you study the history of Anglo Saxon legal systems those two tomes(especially the former) do appear to be the foundation stones upon which they were built.
It's up to each person how they interpret their own faith. I believe in religious freedom. You make a valid point that religion isn't necessary, but then again lots of things aren't necessary. Religion plays a bigger part in the lives of those who subscribe to said religions than just being a rule book.
On the same page I think that it's up to Christians to define their own faith and decide whether they are christians or not. I think it's actually offensive for atheists to go up to a christian or whatever and say if they don't do something ridiculous in one of the obscure passages then they're not a real christian.
As it goes though, morality has been dramatically effected by religion over the centuries.
The problem with the bible etc. is it can't really be rewritten. So as humanity changes with it's different cultures merging and evolving the book can't. But there are still some good bits of advice in it, and if people want to live their lives in the way set out in the religious texts that's really their choice and I think people who feel like they have to intrude in that because (I don't know why actually) but they should mind their own business. It's different when it's the pope saying africans shouldn't use condoms and he has rightly got widespread condemnation from different people from different faiths including many catholics.
But if someone comes to a point in their life when they are looking for guidance there is nothing wrong with turning to religion. I don't understand why people have a problem with that personal decision. Even you say that they must be in some way lacking emotional strength presumably you have. That's like a friend who said religious people lack the superior intelligence of atheist people. I find the hold inter theism put downs and prejudices disgusting personally.
OK. What's are you concluding from this?
I was merely making a suggestion that may broaden your mind as to how you view the Bible.
Sure, the Bible's been about for a couple thousand years - it's bound to have been used in a whole bunch of places for a whole bunch of reasons.
I guess it's a good point to think on though. The bible is often attacked from one narrow angle i.e. the angle that it is a set of rules to dictate to people how to live their life. If you consider Sikh theology etc. where they had spiritual teachers or guides passing on lessons and knowledge and then the Guru Granth Sahib their holy text is actually perceived as the last of these teachers, written to incorporate the teachings and ideas of all these individuals. So it's not a rule book, it's a compassionate teacher, perhaps. I guess each person has a different interpretation of it though.
Honestly, I'm not sure what you're trying to get at: I don't think the Bible is just a set of rules for Christians to live by. All I mentioned earlier in the thread was that, from a moral point of view, the Bible's a very mixed bag. And as Firefly mentions, if people are picking the parts of the Bible they still think are morally relevant while discarding the parts that are clearly barbaric, then we don't have a superlative book on morality - and we can also ascertain that our sense morality isn't exclusively derived from the Bible, because we're clearly using some external criteria to judge it by.
I was also trying to tie God of Schmuck down on what he was concluding by asserting the Bible to have been required reading for 1930s law students.
The thread seemed to have splintered off down a few different routes. I was just replying to the inference that the Bible was a book with had an overarching theme one way or another - either compassion or sectarian brutality. It's a got some of both and a lot in between.
I don't think you've been treated in a hostile way. This is a discussion board and by it's very nature is going to have exchange of disparate views. I actually find large parts of religion and religiosity greatly disturbing, and so am passionate about the topic when it arises.
Bear in mind that the fundamentalist view of the Bible - as an absolute unquestioned series of facts - is from American revivalist movements of the 1930s.
The history of Christianity is one of revision, judgements and changes to the basic tenants of the faith. There's 3 books that most of the Christian world don't include that the Greek Orthodox church does - just for starters.
Beyond that the Bible itself is about the revision of old laws and ways of related to God - that's why the second half is the 'New Testament'
The Church, from the letters of Paul in the Bible on has continual made judgements about the fundamental aspects of it's faith. From being able to buy forgiveness for every sin to how a Saint is judged, to whether people can speak in tongues, loan money, take part in slavery or use contraception, everything continually changes.
The main issue has been who makes those changes - up until the Reformation most people in the world had never read a word of the Bible, if they could read at all.
The growth of Protestantism was about the sharing of the word of the Bible to understand corruption and how the church had left the path of right, though also about elitism, Calvinsim and other restrictions. However it's main point wasn't to treat the Bible as Dogma but as something that should be personally understood and studyed in the native tongue of the reader.
But never was the idea that it was a fixed, perfect book considered, just who should decide on the changes.
Many Christian groups would argue, just as many people of other faiths would, that the idea of a personal relationship with God, outside sometimes the teachings of Dogma is the actual key tenant of their faith, regardless of what a reading of the Bible would say.
And just to be fair about this thread, people can be pretty hardline about their views on religion so try to make sure we're not be too harsh in replies, as we are, after all, here for a discussion between friends.
There are plenty of better books, and books that are better for you.
You have just summed it up in that last sentence there. "if people want to live their lives in the way set out in the religious texts that's really their choice" - until they start knocking on your door because they genuinely believe you'll only get to heaven if you are the same religion as them; until the pope advises that people shouldn't use condoms because he genuinely believes life begins at the moment of conception, etc. etc. What it seems to me people are saying, as I have said earlier in the thread, is that it is okay to have a religious belief as long as it doesn't involve anything controversial. It relates to the freedom of speech stuff talked about in other threads too - you are either for freedom of speech, in which case you'll be happy to let Wilders/the BNP/whoever say whatever they like, or you don't and you aren't. If you are in favour of freedom of religion, then don't be too shocked/outraged when events (such as Catholics being excommunicated for giving this poor girl an abortion) like this occur - you're encouraging people to have the freedom to believe what they want, and to act on it, and base their belief not on evidence or observation, but on a 2000+ year old text, this sort of thing *is* going to happen.
How is it different? Is it only ok for people to have freedom of religion as long as they keep it entirely to themselves? Or, is it only ok for people to have freedom of religion when it doesn't conflict with what liberal western society dictates is acceptable/not harmful?
Well clearly people think there is something wrong with turning to religion, or there would never have been outrage with regards to the subject of this thread to begin with.
Perhaps look at some of the opinions in this thread. Ultimately, Catholic doctors who have made personal decisions to be Catholic and also to perform abortions, have been excommunicated. Why do so many people feel outraged at what is the result of their personal decision? Apart from being a victim of terrible circumstances, the girl herself has not been penalised by the Catholic church at all - it is the mother and the doctors who have. Virtually everyone on this thread has criticised a decision that was based on religious belief, even though the religious belief of the doctors and the mother was a "personal decision". Why do people have such a problem with that? That is what I myself am trying to work out also.
Not at all and I apologise if that is the way it came across - I am talking from a merely psychological perspective, that many people have a sentimental/emotional need to believe in something greater than ourselves, to believe that our loved ones are still with us in some way, and to believe in an afterlife. That is nothing to be sneered at and something that I think everyone has one way or another, but deals with in different ways.
I am an atheist! What I am interested in finding out is what it means to other people on here to identify someone as Christian, and why it is that there is such an outraged reaction to some Catholic doctors and a mother being excommunicated. From my personal point of view, you either believe there are ultimate moral truths, or you believe it is all relative to historical framework/society/upbringing/emotional intuitions/individuals. if you believe the latter, then you're a relativist, which I can't personally see working very well with being a Christian, when the bible is supposed to inform us of ultimate moral truths.
I am also genuinely interested to try and understand why the very people that encourage religious belief and faith and see them as positive things, are so absolutely disgusted when something such as the subject of this thread happens. And also how they explain the contradiction between saying everyone should have freedom of religion and be free to act on their belief and express their beliefs, but then express so much outrage and disgust when the very religious freedom that they support leads to people in Africa contracting AIDS because their personal interpretation of the bible leads them to believe they shouldn't use condoms (for example).
People are happy to say that the pope shouldn't tell people that they shouldn't use condoms, or that the westboro baptist church shouldn't be allowed to pickett the funeral of soldiers, which to me personally seems to imply that they are saying people should only be permitted freedom of religion/expression when everyone around them agrees with what they are saying.
To set the record straight, I think the pope's advice re: contraception is shocking and that the subject of this thread is disgusting, but then I don't support religion in the same way that many on here who have objected report to.
Sorry I wasn't meaning to pick you up on any point, just jumped in the thread and saw that post and quote and thought I'd chuck my 2p in.
I don't think that you need to subscribe to the whole bible and everything that comes with it to read little bits of it. It's up to people themselves to define themselves as Christian (broadly speaking, meaning they believe in Christ being the son of God and that he sacrificed himself for humanity etc.). It does depend person to person how they interpret their own religion and how they act on it. What you're trying to do is just bundle all religion into one basket that is either good or bad and I don't believe that it is either one. I think it's an ideology and it can shape people to do good things like charity and looking after their family etc. (not that you NEED religion, but that should be clear by now) but also to do bad things. People can make good or bad decisions regardless of religion as well. Look at the UK, we have a secular government, yet we still went to war in Iraq despite the Church's protestations.
I think you can say religion IS broadly a good thing, because it's an education of sorts into what it is to be human more than anything, at it's barest roots. That doesn't mean there aren't idiots like the pope who are loopy and they should be rightly condemned, their ideology should not protect them.
You say you don't support religion and I don't think too many others on this thread are religious either. But you do seem to be anti religion. You seem to see it as a generally bad thing. Why can't it just be neither good or bad. It's just teachings and it's up to people themselves to use it how they will. See Jim's post for some interesting points.
I have never had much time for religion, and still do not. However in my legal studies that suggestion was made to me. Initially I was very sceptical to the suggestion probably due to the preconceived idea that the Bible was for sky pilots only.
As the studies continued that suggestion was taken onboard and quite an eye opener it turned out to be for me. I found many passages akin to reading legal statutes and judgements (especially those from the higher Appeal courts).
In summary, my conclusion is that the Bible is best viewed as a Law book.
Indeed, most of the religions that I am aware of do not follow the statutes of the bible even though they profess to. I am often puzzled by religious people, who refer to "God", just as to which God they are talking about since most/all that I have encountered ignore those instructions.
I disagree. Religious groups are about revision but the words set down in the Bible when studied seem to purport to the legal doctrine of stare decisis.They must not be altered.
The New Testament has Jesus advocating the same.
I think that is how many were manipulated.The words, as written, instruct not to alter any of the Law. If people could read they could see that for themselves.
I am an atheist too, and actually despise organised religion and wish it did no longer exist, but I was actually making an effort to try to give religious people the benefit of the doubt and believe you can be both religious and a moderate, rational person. And doubtlessly there are many may people out there who see themselves as religious but do not subscribe to fundamentalism or believe their religious books should be followed to the letter. If everyone who was religious believed that, the world would be an even uglier place than it is today.
Subscribing the Bible as a whole is a ludicrous, deluded and damaging thing to do. You can clearly see this in any evangelical Christian sect. The requirement to cherry-pick parts in order to extract anything of moral worth speaks volumes about the book itself - especially when it's meant to be either a) the word of God, or b) divinely inspired.
Sure, trying to find two Christians whole subscribe to the same religious precepts is tricky, at best. And debating them is often like trying to fight a cloud.
I couldn't disagree more. As a starter for ten, I'd say religion provides a lot of false comfort, promotes some of the most egregious wish-thinking going, hurts us - as a species - in our deepest integrities, destroys rational thought and critical thinking, is responsible for facilitating our tribal mental, and maybe worst of all, completely devalues the only life we have. The warm-and-fuzzies that people associate with religion are mostly false and rarely stand scrutiny.
It would be nice and convenient is religion were neither good nor bad, and was just some innocuous entity. But it isn't.
im sure alot of my beleifs are the same as alot of christian beleifs but im not gonna become a christian on that basis.
If you want to find out why a christian doesn't follow the whole bible and how they can be a real christian, then go ask a christian. But I think people in this thread are being narrow minded about it actually saying they can't be real Christians unless they do everything. I have no bias about it one way or the other as I'm not religious but at the same time find the concept of human spirituality fascinating as it has been a central part of our culture for the past 10,000 years or so. They all have their good bits and bad bits but by themselves are neither wholly good or wholly bad. But the general message from any religion is how to live a 'virtuous' life, which in the majority of cases isn't a bad thing. Nobody ever criticises the bible because it says not to steal. Nobody ever criticises the bible because it says you should be generous to the needy. Ultimately if you go looking for bad, then you will find bad. And you will satisfy your need to justify why your perspective is better than everyone elses, and can feel that bit more smug about yourself.