Theology III

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Lief:

First, let me point out that your millenial period seems to get more and more diffuse as you start arguing that anything within a century of its end doesn't count as being part of it.

lol

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Rather, he wished every Christian to keep a private virtue, albeit one publicly expressed. Christ does not insist that the laws of the kingdoms of earth punish sin, but rather that the individual Christian work towards the kingdom of heaven by rejection of sin and acceptance of Christ. I read his disclaiming of earthly kingship, and claim for heavenly kingship, as an explicit insistence that the earthly kingdom does not make or break one's connection to heaven.

I'm not even sure about how 'publicly expressed.' We all know Paul was a shameless extrovert, but Matthew 6 covers the public expression of private virtue, pretty thoroughly.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Same-sex scholarly 'empires of the mind' were common in medieval Arabic and Hebrew cultures, as seen in their poetry on same-sex love.

I'm aware that boy-love was common in the Arabic cultures, but I've never heard of it in the medieval Jews; I'd be interested to see this. Also, it is noteworthy that actual intercourse between a man and his boy was strictly verboten in the Islamic world, much like the Socratic chaste pederasty.

According to John Boswell, author of the controversial book Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), there were same-sex Christian monastic communities and other religious orders in which homosexuality thrived.

I'd have to see evidence for this. Boswell's scholarship on such matters tends to be thoroughly bogus. Homosexuality was widespread, but I very much doubt that it was condoned, and definitely not celebrated.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I know that there are several ways in which the Quetzacoatl belief does not parallel Christianity, but there are enough ways in which it does that I think it was essentially Christianity.

Whoa, careful there, boy.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

exemplum gratium He was raised Episcopal (his family, after all, is from Connecticut) and joined his wife's Methodist church, but he's, personally, an evangelical Christian.

"Evangelical" being rather different from "Baptist", the former being a catch-all phrase that is astoundingly broad, being used to describe those ranging from the Baptists to certain elements in the Anglican Communion, and occasionally even those dirty Papists. Baptist is a specific denomination, however, and rather different from Methodist.

Originally Posted by Ri

which, IMHO, is generally NOT the same thing as a Methodist!

The Methodists, as a whole, would actually fit very comfortably under the heading of Evangelical. I don't know what was wrong with your church, but they are usually a pretty solid denomination.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

That does seem to be their current position. I was thinking more of the initial schism, what with the iconoclasm and claims of idolatry...

The original schism wasn't centered around iconoclasm. I'm guessing by the original schism you mean in 1054, the one that is still unhealed?

1st) Iconoclasm was directed, not against the western "round" images, but around the Byzantines' own icons. It was an internal, not an external thing.

2nd) It had pretty much simmered down before the year 900, a good century and a half before the scandal with Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch Michael Cerularius.

3rd) This schism was based on different reasons: The Filioque, celibacy, the use of leavened or unleaved bread in the Eucharist, and, what it of course truly boiled down to, the power of Rome in relation to the power of Constantinople, which covers several subtopics. Iconoclasm was not truly an issue at the time.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

First, let me point out that your millenial period seems to get more and more diffuse as you start arguing that anything within a century of its end doesn't count as being part of it.

Oh no, it is part of it. But declines before ends and times of transition after beginnings can be repeatedly seen in both history and scripture.

We see that all the time in the Bible in God's dealings with Israel in the Old Testament. Solomon's kingdom was only defeated when given to his son, for example.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Second, I take strong exception to your arguments about the ancient Americas. The worship of the Feathered Serpent (the diety later appropriated as Quetzalcoatl) originated, or seems to have, in Teotihuacan at some point before that city's destruction in c.450-550AD. The Temple of the Feathered Serpent was covered by c.500 AD (Lopez Austin, p. 113).

Teotihuacán was destroyed around 700 AD, according to the Timelife Series: Ancient America, p. 40. But I know that this is a debated issue among scholars.

I agree with you, though, that the worship of Quetzalcoatl began with this city in a major way. There was a cult of Quetzalcoatl that predated Christ by many years, beforehand, but it wasn't so popular until Teotihuacán. Quetzalcoatl also was the chief deity, along with Tlaloc.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

We do not see the reappearance of this cult until almost 900AD, and it does not become strong (nor accumulate the supposedly Christ-like associations) until the late Postclassic, right before the Spanish conquest. My primary source for this is Mexico's Indigenous Past by Alfredo Lopez-Austin and Leonardo Lopez Lujan.

Can you give me an exact quote from the book, as regards the timing of the emergence of the Christ-like qualities in that faith?

It's cool that you have books like this, by the way .

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

And the Quetzalcoatl-as-Spanish myth appears to have arisen in the 16th century, actually after the Spanish conquest, as a retroactive explanation for Montezuma's inaction (see The Broken Spears, a collection of native accounts of the conquest, edited by Miguel Leon-Portilla)

I've heard that very recent idea, but I'm suspicious of it. There is disagreement among scholars about it, still. The Timelife Series: Ancient America book, written by Jonathan Leonard with consulting historian Leonard Krieger, takes the traditional perspective that the Spanish did in fact arrive at just the time Quetzalcoatl was supposed to have returned, and that that explains Moctezuma's hesitancy in attacking him.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I'd have to see evidence for this. Boswell's scholarship on such matters tends to be thoroughly bogus. Homosexuality was widespread, but I very much doubt that it was condoned, and definitely not celebrated.

Would you please provide me with evidence to support your claim that homosexuality was widespread during the Medieval Ages?

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

As for the Christians being attacked first, at least in Mesoamerica their attacks largely predate any local attacks...an amazing fact when you consider that the Spanish tended to come in with what were clearly armies invading these people's lands. The Aztecs did not do anything to the conquistadors, gift-giving aside, until the Spanish interrupted a native ceremony by trying to kill the performers, for example.

Originally Posted by thinkquest.org

Cortez continued up the coast. On April 21,1519, he landed near the site of Veracruz. There, to prevent all thought of retreat, he burned his ships. Leaving a small force on the coast, Cortez led the rest of his men into the interior. A warlike tribe of natives attacked his party. The Indians outnumbered the Spaniards 300 to 1.

On November 8, 1519, Cortez reached Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) and was graciously received by Montezuma, the Aztec emperor. Soon after Cortez established headquarters in the capital, he learned that the Aztecs had plundered Veracruz.

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002678F/cortez.htm
Cortes was attacked first. According to my brother, who has done the research more recently, Cortes was actually attacked twice by raiding parties before he reached Tenochtitlan. I'd have to find a source for that, though. But when he arrived there, he didn't attack Moctezuma until he felt threatened when he learned that Aztec warriors had destroyed Veracruz.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

On the other points, using what time I have here:
For pornography, yes, it was banned in public, but used in private. I thought your religion was one of the heart, not one in which private sin was permitted.

According to my sources, it was only accessable to nobility, and we still don't know how many of them used it this way. There's debate among scholars as to whether or not paintings with sexual material in books were moral cautions or porn. Different people probably took it in different ways. But pornography certainly was not at all widespread, if it even existed (which, considering the debate about the nature of the "porn" some nobles had, is uncertain).

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

I disagree with your Biblical exegesis, because I think all the times Christ explicitly disclaims earthly lordship make a very clear statement that government "by God" or even "for God" is not Christ's desire.

But then, Paul said in Romans 13:3-4,

"For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. For He is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for He does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."

Also, the Book of Daniel predicts that after the Roman Empire, the cutting off of the Anointed One and the destruction of Jerusalem, the kingdoms of men would be given over to the saints.

Plus Revelation says that the saints would rule with Christ on his throne for a thousand years, and that after that the devil would go out and deceive the nations.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Rather, he wished every Christian to keep a private virtue, albeit one publicly expressed. Christ does not insist that the laws of the kingdoms of earth punish sin, but rather that the individual Christian work towards the kingdom of heaven by rejection of sin and acceptance of Christ.

You and I both agree that there should be laws against some sins, like murder. I expect that you agree with me that restrictions on the drug trade shouldn't be eliminated either. We believe that those things shouldn't be legal because they're destructive and very harmful to society.

That's very close to the definition of sin. Christians believe that sin involves deviation from God's will, and seeing as God's will is loving and perfect, this will be inevitably destructive and harmful, in varying degrees depending on how destructive the sin is. And we both agree that small destructive and harmful acts can't all be banned under law, for that's impractical. I say that's because sin is inherent in humanity, and you'd probably say that nobody's perfect, which is close enough to the same thing. Maybe you also doubt the value of people being perfect- I don't know, and I don't mean to typecast you at all or go further into guessing your views.

But my main point is that we both, Christians and non-Christians alike (except for anarchists) believe that major harmful and destructive practices should be banned under law. That is legislating morality and legislating it against sin, from a Christian point of view. We'd just disagree as to what things are major sins, or highly harmful and destructive practices. But we both believe major harmful, destructive practices that badly harm society and individuals should be banned by laws.

We're both very glad that Martin Luther King Junior got the laws of the nation changed to punish sins like racial discrimination. If you've read the Letter from the Birmingham Jail, you'll know that his moral fight against racial discrimination was at least partly inspired by religion. Do you think that there was anything wrong with that?

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

I read his disclaiming of earthly kingship, and claim for heavenly kingship, as an explicit insistence that the earthly kingdom does not make or break one's connection to heaven.

I agree completely that the earthly kingdom doesn't make or break one's connection with heaven. But the fact that an individual can do God's will in spite of unjust laws doesn't mean he should accept unjust laws. As Martin Luther King Junior argued, we should obey just laws and disobey unjust laws. Trying to make our government a better one is a moral action.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

"Evangelical" being rather different from "Baptist", the former being a catch-all phrase that is astoundingly broad, being used to describe those ranging from the Baptists to certain elements in the Anglican Communion, and occasionally even those dirty Papists. Baptist is a specific denomination, however, and rather different from Methodist.



The Methodists, as a whole, would actually fit very comfortably under the heading of Evangelical. I don't know what was wrong with your church, but they are usually a pretty solid denomination.

It's broad for a reason, the reason being that it transcends more conventional credal issues. Modern American Evangelicals share beliefs in the need for personal salvation that may or may not be shared by the leaders and theologians of their various traditions.

He was never a Baptist, for sure. Baptists HAVE churches. But he found his religious path through a non-denominational group, hence, Evangelical, whatever place he spends Sundays.

Methodism is pretty distinct regionally, you know, even now. The "United" part of "United Methodist" is still hotly contested. So, many are quite the opposite of "Evangelical", in any respect.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Would you please provide me with evidence to support your claim that homosexuality was widespread during the Medieval Ages?

Just off the top of my head, St. Peter Damian spent most of his time combatting pederasty, especially among the educated and the clergy. It was also of course condemned repeatedly by many moral reformers and local church councils, neither of which tend to condemn things which aren't currently problems.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Mari

That is a nice one for a signature

Thanks . Glad you liked it.

Originally Posted by Mari

Ah I see. To each his/her own. I'll trust to end up where I am supposed to end up. One of my fellow churchgo'ers once said that: "Giving your life to God is like riding in a car on an unkown, perhaps dangerous road. You gave the steeringwheel of your car to God. When you see obstacles or troubles along the road, you are naturally inclined to try and grab the wheel, for you do not know exactly how well God is at driving. But if you truly give your life to God, you'll have to let go of that steeringwheel completely. God will drive you to the destination He wants you to go."

I like that analogy. It sounds very true, to me.

Originally Posted by Mari

She ended with saying that all you had to do for this to happen is to open up your heart and make room for Him.

She sounds right on, to me .

Originally Posted by Mari

I felt it is very impressive to be able to really do so. I don't know if I'm able to do that.

Praying to know God better always helps- it's much easier to give up parts of your life to someone you know well, and that knowledge comes in large part from back and forth interaction and hearing in prayer. A lot of people pray up to God but don't hear his voice coming back down during their prayers.

Originally Posted by Mari

But that is the whole point of what I've been trying to say I think. I think I see religion or faith more as an individual thing whereas you are trying to look at it as a thing bigger then one person. Or am I wrong?

No, you're right. Though how it impacts the life of an individual is also important to me, and what kinds of behaviors the religion encourages the person to engage in likewise are important.

[Mari]

Okay, it took me awhile to get to this (an entire month or perhaps more, so sorry) but I finally got some time and energy.
For you Lief:

First, allthough I'm not sure in what ways God excists, I'm certain (s)he does. Why else would there be so many people walking around with an idea about a "god"? There may be different religions, but in my opinion, they all refer to the same thing. I'm not sure on whether God is sentient as we are, sometimes I think he is much more like nature: always there and working, balancing things out. At other times I feel he is a good person, who loves us all very actively and is continuously working for our benefit. Perhaps (s)he is both.
I don't believe in hell in general, since hell is active punishment. I don't think God is an active punisher. If God interferes I think he would be much more subtle. In the Bible God often works through people and those people either answer Him or they don't. If there is a devil, it is within ourselves. Perhaps God is as well, but I identify God as much bigger then ourselves. I don't know why I believe this, but I do feel it is easier to believe that there is no devil, no pure evil. Only missteps on our way to The Good. I don't like believing people can be so horrible, not saying that what Hitler did for example wasn't evil.
Do I make any sense? I hope so *looks desperate*
Anyway, I don't really believe in Heaven of Hell mainly because everyone has different ideas about it and what Heaven or Hell would be for them. For example there are people who believe they will be able to meet all those who went before them, but before us a lot of people went. And though some people would like heaven to be a flowery place, others would prefer it to have a gamecenter or a library. How can I fit all those ideas into one of my own pretending my idea of heaven is the right one? I can't, so I don't believe in it.
I do believe in afterlife, because I find it comfortable to believe in it. I hope that after I die, I'll float in a warm calm place and when I get bored, it's time for me to be born again. To live.
I don't have to become a god, or a buddha, or be a superbeing or whatever. I just like believing there is a continuus cycle. Which is probably also why I believe history has so much learningpotential for the present and the future.
I know you like proof, or solid arguments, but other then that I mixed several ideas and stories I once heard together so it makes sense for me and that believing this enables me to try and live a good and happy life, I have none to offer.

[Lief Erikson]

Thanks for the response . I am very glad to hear your view. I disagree with it, but I'm certainly glad to hear it .

One point where I do absolutely agree with you is that, like you, I, "identify God as much bigger then ourselves." I also agree about everyone having an idea of God being an indication that he exists.

You know, when we attempt to figure things out scientifically, we keep overturning our theories. Things that seem the most obvious to us are discovered to be wrong, such as the sun turning around the Earth. If it's that easy for us to be mistaken about science, the handiwork of God, how much easier would it be to make mistakes about God himself? The world is incredibly complex and full of mysteries. The cosmos is a deeper mystery still, by far.

That's why I feel that I must rely upon what God reveals about himself rather than upon my own reasoning abilities. God fits with reason, but unaided reason won't always come up with the truth about him, because of our human limitations and tendencies to go looking for truth in the wrong places. We need God's counsel to get us on the right track and keep us there. That's my point of view.

That's one reason why I find Christianity to be such a wonderful religion. I've heard that of all the five major religions, Christianity is the only religion in which God came down to us. In all of the others, we have to work our way up to God. The fact that in Christianity, God came to humans out of love to bring us to him, and our relationship with God is not based on human effort but on his grace, is to me wonderful and blessed. That isn't the same thing that the other religions teach. Islam requires that one live according to the "Five Pillars" of Islam, teaching ascending to heaven by paradise. Buddhism and Hinduism talk about coming to enlightenment through meditation and clearing oneself of the illusions of this world- self-purging. Christianity involves God coming to us, changing us at the cost of his own life so that we no longer do bad things but instead do only good, and he blesses us with an intimate relationship with him that he initiates and creates, rather than us. To me, God coming to us to bring us to him resolves the problem of the limitations of our human reasoning. The other religions, which rely upon human effort to reach God, do not indicate a God who cares so deeply about humans as Yahweh does.

[Lief Erikson]

To hectorberlioz, continued from my most recent post in the Islam thread.

We Christians experienced an enormous ideological change halfway through the last millennium. The Catholic Church rejected religious freedom all the way into the 20th century. Their position only changed around the 1950s. Muslims didn't experience this change until it was forced into their culture from outside. Christians also were, to a large extent, forced to change. They were fighting so many Religious Wars that they became fatigued with all of the fighting and changed really out of war weariness.

I personally am not in favor of religious freedom. When religious freedom was established in law, it opened the floodgates for any kind of belief, and that was the beginning of heresies. Laws against witchcraft, against sexual immorality, and laws establishing Biblical gender roles all fell after the laws against idolatry and heresy disappeared. It took time, but bit by bit, they fell. And now it has gotten to the point where even infanticide, through abortion, has become legal. For a thousand years of Christian history, when Christianity dominated the land and the legal system didn't allow people to change their nation's morals when they wanted, this was forbidden. It took 500 years after the Reformation shattered Christendom and false beliefs began to take off in the Enlightenment for the unbelief to get so extensive that this incredible abomination was restored. I say restored, because in the past it existed in Europe, during the time of the Roman Empire. The Christians brought it to an end when they took power, just like they ended the gladiator conflicts, and other such horrors. Their reforms took time to fully implement, of course. All those kinds of major changes tend to take time to implement.

From my perspective, religious freedom means equality of religion, and as moral systems tend to spring from religious perspectives, when all religions become equal under law, all forms of morality (or immorality) become equal under law. There is no reason to accept one and reject another except human opinion. All law becomes relative. Those are the roots of the moral sinkhole that nearly all Christian conservatives acknowledge exists. We conservatives just tend not to look back far enough in time to see the historical roots of this immorality. We usually can only see as far back as a couple generations- go much beyond that, and conservative Christianity takes on a form we're really not used to, because of how we've grown up. For about a thousand years of Christian history, the laws against perversions like homosexuality (homosexual marriage wasn't even thought of- it hadn't even existed in the Roman Empire) and abortion were stable, and I believe that that created a far higher standard of morality in those countries than exists now.

It is very interesting to me to look at the Muslim countries where basic forms of immorality are illegal, and to see how those nations' opposition to religious freedom in many ways coincides with a higher degree of moral character. There are things going on in those countries that are barbaric, such as mutilation of women's sexual organs in Algeria, things like that. But when I compare the statistics showing the beliefs of Muslims in countries like Oman or Muslim immigrants in France with the views of the country at large on issues like homosexuality or abortion, the Muslims tend to be on a far higher moral footing than most Westerners. It is because they come from such a conservative background, and that conservative background is protected and reinforced by law. It's breaking down in their countries now, which from my point of view has some good and some bad aspects to it.

The good part of it, from my perspective, is that now Christianity can get in and is often better protected than it would have been throughout most of Muslim history. The bad part of it is that immoral Western influences such as sexual license and other things are spreading in the Middle East, because of the breakdown of their laws banning all religions but Islam.

It is certainly interesting how all of this stuff fits together. I strongly feel that Christians in the US would benefit a lot from ceasing to look at Christianity and at right and wrong from a perspective that has only been around about 40 years. We need to look further back.

My grandmother objects to women's having the same jobs in the workplace that men do. She thinks that women should not take jobs where they are in authority over men, based on her reading of the Bible. That was the common interpretation of the Bible in her time. It was throughout most of Christian history. That point of view was commonplace only two generations ago! My father, one generation after her, accepts women's equality with men in the workplace, as does my mother, I think.

My grandmother looked at the liberalization in her time period and opposed it, as did most other Christian conservatives of her time. My father opposes the liberalization taking place in his lifetime, but he accepts as a valid and good thing the liberalization that transpired during my grandmother's life time. My grandmother spent her youth in a different Christian era, so she still rejects the liberalization of her time period, but she accepts the liberalization of morals that has been slowly taking place for centuries before she was born, since the Reformation.

You and I now are fighting the moral issues of our day, which face us conservatives, but we are battling against the foam on the top of a wave of liberalism that has been growing and growing for centuries. Each generation of conservatives fought it. You (and I, until a couple years ago) would have been considered to be a member of the extreme radical left of the left, in the 17th century!

Each generation of conservatives has been fighting what it saw as crucial battles against immorality. And now we look back and can agree completely only with the Christian conservatives of the last forty years or so. All of the Christians before that would have considered us to be liberals, in their time.

Somehow, we have it right in our most recent 40 years of history. All the liberalization up to that, what we would consider basic freedoms, were right, and all the conservatives of the past who opposed those changes that have been occurring for about 500 years were wrong.

And now we're confronting things like Women's Right to Choose and Homosexual Marriage, which to you and me are plainly evil. Up to the last 40 years the liberalization of the nations has been good, but now this "new" liberalism has suddenly taken a twist for the bad. That's how I felt the one time that I really thought about it, four years ago, in a college class when my history professor was going over the 16th century changes with my classmates and myself. I didn't think about it again until two years later, and then, only after a lot of time slowly changing, did I really grasp how peculiar that perspective is. The view that all of liberalism in society and our legal and ethical perspectives has been good until my lifetime, when it suddenly became bad. And the fact that I was brought up accepting all of this liberalism had nothing to do with my acceptance of this? It had everything to do with it. In fact, I would say that it is the reason I believed what I did. Everyone believed it, family, friends, nation, everyone. Though all I would have to do is go back two generations, to my grandmother, and some major differences would start cropping up.

We have to see ourselves where we are in our history. Up to a couple years ago, I saw pretty much only the last 40 or so years of Christian history. I knew only the present battles- relativistic interpretation of the Bible, moral relativism, modern secularism, as well as all of the religious debates, and I knew about the legal issues of our time like abortion and homosexual marriage. I knew of the centuries-old battles that liberalism won, but I assumed automatically that all of the immense liberalization that has been growing for centuries was right, because I'd grown up in the culture created by that liberalism, and I was taught from youth that those changes were good. So only in the last 40 years we right. All the conservatives of the past were wrong in the battles against liberalism that their generations were fighting.

One of the scary things to me is that I'm witnessing conservative Christian family members and friends changing before my eyes, becoming more accepting of abortion. In another couple generations, I'm afraid that the conservative Christian consensus will probably be, "abortion is morally wrong, but we don't have the right to impose our view on the rest of society. Every woman has a right to abortion." And, "homosexual marriage is not the same as heterosexual marriage. It is wrong. However, who are we to impose our view about marriage on other people?" This shift would be consistent with the other liberal changes that have been occurring in conservative thought for centuries now.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I also agree about everyone having an idea of God being an indication that he exists.

I don't.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Christianity involves God coming to us, changing us at the cost of his own life so that we no longer do bad things but instead do only good, and he blesses us with an intimate relationship with him that he initiates and creates, rather than us. To me, God coming to us to bring us to him resolves the problem of the limitations of our human reasoning. The other religions, which rely upon human effort to reach God, do not indicate a God who cares so deeply about humans as Yahweh does.

I'm sure there were many good people before the coming of Jesus, so I don't know if I'd agree that that was a necessity.

Also, in true Buddhism at least, they do not rely on human effort to reach god, because there is no god to reach. Self-enlightenment is all about observation of the world and yourself and coming to the realization that living a good life is the best possible choice one can make for themselves.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

One of the scary things to me is that I'm witnessing conservative Christian family members and friends changing before my eyes, becoming more accepting of abortion. In another couple generations, I'm afraid that the conservative Christian consensus will probably be, "abortion is morally wrong, but we don't have the right to impose our view on the rest of society. Every woman has a right to abortion." And, "homosexual marriage is not the same as heterosexual marriage. It is wrong. However, who are we to impose our view about marriage on other people?" This shift would be consistent with the other liberal changes that have been occurring in conservative thought for centuries now.

Lets hope. Because your notion of a Christian Taliban state is terrifying. And any steps toward a more open minded tolerant society, warts and all, are good steps as far as Im concerned. Do you believe, as does Ann Coulter and some other conservative "christians" that we should spread Christianity by force across the world because people would be better off if they were Christian? Or at least spread “Christian morality” by force? If you believe religious freedom should be illegal in the US I would assume, in an ideal world, assuming it were possible, you would want that extended to other countries.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Lets hope. Because your notion of a Christian Taliban state is terrifying. And any steps toward a more open minded tolerant society, warts and all, are good steps as far as Im concerned. Do you believe, as does Ann Coulter and some other conservative "christians" that we should spread Christianity by force across the world because people would be better off if they were Christian? Or at least spread “Christian morality” by force? If you believe religious freedom should be illegal in the US I would assume, in an ideal world, assuming it were possible, you would want that extended to other countries.

Yes, through evangelism. If governments or populations (in democracies) became convinced that Christianity was the correct religion, then for them to legally impose it is right. I believe that freedom of religion should be removed through peaceful, legal means. If a country established a law permitting people to murder their elderly parents after they exceed a certain age (hypothetical), you, I hope, would try to get the law changed through peaceful means rather than instantly rebelling. But after the law was changed, you would entirely support the police using force to restrict people from killing their parents.

That's where I stand right now on abortion. From my point of view, it is genocide. In the US alone, since it was legalized, over 40 million infants have been murdered, from my point of view. Yet I am not rebelling. I am trying to change the law peacefully, and then after it has been changed, I advocate fully enforcing the change through police muscle.

The Apostle Paul said, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves" (Romans 13). Paul said that while the Christians lived under the authority of brutal, pagan Roman Emperors. Even when the Early Christians were most savagely persecuted, they did not rebel against the Roman Empire. They instead accepted martyrdom peacefully.

So I wouldn't change unjust laws by force but by peaceful means.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'm sure there were many good people before the coming of Jesus, so I don't know if I'd agree that that was a necessity.

Jesus said, "No one is good save God alone." The life of God within a person steadily transforms a person throughout his or her life to make him or her more and more godly, though no one will be wholly godly in this life. The final result, in heaven, is a perfected person. The process of perfection proceeds throughout the person's life, unless he or she turns away from God.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Rather presumptuous to say that in true Buddhism there is no god, when there are many different schools of Buddhism which date back thousands of years, some of which do believe in deities; when many Buddhist scriptures refer to gods; when the entire Pure Land sect of Buddhism has a Buddha who is essentially a god, creator of worlds; when Buddhists themselves often refer to buddhas or even bodhisattvas as "gods".

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I don't.



I'm sure there were many good people before the coming of Jesus, so I don't know if I'd agree that that was a necessity.

Also, in true Buddhism at least, they do not rely on human effort to reach god, because there is no god to reach. Self-enlightenment is all about observation of the world and yourself and coming to the realization that living a good life is the best possible choice one can make for themselves.

[brownjenkins]

I'm merely going back to the source. Humans have a tendency to attribute great words to "god". It certainly isn't unique to Buddhism. But Siddhartha was just a philosopher presenting a way of life, and he was pretty clear on that point. He can't be responsible for what others decided to turn it into.

[GrayMouser]

I always felt that stopping witch trials was the thin edge of the wedge. One minute some liberal is talking you out of burning old ladies alive, the next thing you can't draw and quarter heretics or shove red-hot pokers up the rectums of homosexuals, and then where are our moral standards?

I've even heard some crazy liberals want Jews to be allowed out of the ghettos, and not even have to wear special clothing so decent Christians can recognize these Christ-killers peddling their Satanic smut.

Gimme that ole time religion
Gimme that ole time religion
Gimme that ole time religion...

[Lief Erikson]

Those are caricatures of the time period.

The 1450-1750 witchcraft trials were at the very end of the Medieval Ages. They were more of a Reformation and Early Enlightenment phenomenon. There were some witchcraft trials before that, and I know less about them (I just finished taking an entire course on the later witchcraft trials, which is the vast majority of them), for the big number of witchcraft burnings was during the 1450-1750 time period.

I don't have a problem with the principle of killing witches for witchcraft. They are dealing with Satanic powers, and it is going to be harmful to anyone they "bless."

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

One minute some liberal is talking you out of burning old ladies alive, the next thing you can't draw and quarter heretics

The Spanish Inquisition burned 1-2% of those who came to it, accused. That amounts to three to five thousand people over about 350 (or was it 330?) years. And the tortures they used are certainly not what exists in the popular imagination. In fact, they're much closer to the Bush Administration's "enhanced interrogation" techniques (BTW, I'm not talking about the abuses in Abu Ghraib, when I say that).

Drawing and quartering was invented in England in the 13th century, but I believe it was infrequently used before the Reformation. I could be wrong, on that one.

I do think that punishments of homosexuals and heretics for their crimes is justified, but the punishments that were brought to bear on people most commonly were usually nowhere near the diabolical images of popular imagination today.

[Mari]

So what punishment would you give homosexuals and heretics then?
What could get them to see your way and not resent you for it?