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Join Date: May 2004
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Seems like an appropriate time to mention the Bob Dylan song With God on our side (although I prefer it when sung by Joan Baez).
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: UK's most densely packed city. It's not London...
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Further up thread there was some discussion about evangelicals' world view. Frank may be genuine, but that's not really how it's worked out in civic life, is it? Often, the right wing evangelical base is used to bully progressive policy from the agenda and retard the progress of civil rights, and of knowledge/data/evidence based policy dialogue, in favor of the same archaic polemical positions, which is especially ironic since their main guy, the Jesus of the Gospels, is a radical, a reformer, and basically a socialist.
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Sneaky Punk
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Toronto
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How progressive-tolerant. |
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The worst Evangelical church, run by the most craven money-grubbing lunatic, still operates or networks into community supports like food and clothing banks, addiction recovery groups, crisis pregnancy centres, marital, post-marital, family and grief counselling, job finding helps and homelessness supports. And literally hundreds of other ministries in the community and around the world. That church on your block adds more to your standard of living in North America than you even know. And the Church works because those "same archaic polemical positions" are grounded in the Bible and Truth. With regards to the idiotic "Jesus was a socialist" canard, an earnest internet search should be able to fix that kind of misinformation. It's ground that's been well-covered. |
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Yes, thank you Ken.
I will say I'm totally with Frank777 on this one. I do find it wild that people make assumptions on Christianity and have never studied it. On the Trump topic I'm still completely dumbfounded. I mean, we all knew he was an asshole and never tried to be politically correct. Heck, it is one of the reasons I was happy to have him in office. Not everyone needs a trophy and not everyone should get a handout. However, the actions from Tuesday are just not something I thought I would ever see. They overran our Capitol building and ran amok looting and desecrating. For what? To say they are mad that Trump lost? I'm disappointed he lost but I respect our government and the freedoms we have. If a mob can force the vote to go one way or another then where is our actual freedom? Where is our democracy? I'm still not one for having Trump impeached again. It would simply be pomp and circumstance at this point. All it would do is waste taxpayer money with no actual gain. Trump is so disgraced that he might continue in his business empire, be he is going to be hard pressed politically now. I do however believe that the legal system should do what it is supposed to do and convict, with criminal charges, those who are found guilty. I'm so happy to see so many of those in the mob getting arrested and brought up on charges. Who knows what kind of sentence they will get in the end, but at least they get their day in court. Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: UK's most densely packed city. It's not London...
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Just wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals
Do you really believe the Romans and Greeks didn't treat their ill in centralised locations? What's wrong with your head? (Even this history is so euro-centric I suspect it's missing hospitals that existed in our oldest civilisations in Asia and Asia Minor)... Quote:
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Join Date: May 2004
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Context is important. You'll notice I was careful to qualify my observations of the Jesus of the Gospels. Within those narratives the character's politics resemble a modern day, western, small 's', socialist, progressive. He spends a great deal of time demonstrating or counselling wisdom and a view of justice that includes a strong bias towards pacifism, servitude, wealth redistribution, and care for the poor and marginalized, together with a strong anti-authoritarian weariness of the dangers of accumulated wealth, concentrated power, and institutional bias.
It's not perfectly clear cut both because competing narrative aims seek to establish more than his politics (not least of which including a claim of divinity) and because the time within which the stories are written do not graft cleanly onto our contemporary idiom, but his politics are far from peripheral considerations both in the time into which they are written and the times in which they are likely to have been written. As written in the Gospels, what modern political idiom would he most resemble in 2021? Capitalist? Imperialist? Republican? Monarchist? Oligarch? Militant? Nihilist, Anarchist? Theocrat? Democrat? None graft onto the character traits established in the Gospels so well as socialist progressive. I'm not a partisan, I just find it slightly amusing that whole movements can place Jesus at the centre of their iconography while rejecting nearly all of the values that define him. ......................................... Last edited by Matsu : 2021-01-12 at 21:27. |
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Location: Toronto
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The Roman system of health care was largely reserved for the well-off, and mostly took place in personal homes. Christians started what we now recognize as hospitals, during an epidemic. Quote:
But I would point out that for 1500 years after the Resurrection of Jesus, Christians went far and wide across the Earth, preaching to all who would listen that all the children of Adam had been redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb. The New Testament catalogues the Apostles' journeys and archeology and historical evidence showcase their zeal to take the Gospel all across the known world. Ideas that the Bible's Book of Genesis was only myth, amidst the Age of Rationalism/Reason/Enlightenment cemented the notion that there were different races of mankind - an idea foreign to the Bible's historical take. That cultural lie penetrated the North American Church, and even split whole denominations. But faithful Christians held out, challenged and worked to eventually overthrow the slave trade. Quote:
My phrasing was careful. Not all churches run all of those outreaches themselves, but they still support and use them. Local food and clothing banks might be community based, but almost every church runs collections that are dropped off monthly. Ditto for Crisis Pregnancy Centres, where a church might drop off used toys, diapers and formula. A city doesn't need 58 crisis pregnancy centres. Likewise, only one church building in a city might host a Celebrate Recovery, DivorceCare or GriefShare group meeting, but all the churches in the city offer referrals for people with personal issues, divorce or grief counselling. {Not to mention hosting general AA groups & others.) Here in Downtown Toronto, churches rally around ministries like The Scott Mission and Yonge Street Mission to fight homelessness and hunger. Plus free dental clinics and educational endeavours (schools and such). And I've barely got started. Almost every congregation supports overseas missions work as well. We have a nagging tendency to show up first in war zones and other distressed areas and leave after everybody else. Ask almost any foreign war correspondent. Or Charles Darwin. Call me when you have a progressive NGO that can accomplish even a fraction of that, while still focusing on their primary mission. If that was true, one would need to ask: When was the last time a fictional person had that kind of impact across an entire planet for thousands of years? |
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: UK's most densely packed city. It's not London...
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And yet still even with that historical cultural dominance in European history (and NOWHERE else), you forget that the earliest General hospital was actually a Muslim invention, based upon hospitals for antiquity. You can choose to have your limited definition of hospital to suit your needs, but it is clear to EVERYONE that you're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Quote:
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The first public school in NA wasn't established by a church, it was established by wealthy elites for their own children. The first properly public school funded by tax payers followed and wasn't at all a Christian affair... |
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Location: Toronto
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[quote=Dr. Bobsky;812583] And yet still even with that historical cultural dominance in European history (and NOWHERE else), you forget that the earliest General hospital was actually a Muslim invention, based upon hospitals for antiquity. You can choose to have your limited definition of hospital to suit your needs, but it is clear to EVERYONE that you're scraping the bottom of the barrel here./QUOTE] Look I was trying to be charitable here. You are the one who posted the wiki link to the History of Hospitals, and I thought I was being kind by not posting the very first paragraph: Quote:
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As for the last sentence, you should re-read the very end of the Bible again. The Messiah's return ends all war on Earth, not starts it. Men do world wars very well, all by themselves. Quote:
But modern archeology doesn't write it all off derisively as 'telephone tag', and with good reason. Quote:
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I posted a link above to a book by an Indian intellectual on how Western Civilization was shaped by the Bible. You should look into it. You're arguing that Christianity wedded itself to power and survived. But Roman gods were embedded into the political system and daily life with dissenters being thrown to lions as public sport. And they were still overthrown by a God who told His people to care for children abandoned to die outside cities, and for those abandoned by Roman society and dying in epidemics. |
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Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
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I have my own religious views, but I am not here to preach.
You guys want to have a religious discussion? Knock yourselves out. However, I'm not going to be very nice to name-calling. Save that crap for a less civilized forum. Please! - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
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I went back through all of the posts that I wanted to split off and yours fell within the group that was getting caught up in Biblical interpretation, so it got stuck in here. Nothing personal, it was just a context thing. - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
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And anyway, do you read ancient greek, or Aramaic or ancient hebrew? Or are you depending upon stupid and ignorant men to translate original version texts. I know the answer for most Christians, but how is this at all acceptable for folks who take it literally. Which version do you take literally? Quote:
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Blood libel claims Jews eat Christian children. Which is not a fact. Quote:
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Sneaky Punk
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Considering that most NA Christians I knew did not have a background in hermeneutics, it’s highly unlikely that most of them have heard more than a few words in Greek or Hebrew. Even that is hopeless without context. Even after taking classes on Greek and Hebrew my knowledge was just scratching the surface. Not only do you need the language, but also a need a lot of time studying the background of what was said to understand it.
To get around this some Christians will simply say that they listened to God or the Holy Spirit to explain away their individual interpretations. Add that to layers put onto the meaning of the texts by the councils of Nicaea, it’s easy for modern English readers to lose what was intended. |
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I enjoy discussion and debate with people on the other side. The more removed from my own views, the better. Even if there's dripping sarcasm levelled at times (oh great wise Christian...) no-one's forcing anyone to comment and it's even now a separate thread, so no one has to see it. It's weird that Kick will come into a discussion thread on a discussion board to warn people not to discuss things. No-one is swearing at each other, or name-calling or inciting any kind of violence. Both sides can be passionate, even argumentative when need be, and still get their point across. I guess it's representative of a culture that is bitterly divided, and has lost the ability to reason around a dinner table together and express their personal views honestly and respectfully. So we all just form our own like-minded silos and online mobs, and attack each other on Twitter. |
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I don't think I'm seeing Frank be particularly judgmental here, but I only skimmed. I do think he's attributing a few too many successes in history to Christianity (rather than to a natural force of progress that was going to happen one way or another*), but I don't see much judging? What I see, perhaps, is a little bit of confirmation bias. Perhaps even on both sides — Christians arguing "this happened in large part because of Christianity" a bit too much, and atheists arguing "this would've happened regardless and Christianity played no relevant role" a bit too much.
*) this goes both ways. I apologize in advance for invoking argumentum ad hitlerum, but eugenics were a big deal in many Western countries in the first half of the 20th century, so in an alternate history where Hitler hadn't risen, some other country could've become the poster child of genocide. Likewise, back to the other extreme, if Christianity hadn't spread throughout Europe, I'm sure we would've progressed towards hospitals and public education being common regardless. |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
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I don't think I want to enter the religious debate, but I do want to input that Christianity had absolutely nothing to do with the atrocities committed by the Communist "cleansings" of the late 19th and 20th centuries, in which no less than 100 million* people died at the hands of atheists—primarily in Russia, China, and Cambodia, but also in many other nations across the globe.
And, in fact, are still dying to this very day *coughChina*. P.S. This post is not here to give one side or the other fuel for their fire. It is here to demonstrate that all groups have the capacity to commit evil, and that no one grooup gets to hide behind "we better than you!" * The numbers are so despicably bad that they range from 50 million to 160 million, with most estimates hovering around 100 million. While I have no proof to offer, I suspect that the high estimate is much closer than the low. - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) Last edited by kscherer : 2021-01-14 at 19:11. |
Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Yikes. I haven't had to do one of these in a long time.
I'm closing this thread now because no good will come of it if it keeps going. There is no argument that can be made here that will seriously convince someone else to change their views on religion, agnosticism, atheism, organizations of those large or small, etc. "Debating" or pointing out flaws or logical fallacies or inconsistencies or digging up and correcting historical records in this kind of venue will only end with people getting upset at each other. It's happened plenty of times before here and elsewhere. You and I both know it. 🔒 The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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