Let's illustrate the dangers of sin - with plushies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8obTqBa4ZY

Let's just thank jeziz that she hasn't seen the furry plushies with holes in em.

That is so creepy.

these morons make the whole damn religion look bad. F*** em all. Damn WBC, Harold Camping, and this lady. There are probably more...

Doesn't take a whole lot of effort to make Christianity look bad...

For something completely different, let's make Christianity look good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U

null0010 said:
For something completely different, let's make Christianity look good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U

There's a difference between making christianity look good
and making Christians look good.

And what is it?

I'm usually deliberately neutral about religious subjects, but I think null has a point. A church is a body of people, whether they worship Christ, nature, money, Ron Hubbard, or Ron Jeremy. You can't really separate the believers from their belief system; the one is what defines the other.

I don't think speech that was really about religion, more about progressivism, social liberalism, pacifism et cet.

Furmillionaire said:
I don't think speech that was really about religion, more about progressivism, social liberalism, pacifism et cet.

He arrived at those conclusions and positions because of his faith.

null0010 said:
He arrived at those conclusions and positions because of his faith.

he arrived at those conclusions and positions because of how he interpreted his faith.

Please don't go blaming the religion when a few jackasses use religion as an excuse to get what they want/say what they want.

hg3300 said:
he arrived at those conclusions and positions because of how he interpreted his faith.

There's really no other way to interpret it.

That really depends on your opinion...

Furmillionaire said:
That really depends on your opinion...

Show me your reasoning for a different interpretation. The words of Jesus Christ are pretty darn cut and dry.

Perhaps but there's also the old testament which expresses many contradictory positions. For example Jesus is apparently for peace and goodwill (though he is plenty violent on occasion) but the god of the old testament is resoundingly for religious persecution, the death penalty, cruelty, etc. Who can say which is more valid if the Christian faith implies following both?

The words of Christ supersede the Old Testament. In large part, the Old Testament is included for context. Any seminary student will tell you that.

Open minded Christians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQKBaaYx71Y

null0010 said:
The words of Christ supersede the Old Testament. In large part, the Old Testament is included for context. Any seminary student will tell you that.

Yep, Matthew 22:37-40 pretty much sums it up.

null0010 said:
Show me your reasoning for a different interpretation. The words of Jesus Christ are pretty darn cut and dry.

there are so many problems with your assumptions. Even if these words are cut and dry, as you claim, who's to say he's following them the way they were meant to be followed? People have different interests and will try to bend rules any way they can without breaking them.

I haven't seen the original Bible and I'm sure I'd have trouble making out the words. They're not in English. I don't know if it was perfectly translated and quite frankly I doubt it. People are stupid; languages are unnecessary. One language should have been enough. But I digress...

It's not cut and dry. You know it isn't. Just because you follow a small portion of the Bible as "the rules" or words of Christ doesn't mean this asshole does too. It's easy to pick and choose certain areas of the Bible and claim that you're following "God's word" and people will believe you.

hg3300 said:
It's not cut and dry. You know it isn't. Just because you follow a small portion of the Bible as "the rules" or words of Christ doesn't mean this asshole does too. It's easy to pick and choose certain areas of the Bible and claim that you're following "God's word" and people will believe you.

Except, they are. Jesus was very clear in both word and intent. Explain to me how a different interpretation can be justified.

null0010 said:
Except, they are. Jesus was very clear in both word and intent. Explain to me how a different interpretation can be justified.

Just for the sake of clarification, since I'm sure we're on the same side, I was referring to the person in the first video and not the guy in your example.

I apologize if I had been giving a misconception about my faith. The whole "interpretation" spiel was referring to people like Camping, the WBC, and the first post.

Yeah, Harry Potter is an evil heathen!

There's a church that worships Ron Jeremy?

There's something deliciously ironic about debating religious beliefs on a furry porn website.

I move that we create the First Church of Ron Jeremy.

I don't watch that 3D pig disgusting actual penis crap.

Sin isn't evil until it consumes you, otherwise, it's just being human

First, please forgive me for this wall of text. However, I find it necessary for addressing some of the faith-based arguments written above.

I take some issue with the idea that anything in the Bible is "cut and dry." Regarding the Gospels themselves (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), they were written decades after the actual events took place, requiring a certain amount of faith in the writers' memories. One could justify that in spite of time having passed, the stories are more or less the same. However...

The problems are further compounded by the fact that most of the New Testament is now 2000 years old—and the Old Testament (naturally) is even older. Languages change, word meanings change, cultures and people change, and agendas change, and those all represent significant obstacles to getting an accurate translation.

Getting an accurate, word-for-word translation is the first difficulty: most of you read English, for example, but how well do most of you read 2000-year-old English? Give a quick read to any part of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and you'll see what I mean. And those tales are only a little over 500 years old, 1/4 the age of the Bible's newest books. And it's written in English, not Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. Languages change, and even experts can have a hard time figuring out what's being said.

Compound that now with the fact that word meanings change, which in turn says that the connotations and denotations of our words change. Take "gay" for example, and its primary meaning in the early 1900s versus 100 years later. Even if you get an accurate translation, you may not understand what the author is really saying at all.

Cultures and people change. Today, there isn't supposed to be a state religion. Before the late 1700s, just 300 years ago, that wasn't so much the deal. So, thanks to church-state alignments, the books you read in the Bible today are the ones chosen by a small group of men in the Roman Catholic church. Who knows what value exists in the books they decided to leave out?

Then add the filter of modern translators' personal agendas. Look at how many translations of the Bible currently exist. Even King James, credited with responsibility for the most accurate word-for-word translation of the Bible currently acknowledged, had the agenda of underscoring that Puritans should submit to authority—how convenient for him. Today, we have dozens of Bibles written for students, moms, dads, patriots, men, women, singles, couples, children, teenagers, adults, young adults, and on and on. Real patriots and warriors for Christ can even get the camo edition!

If those filters aren't enough, almost every one of these editions comes with thousands of side notes (click "Look Inside!") to underscore the translators' interpretation of the text. Which also turns out to be exactly what the buyer wanted to hear in the first place, because that's why they bought that edition. Can the Holy Scripture not stand on its own?

What's really cut and dry here is that people get out of the Bible what they want to get out of the Bible, and almost certainly not whatever was originally in the Bible. My brother-in-law says it's cut and dry that homosexuality is a damnable sin; I read the same words and don't interpret them that way at all.

Ultimately, the only way to say the Bible is cut and dry is if you have faith that God has protected both its words and meanings over the thousands of years that have ensued since its writing, in spite of all the filters. And as the Bible says, faith is your evidence when there is no other proof.

DobiesHot said:
Ultimately, the only way to say the Bible is cut and dry is if you have faith that God has protected both its words and meanings over the thousands of years that have ensued since its writing, in spite of all the filters. And as the Bible says, faith is your evidence when there is no other proof.

Cut and dry. The commandments of Christ:
http://www.trusting-in-jesus.com/Commandments-of-Jesus.html

That's all there is to it. The words of Jesus.

Some of those can be twisted or used for hostile means. I think Matthew 22:36-40 sums it up better. The law of Love is the one law to which all others are second.

I feel like sinning. Anyone care to join me?

null0010 said:
There's really no other way to interpret it.

You can interpret stuff any way you want if you're crazy enough.

Insanity does not a valid interpretation make.

null0010 said:
Cut and dry. The commandments of Christ:
http://www.trusting-in-jesus.com/Commandments-of-Jesus.html

That's all there is to it. The words of Jesus.

I think Jesus, as he is presented in the Bible, said a lot of good things. But I also think it's extraordinarily simplistic (and dangerously vulnerable) to stop thinking for oneself and trade intelligent discussion for someone else's website and a flippant "that's all there is to it."

If I could have held up a Bible with the words of Christ in red, I'd've done that instead. The most important bits of that book are the things Jesus said.

Shatari said:
Some of those can be twisted or used for hostile means. I think Matthew 22:36-40 sums it up better. The law of Love is the one law to which all others are second.

Not if you take them all as a whole.

null0010 said:
Insanity does not a valid interpretation make.

Validity, schmalidity.

JoeX said:
I feel like sinning. Anyone care to join me?

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, cuz sinners are much more fuuuun. Only the good die young!

oh man, I have this documentary. It's creepy as fuck. Doing that shit to kids is so many degrees of wrong.
What's more the fat preacher lady later saw this film showing all the brainwashing she gets up to and whole-heartedly approved of it. She honestly couldn't see anything wrong with screaming that she wants children to be suicide bombers for Jesus :V

elad said:
She honestly couldn't see anything wrong with screaming that she wants children to be suicide bombers for Jesus :V

Elad, I spent 15+ years as an Evangelical Christian, and you just nailed it. It feels good because they include you and make you feel like part of the group. You go to church on Sundays, and people shake your hand and give you hugs. They smile, they're warm, they're sincere, and they really and truly believe in Christ's love. They honestly believe that they're doing the right thing.

But the language is insidious. Through violent imagery and a lack of discretion, love and inclusion can ultimately turn into anger and hatred.

Much of it comes from the Bible and gets conflated with patriotism and love: Spiritual warfare, Warriors for Christ, Get on your knees and fight like a man (a reference to praying), and so on. A lot of the visual imagery is kind of violent.

Then, because it's clever and it's a good way to get people to remember your point, you start taking words from the news and popular culture and crafting them into word play that is related to your beliefs. "Fanatics in Islam have suicide bombers? Well, we're fanatics for Christ, so we're going to have suicide bombers for Jesus!" We'll bomb them with love, though, of course! Followed, naturally by a wise and loving nod. But it's a poor choice of techniques, and they don't realize how it can be misconstrued, even if they do mean well.

Finally, you combine all this violent imagery with political and media figures who tell you that the demon-possessed liberals are out to kill babies (abortion), let gays marry, take away your guns, impose Socialism in America, and kill Christians ( wait, what?? )—all of the things the church has been telling you are wrong. And in your mind as an Evangelical, it's "Love the sinner, hate the sin," but what's really going on is that you're slowly becoming afraid, usually without being conscious of it. You're afraid that the end is coming, that the nation is going to implode. And you're angry because the sinners aren't listening to your message of "love."

Well, to insert some Jedi wisdom, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." And I think that's honestly what we see in people like this woman. You start taking the Bible more and more literally and become more and more fanatical. (By the way, that's okay, because fanaticism is encouraged. Being a "Jesus Freak" is a good thing to them! There are even songs about it.)

Of course, the real irony is that biblical Christianity has nothing to do with patriotism, the second amendment, socialism, or health care. You choose to live for Christ, or you don't, and—whether anyone else makes the same choice or not—you follow in your life and your beliefs, or you don't. Outlawing gay marriage or abortion (or railing about them on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh) isn't going to change someone else's heart.

I guess I'm getting too close to crossing the threshold from religion to politics here, but to me, they've become bound into one. And unfortunately, political Christianity and the kind of behavior this woman displays are why I don't attend church any more.

(And again, another wall of text! I'm sorry! Obviously, this is a topic I've spent a lot of time thinking about.)

This sums up a lot of what I hate about religion. John Lennon wasn't bullshitting when he wrote and sang "Imagine." A lot of that song makes sense.

Wall of text, perhaps, but I think it's an insightful observation of modern Christianity.

Indeed, quite well thought out.