God and the Afterlife……?

So the leaders of all the christian denominations which don’t call for the death sentence for homosexuality are wrong ?

dunno you’d have to ask a religious person. They need to decide all that for themselves, I think the various religions could probably do with doing an updated bible/big book taking out all the embarrassing stuff that no-one really believes anymore. But TBH I think a lot of atheists wouldn’t give a toss what the premise of any religion was if those groups didnt get special rules and dispensations and hold so much political sway.

I’m off to bed, my ‘adorable’ toddler had me up at 5 this morning to watch Horrid Henry and I’m spent.

huh, snap! HH The movie?

i prefer to respect the right ones and disrespect the wrong ones….see also racism.

I was speaking of views related to religion, spirituality and atheism. Not all views Junky.

I am not really sure how else you can interpret that and its not my opinion it is what is written.
I agree that not all religious folk/churches do follow it but i dont think there is much wriggle room as it seems pretty unambiguous and not really open to debate or interpretation

So why are you all so obsessed with what was written in Leviticus? Assuming you think that all Christians must, by default, believe all gay people should be put to death because of a few lines, why do you not quote all the other, far more frequent, bits of the Bible, which state far more positive messages? It often seems to me that it isn’t Christians who are worked up about homosexuality, it’s the people who are atheist, or at least a vociferous minority.

All the anger, rage, hatred and abuse on here seems to come from just one side of the debate. It doesn’t bother or offend me in the least, but it would be great to see more open mindedness. In centuries gone by religion was very guilty of dogmatic intolerance. Today that seems to have flipped 180 degrees.

I am not really sure how else you can interpret that and its not my opinion it is what is written.
I agree that not all religious folk/churches do follow it but i dont think there is much wriggle room as it seems pretty unambiguous and not really open to debate or intepretation

A fair point, but presumably you must also accept that what is written about having love and respect for all your fellow mankind is also not open to debate or interpretation? And there is far more of that in the Bible than a few lines in one book.

I agree that not all religious folk/churches do follow it…

Never mind about “not all”, name me one leader of a christian denomination which interprets the bible the way you do, ie, that homosexuals should be put to death.

You’re saying, for example, that the Archbishop of Canterbury is wrong in his interpretation of the bible, but that you on the other hand have the correct interpretation.

Let’s not decide on what Christians believe based on what you think they should believe, and instead let’s focus on what they say they believe.

So why are you all so obsessed with what was written in Leviticus?

why are you not interested in what the lord said – is it because you have no intention of defending it like many other “followers”?

it isn’t Christians who are worked up about homosexuality

you paid a lot of attention to the gay marriage debate then and the special rules for churches then

it would be great to see more open mindedness

We have not created a law that makes it illegal to say there is a god, you get special exemptions form discrimination laws [ to discriminate naturally], we have to deliver religious worship , mainly christian in nature, in schools daily, mandatory teach RE to aged 16 and yet somehow you are the victime here of us LOL
what we are doing is allowing everything and debating it – the victim card is weak tbh. Neither side is that much of a victim these days but the power imbalance is still marginally in your favour , but only for historical reasons and it is on the wain.

HH The movie?

That’s the one. Gonna be a roooock star…………….

he’s on FaceJazz.

name me one leader of a christian denomination which interprets the bible the way you do ?

You can google if you like I am sur eyou will get some hits.
The way I do 🙄 what way are you interpreting that bit then? its not unclear at all ernie and it is not my view its gods whether believers choose to do it or not is not the issue, as they dont, but it is still what god says

you must also accept that what is written about having love and respect for all your fellow mankind is also not open to debate or interpretation? And there is far more of that in the Bible than a few lines in one book.

Indeed it is mainly the golden rule and a message of love and tolerance/brotherly love though of course jesus said

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword

Let’s not decide on what Christians believe based on what you think they should believe, and instead let’s focus on what they say they believe.

Why don’t we just read the books, and sod ‘interpretation’? Oh that’s right, because the books are both full of ‘murder non-believer’ type stuff, and you’d all rather pretend that didn’t exist.

but if you were to turn up at a church and say “Hi, I’m gay” you’d be welcomed with open arms. I’ve never met a Christian person in my life who gives two hoots what someone’s sexuality is.

I have.
We had a pretty devout Christian at work who when he started working for us was a woman. His church pretty much disowned him when he changed gender. Most of the people he assumed were his Christian friends there turned up to be somewhat fickle on his change of sex. Now happily married to his long standing female partner.

Religion = be nice or we wont let you play on a cloud – unless you say sorry, in which case do whatever you like and then we’ll let you off anyway… Once we’ve rid you of the nastiness you were born with naturally!

I don’t need too be threatened by a deity to act in a reasonable way.

“Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist.
God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.”

You can google if you like I am sur eyou will get some hits.

OK, you’re being deliberately stupid. You know full well that there isn’t a christian leader in the world, by that I mean catholic, anglican, orthodox, eastern, etc, which calls for the death sentence to be imposed on homosexuals.

TBH it was pretty stupid of me to engage you, and on a thread about religion no less. I should have known better – there’s no excuse really.

Why don’t we just read the books, and sod ‘interpretation’? Oh that’s right, because the books are both full of ‘murder non-believer’ type stuff, and you’d all rather pretend that didn’t exist.

Are you really suggesting taking every verse or chapter literally, without looking at the context (who it was said by, to who, when, where)?

So, taking a completely innocuous verse that doesn’t contain anything offensive. This one for example… ‘But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.’ Are you saying that the only correct interpretation of that is that a man from Samaria passed by another man and took pity on him?

Ernie, it took you 6 pages!!!! 😉

Anyway in the words of Dave Allen, “Good night, thank you, and may your God go with you.”

you’re being deliberately stupid

What by quoting the bible in a religious debate 😕
Do you think you could forgive me the stupidity ?
Perhaps it was by agreeing repeatedly that many do not follow that teaching?

fwiw I found a uk hit on page one and you might want to have a look at Uganda as well then again you may just want to call me deliberately stupid

Because their thoughts often lead to actions, and homophobia, subjugation of woman, torturing of animals, and child genital mutilation are all evil

Good grief, that is not a very bright post I’m afraid.

Belief in God does not necessarily mean following religious doctrine, or being Muslim, Christian etc
Belief in God does not necessarily mean believing in creationism or intelligent design
Belief in God does not necessarily mean believing in an afterlife
Belief in God does not even include the belief that God created the universe at all.
Belief in God does not necessarily mean you are responsible for wars, genocide, and evil; and does not mean you are homophibic and mysoginistic

Let’s not get this stuff all mixed up, otherwise your arguments are weak.

Surely building up of the heavier elements is an increase in entropy?

No. Atomic nuclei weigh less than their constituent parts, because some of the mass is converted to binding energy. Iron and nickel have the highest binding energy per nucleon which means they are the most stable and can be considered the lowest potential energy configuration. So large atoms splitting, or small ones combining could be an increase in entropy.

I think, anyway – never really understood entropy properly.

What by quoting the bible in a religious debate 😕

Yes of course, you know that is exactly what I meant…..you’re not being stupid at all.

You really come across as an arrogant self-righteous boor on these threads, as you sit in high judgement of others. And yet I’m sure the irony of how defensive you can be of your weirdo vegan views and lifestyle, which most normal sensible sane people reject, is lost on you.

are we still discussing the issue or are you just hurling insults?

I don’t think it was ever a discussion JY. Not by any standard I recognise anyway.

Religion = be nice or we wont let you play on a cloud – unless you say sorry, in which case do whatever you like and then we’ll let you off anyway… Once we’ve rid you of the nastiness you were born with naturally!

Apparently there are some relegious folk who believe in an all forgiving being who will let you play on a cloud even if you don’t say sorry and all the rest.

I used to know a vicar who believed in “Universal Reconciliation” who followed this line of thought. I think it involved quite a lot ot theological mental gymnastics but made some kind of sense at the time. This was way back when I was a Christian of sorts anyway, but that was a while ago and I can’t remember much about the philosophy of it all.

are we still discussing the issue or are you just hurling insults?

In all fairness, it does rather seem that you’re solely picking negative bits from the bible in response to any suggestion that there might be other, more positive aspects to it, which must be a bit frustrating.

In all fairness, it does rather seem that you’re solely picking negative bits from the bible in response to any suggestion that there might be other, more positive aspects to it, which must be a bit frustrating.

in all fairness if people are going to paraphrase “be excellent to each other” from a big book that also contains genocide and a list of benign activities that’ll qualify you for a death warrant or an eternity in hell, it’d be kinda naive of them to think they won’t be pulled up on that bad stuff.

Like I said how about bible 2.0? Keep the good stuff, lose the silly and nasty stuff. I’m guessing the trouble is, that to edit out leviticus or to say gods word was wrong, or even just say “the bloke who wrote it must have been smoking a lot of crack so lets just ignore it”, well it undermines the religions based on it and a lot of the more fervent believers are going to get a bit stroppy.

A company I used to work for told us not to worry about all the extra work hours because there’d be a massive bonus at the end of the project. Turned out there wasn’t.

Just saying 🙂

Like I said how about bible 2.0? Keep the good stuff, lose the silly and nasty stuff. I’m guessing the trouble is to edit out leviticus or to say gods word was wrong, or even just say “the bloke who wrote it must have been smoking a lot of crack so lets just ignore it”, well it undermines the religions based on it and a lot of the more fervent believers are going to get a bit stroppy.

Oh I don’t know, when the Chistians came along they basically wrote Bible 2.0 as the new testament (NT). If you compare the vengeful, angry god of the old testament wih the forgiving and self sacrificing (holy trinity assumptions of course) god of the NT it’s a pretty dramatic difference.

Just remembered that TV mini series “Second Coming” I think it was called, had Christopher Eccleston in it. The ending of that was that humanity needed to write it’s own third testament: Bible 3.0…

it’s a pretty dramatic difference.

Hmm, a fair bit more peace and love shizzle but IIRC there’s quite a lot of the OT that he didn’t refute…..but my RE and compulsory church attendance was a long time ago.

And the OT is still wheeled out in a lot of church services, it’s not been shelved so still up for criticism shirley?

in all fairness if people are going to paraphrase “be excellent to each other” from a big book that also contains genocide and a list of benign activities that’ll qualify you for a death warrant or an eternity in hell, it’d be kinda naive of them to think they won’t be pulled up on that bad stuff.

But then you just get a circular debate, which seems a bit pointless. I guess the only way out of that is to look and see how it’s interpreted by those who follow it, and by and large it seems most do take the “be excellent to each other” to be the underlying fundamental thing – there are exceptions, of course (Uganda, the Westboro Baptist eedjits), but in this day and age, Christianty seems to be quite a nice religion for the most part. 🙂

Like I said how about bible 2.0? Keep the good stuff, lose the silly and nasty stuff. I’m guessing the trouble is, that to edit out leviticus or to say gods word was wrong, or even just say “the bloke who wrote it must have been smoking a lot of crack so lets just ignore it”, well it undermines the religions based on it and a lot of the more fervent believers are going to get a bit stroppy.

Aye – I guess it depends on how big an investment you have in believing the bible is god’s word and not man’s interpretation of it.

A company I used to work for told us not to worry about all the extra work hours because there’d be a massive bonus at the end of the project. Turned out there wasn’t.

That’s funny. 😀

And the OT is still wheeled out in a lot of church services, it’s not been shelved so still up for criticism shirley?

Yeah that’s true. I’ve still got a laptop that runs on Windows 3.1…

Christianty seems to be quite a nice religion for the most part.

Let’s see now…

This christian god’s creations existed on the planet for approximately 200,000 years living short lives of miserable scratching for existence, dying in pain and agony from diseases they didn’t know how to cure. Also injuries they didn’t know how to fix and from rotten teeth they couldn’t mend.

What did this god thing decide to do to make it better? For 199,980 of those years it sat, arms folded, watching it’s creatures suffer and then decided to help them by becoming human and having itself tortured to death to “absolve” humanity of sins which it hadn’t even committed in the first place. Humans had to wait for another 2,000 years or thereabouts until it had discovered how to adjust all this suffering by inventing medical science.

Yeah. Nice.

Personally I reckon it’s possibly OK to follow a “nice” religion (if that’s your thing) and ignore some of the weirder stuff like the diet, do what you want, but it seems a bizarre situation that people are fine to identify themselves with X religion whose doctrine has passages containing stuff they themselves are diametrically opposed to and say “yeah but we just interpret that a bit different” when other more loopy sects of that religion can still quote it as that same god’s word to justify their hateful views.

Personally I reckon it’s possibly OK to follow a “nice” religion (if that’s your thing) and ignore some of the weirder stuff like the diet, do what you want, but it seems a bizarre situation that people are fine to identify themselves with X religion whose doctrine has passages containing stuff they themselves are diametrically opposed to and say “yeah but we just interpret that a bit different” when other more loopy sects of that religion can still quote it as that same god’s word to justify their hateful views.

Yeah, that I can understand. I think it’s largely down to it all being based on text that’s so old, written by the hand of man and reflecting the prevailing attitudes of the times. That’s where your bible 2.0 would come in handy. 🙂

That’s lovely that is Mr Woppit, a beautifully succinct appraisal that perfectly illustrates the root cause behind our dear nation’s generally schizophrenic sociopathic personality..

It’s actually pretty scary when you put it down so clearly, rendering all of our upbringings tantamount to cruel and unusual psychological abuse..

100% agree on Bible 2.0

Bible 2.0

Surely the most useful The Bible 2.0 would simply be a small business card, or maybe even more fitting, a tattoo on your forehead that just says STOP BEING A ****..

Oh I don’t know, when the Chistians came along they basically wrote Bible 2.0 as the new testament (NT). If you compare the vengeful, angry god of the old testament wih the forgiving and self sacrificing (holy trinity assumptions of course) god of the NT it’s a pretty dramatic difference.

The NT also contains quite a lot which today’s (liberal) Christians choose to ignore.

Jesus specifically said that anyone who remarries after getting a divorce is committing adultery. I know a local priest who has remarried after divorce.

In the letters, it is specifically stated that women shouldn’t speak in church. The local priest who remarried is a woman. This verse forms part of the reasoning behind not allowing women bishops in the CofE.

There’s a lot more too. As a modern, wooly, liberal Christian, you get to pick and choose which parts to follow.

Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson wrote a version of the bible which excluded all mentions of the supernatural and just contains passages from the four gospels, arranged in chronological order. It’s considerably thinner than the usual bible.

a tattoo that just says STOP BEING A ****

think will wheaton owns the IP on that.

In all fairness, it does rather seem that you’re solely picking negative bits from the bible in response to any suggestion that there might be other, more positive aspects to it, which must be a bit frustrating.

Its a fair point to say this and its easily made without just resorting to criticising me personally – its a debate [ albeit not good enough for Spin] rather a competition to do the best personal dig.
As noted you cannot just pick the bits of the bible you like and ignore the bad bits- well you can and many do but its not what it asks you to do- you are meant to do it all.

Its also fair to say that the new testament is a lot less fire and brimstone and much more based on brotherly love that the OT is. it is a New Testament clearly.

Re christians I am not arguing that many christians are wandering around wanting to kill gays but look at their reaction [ or the reaction of some leaders for complete accuracy] to gay adoption and gay marriage and you can see that they are not,all, for treating them equally either.
As for doing a new version it is just like the American Constitution. It made sense at the time frame in which it was written , right to bear arms, but it is outdated for modern life.
However the problem is as they say it is the word of god how do the update or modernise it without a prophet or messenger of god?

Christianty seems to be quite a nice religion for the most part.

both yes and no – the basis message of Jesus – loy thy enemeny as thy self, do unto others as you would have done on to you, turn the other cheek etc are all excellent maxims for life and the central message is a good one.
however what they have actually done is less nice.
Look at what they did to heretics when they held all the power – it used to be illegal to commit blasphemy – that is it used to be illegal to deny that god existed – they now preach to us about tolerance when we merely criticise their faith.
they used to excommunicate their own members for disagreeing with orthodox faith – Galileo for example – this has been revised in later years as they do now accept a heliocentric world
they used to go on Holy Wars for their god
Condom use in AIDS riddled africa for a more modern example
Now of course I am focusing on only the negative stuff here but its influence is somewhat mixes

On an individual basis most religious folk are pretty decent just like atheists but the history of religion is not the history of tolerance and respect for dissenting voices, even when they come from within their own faith