Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 1:21 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
"Cut and paste" Christianity
#1
"Cut and paste" Christianity
One thing that has intrigued me about Christianity, referring to the Bible, is how Christians either pick, ignore or use apologetics to try and explain certain parts of the Bible. How they “cut” or “cut and paste” certain parts of the Bible to “create” their own acceptable version to keep the voice of reason under control. Here are a few examples: (Imagine the “editor” is a Christian creating his own “sensible” version of the Bible)

1: Jesus saying: Sell all your worldly goods, give to the poor and follow me (cut)
2: Gay people should be killed (cut)
3: Adulterers will go to hell (cut)
4: Give 10% of your money to the church (cut)
5: People working on the Sabbath should be put to death (cut)
6: Stone to death stubborn and rebellious children (cut)
7: Women should keep quiet in the church (cut)
8: Women should not wear jewellery or adorn themselves (cut)
9: A woman must obey her husband at all times (cut)
10: The bits where God promoting slavery and even beating them (cut)
11: Christians will be able to drink poison, handle snakes and heal people (cut)
12: Ask for anything and you will receive (cut)
13: The men of Sodom wanting to butt-rape the angels in Lot’s house(cut)
14: Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and sleeping with their dad (cut)
14: Talking snake (cut), burning bush (cut), Parting Red Sea (cut), feeding 5000 (cut)

These are just a few of many verses/stories in the Bible that people will either ignore, forget or simply “cut” out of the Bible.

So my question would be: Where are Christians actually going to draw the line when it comes to determining which bits of the Bible to believe in? How would they know if the sections of the Bible they are ignoring or “cutting” out are the correct ones? Surely the whole Bible is the word of God and not just selected bits?
Spinoza Wrote:God is the Asylum of Ignorance
Reply
#2
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
It's things like this that sometimes makes me think Fundamentalists are more honest of the Christian, since they take their Bible for what it is and offer no excuses or exclusions.

Moderate Christians can baffle me, when they pick Bible Versus they want to prop up their beliefs and ignore or write off inconsistencies. Then, in the same breath they will declare the Bible is the source of all morality and is cohesive and good. I want to shake them and say, "Every time you ignore Bible passages you don't like, you are making moral judgment on the Bible, choosing your own morality!" Therefore, they exhibit a morality outside of the Bible, a subjective morality. If we subscribed to all the moral sayings in that book, we'd still be espousing the virtues of slavery. People are better than their beliefs. It's a strange cognitive dissonance that allows them to dance around problems of the Bible.

I would never say there are no positive sayings in the Bible. I think atheists who insist there are only bad things in there is wrong and misleading just as any Christian is wrong or misleading for insisting there are only good things. You certainly can pick certain stories or quotes to espouse many beliefs, good or evil. The fact that it's so easy to do it on the evil side should really bother Christians more and make them take a good hard look at what they insist is the Word of God and source of morality.
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
Reply
#3
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
Most of them are dismissed with one of the following:
  • Jesus did away with the Old Law.
  • That was not meant to be taken literally.
To be honest, I'm not sure the thing about Lot and the angel-rape is ignored or "cut out". Isn't that story a testament to the debauchery of Sodom's inhabitants? Similarly, isn't the story of Lot's daughters a cautionary one?

By this logic, would you call To Kill a Mockingbird and immoral book because it has racism and rape in it?
- Meatball
Reply
#4
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
(October 28, 2009 at 10:30 am)Meatball Wrote: [*]Jesus did away with the Old Law.

If they knew their Bible, Jesus supported the Old Testament and said he was not there to erase the laws of the Old Testament. (And funny how Christians who support this belief, still insist on the Ten Commandments. Dodgy )

(October 28, 2009 at 10:30 am)Meatball Wrote: [*]That was not meant to be taken literally.[/list]

That is a great debate of many many stories. Some argue the same for Creation. Regardless of whether a story is meant to be taken literally or not, many still have certain "morals" they espouse that I would say are less than moral.

(October 28, 2009 at 10:30 am)Meatball Wrote: To be honest, I'm not sure the thing about Lot and the angel-rape is ignored or "cut out". Isn't that story a testament to the debauchery of Sodom's inhabitants? Similarly, isn't the story of Lot's daughters a cautionary one?

By this logic, would you call To Kill a Mockingbird and immoral book because it has racism and rape in it?


To Kill a Mockingbird is not espoused as the source of all morality and the Word of God, so no.

Besides, the story is very clear. It was not okay to rape the angels, but it was okay to rape the daughters.
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
Reply
#5
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
I thought the daughters raped him? It's irrelevant, though.

The implicit point is that these things make the Bible an immoral book, and that we shouldn't consider it the source of all morality because of that.

Obviously TKAM isn't immoral just because it tells a story with immorality in it, and neither is the Bible. I find that to be a very flawed argument.

Other stuff, like the Leviticus laws are obviously intended as directions to the reader. Those passages definitely qualify the Bible as immoral, in my eyes.
- Meatball
Reply
#6
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
(October 28, 2009 at 10:41 am)Meatball Wrote: I thought the daughters raped him? It's irrelevant, though.

The story goes, the angels came to Sodom to warn Lot. The villagers found out about the angels and went to Lot's house to rape them. Lot said "Do not rape these angels, that is evil. Here! Have my virgin daughters!" (Not exact quote, I'm reciting the story from memory). So the men take the daughters and then later on Lot escapes. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, Lot's wife makes the unforgivable mistake of looking back and is turned in to salt. Later they are in a cave and daughters decide to have sex with their father because there are no other men around and they get pregnant.

So yes, you are correct about the Daughters sleeping with Lot, but there's that other part with the Angels.
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
Reply
#7
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
Right, right, I forgot about that little bonus to the angel-rape story.
- Meatball
Reply
#8
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
I thought the men denied the daughters (hell, they wanted the angels)... and that was one of the things that made them so "immoral" in the eyes of the writers of the bible...

And them denying the daughters would understandably be how the daughters were around to sleep with Lot (Remember, it isn't rape if they like it...). However, the premise for having sex with Lot simply to bear children (because there are no other men around) is ridiculous... they are on the outskirts of a major trade center (Sodom and Gomorra would have been important trade stops, considering the fairly central position between several other major cities of the time [Which acutely have been proven to have existed]).

Simply, there would be men with trade caravans initially... and later the news of Sodom's and Gomorra's destruction would have spread like wildfire, and people would be coming to verify it from all over. The premise that there were no other men around is ridiculous... as is the reason for having sex with one's father just to have children is also ridiculous (although the Bible supports that). If the daughters were really virgins when the father was offering them to the mob... then they would have remained virgins (assuming no contact with any of the men traveling around the city [there would have been a road quite probably])... and so they would be virgins having sex with their father just to have children (which they could have sex with other men, as seen above)... A drunken and old father... who just offered them up to a mob to be raped!

The story is complete farce... and not even good-sounding farce at that.
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
Reply
#9
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
I think the daughters were under the impression that they were the last women alive. Seeing how they were the only ones to escape Sodom, I think they assumed God smote down the rest of humanity with their city.

I don't know, though.
- Meatball
Reply
#10
RE: "Cut and paste" Christianity
You right, they don't take the daughters. I misremembered that part, but he still offers them.

Here's the Bible Passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=NIV
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  First Council of Nicaea: when Christianity was deformed and Jesus named son of God. WinterHold 50 3889 September 19, 2021 at 12:13 pm
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  Discrimination, oppression, and the War on Christianity Losty 124 11142 July 27, 2019 at 10:03 pm
Last Post: Amarok
  Evolution and Christianity and Salvation mrj 255 19299 March 14, 2019 at 3:10 pm
Last Post: Amarok
  The connection between Christianity and Capitalism Cecelia 43 4479 August 22, 2018 at 12:47 am
Last Post: Fake Messiah
  I'm sick and tired of Christianity Der/die AtheistIn 73 10272 December 29, 2017 at 4:04 pm
Last Post: GUBU
  Christianity And Peace Der/die AtheistIn 12 2790 July 22, 2017 at 1:00 am
Last Post: Astonished
  Christianity and Suicide Der/die AtheistIn 186 38793 July 22, 2017 at 12:53 am
Last Post: Astonished
  Black people and christianity rado84 40 6802 February 1, 2017 at 10:58 am
Last Post: Thumpalumpacus
  The ignorance of science and the big bang in christianity dyresand 10 2243 May 1, 2016 at 2:25 pm
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  Orthodox Christianity is Best Christianity! Annoyingbutnicetheist 30 6746 January 26, 2016 at 10:44 pm
Last Post: ignoramus



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)