(February 26, 2011 at 6:46 am)Rwandrall Wrote: The thing is, VERY few Christians actually follow the Bible literally. As Bill Maher said, people don't look
over their fence on Sunday morning, see their neighbor mowing the land and think "working on Sunday? ...
So how can they be considered as living under a celestial dictatorship if they actually only follow the rules that they want to follow ? It's more a celestial what...advice ? suggestion ?
I agree there. But then, of course, they really don't believe do they? If they did really believe every word of their book, they would act much differently and more dangerously. Kind of like fanatic Muslims. I guess this would be a question for them, but if they aren't willing to follow their doctrine to the letter, why is there any sense in calling yourself a Christian. Most, pathetically, simply refer to themselves as a Christian in some nebulous sense-of-belonging kind of way. I don't have much sympathy for the idea of moderate Christianity. I think they are all wasting their time, but the moderates even more. But I think we can say even moderates still believe that there is a god up there who governs everything, intervenes in people's lives and will one day separate the wheat from the chaff. If they don't believe that, they have ceased being Christian.
(February 26, 2011 at 6:46 am)Rwandrall Wrote: ... but nowhere in a law book is it said you should help the poor. It is not an actual rule like it is in Christianity. The number of charities and orphanages and shelters that are funded by religious groups is undeniable. If you really can't believe that some people are inspired by their faith to help their fellow human beings, then there's really nothing i can say.
No, I think if someone's faith inspires them to help others, that's great. But in almost every case I've seen as a former churchgoer, helping people build schools or churches is a secondary goal to trying to reach them for Christ. Believers aren't in Africa and China and everywhere else for purely humanitarian reasons. Spreading the message is at least one of the two main goals in almost every case of Christian missionary work, and usually, the main goal. It is, after all, the Great Commission. And also, if that's not a person's goal as a member of the Protestant or Catholic church, they are Christian in name alone.
(February 26, 2011 at 6:46 am)Rwandrall Wrote: The ones who actually follow the Bible literally are a very, very small minority. Maybe a big minority in the US, but every-fucking-where else, they are really rare.
Then they shouldn't follow it at all. But again, I suppose that would be a question for them, not you.

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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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