RE: The 'old testament' argument
March 24, 2013 at 4:21 am
(This post was last modified: March 24, 2013 at 5:06 am by A_Nony_Mouse.)
(March 12, 2013 at 12:16 pm)Celi Wrote: The argument usually goes 'Oh, well that just reflects the culture that the Bible was written in.' Which can handily write off verses that modern Christians disagree with, even as take the homophobic verses (something Christians mostly agree with) to mean that the immorality of homosexuality is an absolute truth--God himself said so, after all!
...
God was in a snit that century.
It shows how meaningless the actual words of the "holy books" if in fact it is "divine" or human depending upon whether or not the believer agrees with it.
All of this focus on "understanding" the Septuagint as the religion of bibleland is meaningless. The religion of the priests is not the religion of the people. There is ZERO reason to think people were ever any different from today.
(March 12, 2013 at 3:40 pm)iameatingjam Wrote: I just don't see how time really means a whole lot to a superior being who
1. Created the universe and everything it
2. Knows what everybody is doing and thinking at all times
3. Can not only see into the future but has a 'divine plan'
You'd think god would exist in all times simultaneously and be aware of every feeling and emotion that will exist ever and make a fair, even unchanging and CLEAR message on what is right and wrong. But no he goes " oh shit they're developing tolerance down there, I better go and modify my universal laws of humanity so I can fit in and all the cool kids don't make fun of me"
Or as I refer to it, the swiss army knife god. Way, way too much is claimed for this god. It is better to have specialized gods which Catholics and others use patron saints to satisfy.
(March 12, 2013 at 5:21 pm)NoMoreFaith Wrote: ...
If the old testament doesn't matter - the simple fact is that it negates the sacrifice of Jesus dying to absolve us of original sin - which is explicitly old testament.
...
Keep in mind Jews do not read the Eden story as original sin and that Augustine is the clown who invented that idea.
But anyone actually reading the Eden story finds no sin whatsoever if for no other reason that sin is undefined. A&E lacked the mens rais to commit sin. AND the walking god they were dealing with was a lying SOB as they did not die. And they were kicked out of Eden to prevent them from living forever and becoming gods. Note people didn't expect much of their gods in those days.
Knowing good and evil and living forever was all it took.
(March 12, 2013 at 10:33 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: This topic came up in a conversation between Drich and I. The OT laws are tangled up with atonement and it is hard to discuss one without discussing the other. Hopefully, I've learned how to insert links properly...
http://atheistforums.org/thread-17275.html
The executive summary is something like this. By the time of first Advent, the internal sense of OT laws had been lost and worship had fallen into unspiritual legalism, i.e. practice of the Mosaic rules had become empty gestures. Jesus restores to the church the spiritual principles of loving the Lord and our neighbors as ourselves, that informed the rules of the ancient Hebrew theocracy. Legalistic compliance with Mosaic law can be dismissed, but only to the extent that the spiritual laws represented by the OT rituals and prohibitions are obeyed.
Like most all religions other than Christianity Judaism is a ritual/taboo religion. Christianity is a creedal religion. Islam is ritual/taboo after the initial simple declaration of Allah and his prophet. Compare that to any of the official creeds of Christianity. There are no required beliefs at all in Judaism. Nor were there any in any of the Persia to Ireland religions at the time. Christianity invented the idea of required beliefs.
