(November 10, 2013 at 8:59 am)Brakeman Wrote: Yes, that is how stupid christians are.
Duly noted.
Quote: If the verses were written on a building wall downtown, it would be derided as "Hate Speech", but in a black leather bound book it's considered the foundation the founders of the US used to build this great country.
Not at all hateful, I would suggest. (I assume you're aware the Cretian comment is a quotation, and is a separate comment from those on Jews, which begins at 1:14.)
Be mindful of the difference between the Jews as a race, and Judaism the religion. 'Paul' isn't attacking the former; given the awareness within C1 Xianity of its Jewish origins and Founder that's not yet a problem within Xianity.
He's attacking the continued emphasis by some of the ritual elements of Judaism that had been made redundant within the mutated Judaism known as Xianity. Food observance, ritual cleansing, circumcision and the like would be the types of things he's saying really don't make the relationship with God work as it should. He's using the technical Jewish language of purity here to attack those seeking to preserve unhelpful and unnecessary aspects of Judaism. He's saying that by insisting on these things, they're opposing God rather than helping.
Indeed, far from being contradictory, this is exactly reflecting the sort of ideas in Matthew 15, and throughout Paul's letters.
By saying “These teachings are not at all what God's after”. He's hardly being offensive. It's not like he's calling the followers of the religion “stupid”, or anything.
