(June 29, 2015 at 1:50 pm)S teveII Wrote:(June 29, 2015 at 1:25 pm)Crossless1 Wrote: Yes, Beccs, there is no reason for you to botch being an orthodox Jew when -- presto chango! -- you can take cherry picking to new, audacious levels of achievement. All you have to do is uncritically accept Paul's ramblings, and you can disregard virtually any part of the Hebrew Bible that makes you squeamish or that seems inconvenient, while keeping the stuff that confirms your prejudices. Talk about a win/win! With Paul's handy Get-Out-Of-OT-Embarrassment-Free card in your back pocket, you can learn the art of talking out both sides of your mouth: paying lip service to the parent faith of your upstart religion (the religious tradition of your alleged savior no less), while obnoxiously insisting that you are upholding God's real plan and defending the true faith -- especially against those silly Jews who have the chutzpah to think they understand their own prophetic tradition better than the Gentiles. Because, you know, Old Testament . . .
Who needs ceremonial and judicial law when all you need to know can be condensed to a bumper sticker? Just read John 3:16 over and over until you flatline see the light. Then you too can become an expert in the mysteries and glorious plan of the great, if undemonstrated, Yahweh, anger management 12-stepper and former collector of foreskins.
No, you don't need to do all that to "live biblically". Just act like you 1) Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, 2) your neighbor as yourself, and 3) exhibit the "fruits of the spirit" (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). Pretty much if you do these things, most of the other things follow.
Matter of fact, if you successfully act out these, you would be behaving better than most Christians.
But behavior isn't really the bottom line, is it? It is not a great stretch to imagine a theistic Buddhist or a Hindu exhibiting precisely those qualities (or, for that matter, an atheist exhibiting each quality other than #1). Yet, according to most of the staunch Christians I've ever encountered, each person would nevertheless deserve damnation. Why? Because it's not about what you do or don't do; it's primarily about what you believe. And what do Christians believe? A train load of childish nonsense that should make a self-respecting, half bright child of twelve blush for shame. Believe you are unworthy by your very nature and deserving of an alleged god's eternal wrath; believe in vicarious redemption and in the blood sacrifice of Jesus to wash away humanity's alleged sin debt to this god; believe in Jesus' resurrection; believe he will return again (any day now, they've been bleating for two-thousand years) to institute this god's kingdom on Earth, etc. Oh, and let's not forget the great unspoken commandment: whatever you do, try really hard not to notice the complete lack of good evidence that this peculiar god even exists. Stick to the story no matter what -- even if that means corrupting your intellectual integrity with cheap sophistry to avoid admitting what is obvious: you're playing make-believe.
