Ken Starr and his homophobic agenda.

[Straybow]

It ain't my philosophy. It's not even philosophy, it's just a belief that is as old as the hills. Some version of it happens to be required in order to make Jesus response to the Pharisees work as a defence and not a piece of BAMing.

Just because a belief about mystical neo-Platonic formalism (or some vague and undeveloped percursor) is "as old as the hills" does not make it less of a "philosophy." I know you find it hard to think outside your box, but it really isn't "required" to make sense of Jesus' response to the Pharisees.

You keep trying to change the subject when you can't even read the book you are attempting to interpret, and you have no comeback to the argument offered. What you have posted is irrelevant bull****, which you posted merely to try and disguise the fact that you don't have a response to the argument.

I read it with a grammar and a dictionary, but by no means with fluency. However, I don't bother to respond when the challenge itself is "irrelevent bull****." If you knew anything about the scriptures you claim to be so expert at translating you would know that the midrash is the relevant context to understand what Jesus said.

Again, either there is reason giving involved in the passage, or Jesus is a sophist.

Yes, but not yours; wrong again. Next.

Your argument makes him a sophist, because you have him proposing some figurative bull**** such that he doesn't really offer anything in response to the Pharisees' attempt to make trial of him. But if he has something to offer, then his use of the Genesis passage can't really be figurative. Or, we should more accurately say, the author of the Gospel must have the character of Jesus do this, or there is no point.

Again, your inability to understand does not place upon the text an obligation to conform to your understanding. But let's try it in the fashion of the Greeks.

If there were some mystical glue, then whether a divorce was granted, or adultery took place, or any other such condition was or was not met would not matter. The mystical glue would react automatically to the conditions. So, if an illegitimate divorce was sought, the magical bond wouldn't break and they'd still be married. And so on. (As an excercise you can run through as many permutations of conditions and the reactions of the marriage bond as it takes for you to grasp the concept.)

Now imagine, if you can, how such effects would be reflected in the material world where the spouses' bodies are quite plainly not one flesh. Please explain, to the best of your ability, what happens in the case of adultery. Please then explain what happens in the case of remarriage which is actually adultery because of an existing marriage that was not legitimately ended by divorce.

Midrash has little to contribute here, since it's usual practice to stick to what the writer in question says first.

In other words you didn't check.

So there is no need for rational people to assert that the entire Bible is consistent or that early Christianity is consistent with ancient Hebrew religious beliefs.

Except that when one assumes Jesus was responding to the Pharisees within the context of the Judaic interpretation of the passage, one no longer needs to invent mystical connections that appear to have no basis in reality. He is pointing out that they deliberately corrupt the intentions of marriage as a covenant for their collective benefit or convenience as the empowered sex.

People want to believe this for religious reasons, and the author of Matthew, and JC himself may well have believed it, but it is unlikely to be true.

So you admit, even within your own twisted reasoning, that Jesus probably did intend his answer in the context that I've asserted is the proper one for interpretation. QED.

It's pretty obvious that Christianity is quite different and much more sophisticated and humane than the vile cult of the ancient Hebrews. This passage is just one of the places where that fact is evident. It's just a cover because Jesus really didn't like orthodox religious practice, but rather than proclaim himself a heretic, he does the usual trick of saying that he really understands the meaning of the original scripture.

Ducking the question with ad hominem attacks, as usual. Yes, Jesus didn't like orthodox practice because it was hypocritical. No, Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy shows that they understood their own midrash but ignored it when it suited them. Which is pretty much the whole point.

You already got in trouble because you didn't understand which verbs were being used where. Now you're just floundering and making vague appeals to authority because you can't read Greek.

No, I just pointed out the verb you ignored because it didn't support your interpretation, and ignored the one you focused on because it is rightly interpreted within the Judaic midrash as the strongest of bonds without invoking pagan spiritualism.

[Agathon]

No more Wharggarrbl in this thread!!!

That means you, Straybow.

[Straybow]

David, I know Agathon is doing it right. It's not as if it's his opinion, and everyone else, but he's right down the middle with how the passage ought to be interpreted.

Even Aggie knows (as he inadvertantly let slip) that isn't what the passage actually said or meant. He's playing the old revisionist trick that "truth" only matters how the living interpret it, not how the long-dead authors meant it. Which, of course, is parallel to the RC definition of authority, and the interpretation itself agrees with the neoplatonic foundation of RC doctrine.

Doesn't make either one true.

[Agathon]

Even Aggie knows (as he inadvertantly let slip) that isn't what the passage actually said or meant. He's playing the old revisionist trick that "truth" only matters how the living interpret it, not how the long-dead authors meant it. Which, of course, is parallel to the RC definition of authority, and the interpretation itself agrees with the neoplatonic foundation of RC doctrine.

Doesn't make either one true.

I didn't say that. Stop your bull****ting.

[Agathon]

So, if an illegitimate divorce was sought, the magical bond wouldn't break and they'd still be married.

Um, yeah. That's my point. Human beings have to recognize the natural order of things and make sure that their own customs conform with them. That's exactly what Jesus is saying in this passage - marriage isn't a convention, it has a natural basis (a very old idea, not unique to the Jews).

Now imagine, if you can, how such effects would be reflected in the material world where the spouses' bodies are quite plainly not one flesh. Please explain, to the best of your ability, what happens in the case of adultery.

You're talking about ancient people, among whom contemporary concepts of material reality do not operate. I'll freely admit that I don't believe in some form of consubstantiation, but that doesn't mean ancient people did not. It doesn't have to be immaterial either. For example, IIRC the Pythagoreans believed in metempsychosis, but don't seem to have believed in an immaterial soul. Perhaps they believed that when you had sex, some invisible force altered your bodily chemistry. Maybe they thought it was like people becoming blood brothers or something. If people can believe a man can take demons out of a person and stick them in a bunch of pigs, and that the same man can walk on water and is a one man catering corporation then I don't see the problem with the same people believing in the spiritual unity of marriage.

I already explained how it works to support Jesus thesis on adultery, so I can't be bothered again.

Honestly, Straybow. You're talking about an age in which people believed in magic, spiritual possession and curses, in the context of a religious leader who it is claimed cast evil spirits into a bunch of pigs, and you want to quibble about their ontology? WTF is wrong with you?

You moan on about pagans, as if the Bible isn't replete with pagan influences already.

So you admit, even within your own twisted reasoning, that Jesus probably did intend his answer in the context that I've asserted is the proper one for interpretation. QED.

No. What I asserted, and what your fundie mind was incapable of grasping, was only that Jesus intended it (or wished it, whichever you prefer). I did not assert that he was correct, because, unlike you, I don't make the fallacious inference from someone intending or wishing something to be so to it actually being so (I don't have to do this because I don't have to take Jesus or the author of Matthew as infallible). People are quite capable of extraordinary mental gymnastics to preserve religious belief, as you are proving in this thread.

You're a fundy and incapable of approaching this book like a rational person.

[Sirotnikov]

Both are sacred, Jrabbit, so does it matter?

wow...
MrFun made me LOL

eerie feeling.

[Straybow]

I already explained how it works to support Jesus thesis on adultery, so I can't be bothered again.

And where is this support in the text? Oh, it isn't there. You explained of how it might have worked if Jesus had actually talked about consubstantiation. But what Jesus said, in the text, doesn't need consubstantiation to work.

If a divorce were not legally valid, for whatever reason, then remarriage would not be legally valid. If another marriage is in force, then the relationship is adulterous by definition. The reason for invalidity isn't actually given, rather Jesus appeals to the authority of rabbinic teaching on marriage. He catches them in their own argument. He appeals to the higher authority also contained in Mosaic writing to show they aren't reading Moses honestly.

I'm sorry to tire you with facts when intellectual theories are much more flexible about who said what and all that stuff.

Honestly, Straybow. You're talking about an age in which people believed in magic, spiritual possession and curses, in the context of a religious leader who it is claimed cast evil spirits into a bunch of pigs, and you want to quibble about their ontology? WTF is wrong with you?

My bad, dude. I dunno, I guess I just want to read a text honestly instead of injecting modern revisionist thinking into it and claiming to have "the truth."

Maybe they thought it was like people becoming blood brothers or something. If people can believe a man can take demons out of a person and stick them in a bunch of pigs, and that the same man can walk on water and is a one man catering corporation then I don't see the problem with the same people believing in the spiritual unity of marriage.

Well, let's look at these examples you've raised. A "demon" is an external spiritual entity of some sort (whether they exist in reality is another matter). They actually saw something real, in this case the behavior of a person, and said, "That is demon possession." They assigned a real effect to a cause that aligned with their "ontology."

They said Jesus walked on water. Whether or not that can be proved to you, a modern skeptic, is of no importance to the ancient author. Was walking on water a hypothetical speculation underpinning a social convention? No. It was, according to the text, an observed event. No metaphysical explanation was invoked to explain this method or that thingamajig allows one to walk on water.

They said Jesus took a few loaves of bread and fish and multiplied it to feed thousands. Again, this was not an unobservable metaphysical theory dreamed up to explain how bread and fish multiply spontaneously under the right circumstances. It is a testimony of a real event (however unbelievable that testimony may be to the modern skeptic), and no method or mechanism is invoked in the text to explain it.

Now let us look at blood covenant as the Hebrews practiced it. In the case of David and Jonathon, their hearts were "knit together" first, each recognizing in the other a likeness of temperment and disposition that led them to make a covenant of brotherhood. Did the covenant create a superspiritual bond? No. Nowhere in the text do you see David and Jonathon communing telepathically, or empathically, or with spiritual semaphores. No mystical link, just a promise to defend and protect each other at the peril of their own lives.

The point of covenant, in Jewish teaching, is that God disfavors those who break a covenant and blesses those who keep covenants once they are made. Therefore, one does not make a covenant lightly, nor break one lightly. God does this by example, having made a covenant with Abraham that He will not break, therefore the descendants of that promise are preserved against great odds. Here we have a real effect being assigned to a supernatural cause.

So what real effect from breaking the marriage covenant was being assigned to consubstantiation? What real effect from breaking the marriage covenant is there to begin with? None. So ascribing supernatural causes to events (real or not) has nothing to do with assigning a supernatural cause that isn't mentioned in the text to something with no effects to be ascribed.

Consubstantiation is only there (in gentile RC teaching, not in Jewish teaching) to explain why they don't grant divorces. Instead, they make up another fictional device to get around what Jesus taught. They say, "Looky here, this marriage didn't actually happen. We just didn't realize it until this moment. How convenient for me since I can't divorce you!" Don't let it worry you that this sort of manipulation was exactly what Jesus condemned in his contemporary opponents. But I digress...

To insist that the only way Jesus could have meant his reference to Genesis is some form of consubstantiation, when longstanding contemporary Rabbinic midrash denied any type of consubstantiation in the face of pagan influence claiming various forms of consubstantiation, and when there is no actual mention of it or its supposed effects in the text, is either scholarly incompetence or intellectual dishonesty.

So you admit, even within your own twisted reasoning, that Jesus probably did intend his answer in the context that I've asserted is the proper one for interpretation. QED.

No. What I asserted, and what your fundie mind was incapable of grasping, was only that Jesus intended it (or wished it, whichever you prefer). I did not assert that he was correct, because, unlike *you*, I *don't* make the fallacious inference from someone intending or wishing something to be so to it actually being so.

If only that were so there would be no argument. Jesus intended it to be within the context of rabbinical midrash, but still you make the fallacious inference from someone (you) intending or wishing something to be so (consubstantiation in the text) to it actually being so. And you insist that anyone who reads the text as written and says consubstantiation isn't there is an idiot.

Yeah, that's the exemplar of the ivory tower of higher learning.

[Ben Kenobi]

My bad, dude. I dunno, I guess I just want to read a text honestly instead of injecting modern revisionist thinking into it and claiming to have "the truth."

Modern revisionist?

When a Catholic and an antiquarian like Aggie agree on the same interpretation of the passage, I can't understand why you are calling it a modern, revisionist interpretation. The interpretation that the two become one flesh in both body and spirit is the ancient interpretation.

If anything your assumption is the modern, watered down 'symbolic, and not real' version that had no adherants prior to the 18th or 19th century.

Well, let's look at these examples you've raised. A "demon" is an external spiritual entity of some sort (whether they exist in reality is another matter). They actually saw something real, in this case the behavior of a person, and said, "That is demon possession." They assigned a real effect to a cause that aligned with their "ontology."

So when we ascribe the physical bonds of a man and a woman in marriage, we aren't talking about a real observation? It's not just spiritual straybow. It's both spiritual and physical. I'm not even married, and that is what I have seen with married couples.

They said Jesus walked on water. Whether or not that can be proved to you, a modern skeptic, is of no importance to the ancient author.

Uhh, yes it is. Miracles are very much important to the author.

Was walking on water a hypothetical speculation underpinning a social convention? No. It was, according to the text, an observed event. No metaphysical explanation was invoked to explain this method or that thingamajig allows one to walk on water.

I believe they use the term 'miracle'. Do you not believe in Miracles, straybow? I don't know why you are lecturing Aggie about skepticism.

They said Jesus took a few loaves of bread and fish and multiplied it to feed thousands. Again, this was not an unobservable metaphysical theory dreamed up to explain how bread and fish multiply spontaneously under the right circumstances. It is a testimony of a real event (however unbelievable that testimony may be to the modern skeptic), and no method or mechanism is invoked in the text to explain it.

It's also a miracle, in that it relies upon an unexplained phenomena. Yes, these events are real events, but that doesn't mean they aren't evidence of Christ's divinity, hence why they are called miracles, which is the breaking of the natural order of things.

Now let us look at blood covenant as the Hebrews practiced it. In the case of David and Jonathon, their hearts were "knit together" first, each recognizing in the other a likeness of temperment and disposition that led them to make a covenant of brotherhood. Did the covenant create a superspiritual bond? No. Nowhere in the text do you see David and Jonathon communing telepathically, or empathically, or with spiritual semaphores. No mystical link, just a promise to defend and protect each other at the peril of their own lives.

And where does Christ say that about marriage? This is a terrible strawman argument. You are building it all up against an argument which doesn't actually exist. It's not 'super spiritual', it is simply the union in both body and spirit. There is a spiritual aspect of the bond, but there is also the physical reality. I'm not really understanding why this is such a difficult concept, straybow.

So what real effect from breaking the marriage covenant was being assigned to consubstantiation? What real effect from breaking the marriage covenant is there to begin with? None. So ascribing supernatural causes to events (real or not) has nothing to do with assigning a supernatural cause that isn't mentioned in the text to something with no effects to be ascribed.

It's the same as tearing an arm off, Straybow. You lose your better half. You should talk to someone who is divorced, and you'll understand how they feel. There is a very real physical and spiritual bond in marriage.

Consubstantiation is only there (in gentile RC teaching, not in Jewish teaching) to explain why they don't grant divorces. Instead, they make up another fictional device to get around what Jesus taught. They say, "Looky here, this marriage didn't actually happen. We just didn't realize it until this moment. How convenient for me since I can't divorce you!" Don't let it worry you that this sort of manipulation was exactly what Jesus condemned in his contemporary opponents. But I digress...

It's a word that describes the two becoming one. I'm really not sure what your beef is with this.

If your beef is with the Catholic church and annulments, then you ought to be at least honest and speak out against it.

The reason for annulments, is again, there was not a proper bond in the first place. If you never sleep with your wife, are you really married straybow?

To insist that the only way Jesus could have meant his reference to Genesis is some form of consubstantiation, when longstanding contemporary Rabbinic midrash denied any type of consubstantiation in the face of pagan influence claiming various forms of consubstantiation, and when there is no actual mention of it or its supposed effects in the text, is either scholarly incompetence or intellectual dishonesty.

Which book are you getting this from straybow. This appears to be a word for word citation.

If only that were so there would be no argument. Jesus intended it to be within the context of rabbinical midrash,

He explicitly refers to Genesis 2, the passages I've already cited. Where are you getting this interpretation from Straybow?

but still you make the fallacious inference from someone (you) intending or wishing something to be so (consubstantiation in the text) to it actually being so. And you insist that anyone who reads the text as written and says consubstantiation isn't there is an idiot.

Aggie and I are working from very different ends and we come to the same conclusion about the text. I could see that as a valid argument against me (as I would read in, or eisegesis, what I would wish to see, but Aggie? What is his ulterior motive? Wouldn't he be more inclined to your argument that marriage is merely a spiritual and not a physical bond? That it's all symbolism and not reality?

[Ben Kenobi]

Even Aggie knows (as he inadvertantly let slip) that isn't what the passage actually said or meant. He's playing the old revisionist trick that "truth" only matters how the living interpret it, not how the long-dead authors meant it. Which, of course, is parallel to the RC definition of authority, and the interpretation itself agrees with the neoplatonic foundation of RC doctrine.

This is the biggest load of horse**** ever.

The RC doctrine of authority is only subject to a living person in the Pope himself. We rely on ages and ages of dead people, ranging from the apostles onward.

You want to see the folks who believe that it's only your interpretation that matters, what else is sola scriptura?

Oh, and btw, appealing to Jewish midrash is not sola scriptura either...

[Straybow]

This is the biggest load of horse**** ever.

The RC doctrine of authority is only subject to a living person in the Pope himself. We rely on ages and ages of dead people, ranging from the apostles onward.

You want to see the folks who believe that it's only your interpretation that matters, what else is sola scriptura?

Oh, and btw, appealing to Jewish midrash is not sola scriptura either...

I don't believe in "sola scriptura." I don't believe in pagan Greek philosophy or medieval superstition either. So I assiduously study doctrine to purge that which comes from the latter two. The rabbinic writings are a context, not an authority.

[Straybow]

My bad, dude. I dunno, I guess I just want to read a text honestly instead of injecting modern revisionist thinking into it and claiming to have "the truth."

Modern revisionist?

When a Catholic and an antiquarian like Aggie agree on the same interpretation of the passage, I can't understand why you are calling it a modern, revisionist interpretation. The interpretation that the two become one flesh in both body and spirit is the ancient interpretation.

If anything your assumption is the modern, watered down 'symbolic, and not real' version that had no adherants prior to the 18th or 19th century.

Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben... when will you learn? When an ideologue like Aggie, who believes the Bible is full of crap, agrees with you that the ancient view on marriage is consubstantiation, which he believes is also full of crap, he is saying your beliefs are full of crap. In case connecting the dots for you hasn't sunk in, he isn't complimenting you.

Second, people believed in phlogiston before the 19th century, too, yet I don't see you insisting that is superior to modern chemistry. The rise of Greek philosophy in Christian thought is fairly well traced through the first few centuries, and anything based on that is fruit of the same tree.

So when we ascribe the physical bonds of a man and a woman in marriage, we aren't talking about a real observation? It's not just spiritual straybow. It's both spiritual and physical. I'm not even married, and that is what I have seen with married couples.

When some drunken ass beats his wife and puts her in the hospital, that's the wonderful blessing of consubstantiality? When some pervert marries a woman so he can molest her daughter, again that mysterious metaphysical bond is at work? But I've discussed with you the fallacies of neoplatonic accident and substance in RC doctrine before.

Was walking on water a hypothetical speculation underpinning a social convention? No. It was, according to the text, an observed event. No metaphysical explanation was invoked to explain this method or that thingamajig allows one to walk on water.

I believe they use the term 'miracle'. Do you not believe in Miracles, straybow? I don't know why you are lecturing Aggie about skepticism.

I dont believe the story is an instruction on water-walking. People don't get converted and suddenly start walking on top of the puddles instead of through them. Unless there's something to RCism that you haven't shared with us.

They said Jesus took a few loaves of bread and fish and multiplied it to feed thousands. Again, this was not an unobservable metaphysical theory dreamed up to explain how bread and fish multiply spontaneously under the right circumstances.

It's also a miracle, in that it relies upon an unexplained phenomena. Yes, these events are real events, but that doesn't mean they aren't evidence of Christ's divinity, hence why they are called miracles, which is the breaking of the natural order of things.

Again, I don't see the RC church routinely multiplying bread to feed the poor, so whatever power it demonstrated isn't a trick the pontificate has figured out.

Now let us look at blood covenant as the Hebrews practiced it. In the case of David and Jonathon, their hearts were "knit together" first, each recognizing in the other a likeness of temperment and disposition that led them to make a covenant of brotherhood. Did the covenant create a superspiritual bond? No. Nowhere in the text do you see David and Jonathon communing telepathically, or empathically, or with spiritual semaphores. No mystical link, just a promise to defend and protect each other at the peril of their own lives.

And where does Christ say that about marriage? This is a terrible strawman argument. You are building it all up against an argument which doesn't actually exist. It's not 'super spiritual', it is simply the union in both body and spirit. There is a spiritual aspect of the bond, but there is also the physical reality. I'm not really understanding why this is such a difficult concept, straybow.

Exactly so; Christ never speaks of consubstantiality. It is not a difficult concept. It is a fraudulent one. The RC church says that one can't divorce because marrige is a sacrament joining the neoplatonic substance of the man and wife, but then plays both sides and claims that sometimes the sacrament didn't take.

No, they can't tell at the time they perform the rites, or after the intended consummation. They don't come back the next day, or a week later, and say, "Hey, we have to do this over because of this or that deficiency in the sacramental process." They don't have a marriage detector they can point at a couple and say, "Hey, our marriage detector indicates that your sacrament wasn't completed properly and the marriage is void." But should somebody powerful or influential want a divorce he can go to the RC and say, "I think my marriage isn't valid," and voila, they discover that to be the case.

Happened just so to a woman who then left the RC and was attending my church. She wasn't even interviewed by the diocese. The priest who had been a family friend and favorite mentor since her childhood presented the papers to her, unannounced, without so much as a word of sympathy. What an eye-opener! Would to God you would open your eyes, brother.

So what real effect from breaking the marriage covenant was being assigned to consubstantiation? What real effect from breaking the marriage covenant is there to begin with? None. So ascribing supernatural causes to events (real or not) has nothing to do with assigning a supernatural cause that isn't mentioned in the text to something with no effects to be ascribed.

It's the same as tearing an arm off, Straybow. You lose your better half. You should talk to someone who is divorced, and you'll understand how they feel. There is a very real physical and spiritual bond in marriage.

Oh is it? Really? You can test it? Measure it? Just like you could with a physical amputation? And do you really suppose I don't know people who are divorced? Please...

If your beef is with the Catholic church and annulments, then you ought to be at least honest and speak out against it. The reason for annulments, is again, there was not a proper bond in the first place. If you never sleep with your wife, are you really married straybow?

I have before, in discussing RC fallacies, and I've repeated it above. On one hand a couple must have sex to consummate the marriage. On the other, a couple that are physically incapable of sex because of age or some medical condition could be validly married in the RC. Also, annulments are granted where lack of consummation is not the case.

Annulments are granted by the state when there is cause to believe the marriage was fraudulent in other ways. They cite the discernable cause, not some mystical consubstantiality that failed to occur.

To insist that the only way Jesus could have meant his reference to Genesis is some form of consubstantiation, when longstanding contemporary Rabbinic midrash denied any type of consubstantiation in the face of pagan influence claiming various forms of consubstantiation, and when there is no actual mention of it or its supposed effects in the text, is either scholarly incompetence or intellectual dishonesty.

Which book are you getting this from straybow. This appears to be a word for word citation.

None that I am aware of. It is my own reasoned and impassioned opinion. On top of that, I'm technically stretching the word "midrash" which wasn't used that way in Jesus' day. It means "exposition" or "commentary."

If only that were so there would be no argument. Jesus intended it to be within the context of rabbinical midrash

He explicitly refers to Genesis 2, the passages I've already cited. Where are you getting this interpretation from Straybow?

Because Jesus didn't say, "Don't you know about consubstantiation?" He said the issue was "hardness of heart," not indissolubility of some hypothetical spiritual bond.

The ancient Jews didn't follow the gentiles into their speculations about spiritual essences, although medieval Jews did adopt many gentile philosophies. Here is a small sample of talmudic teachings on marriage from the 1st cen BCE-1st cen CE. They're quite a mix of the practical and fantastic, but consubstantiality is notably absent.

Aggie and I are working from very different ends and we come to the same conclusion about the text. I could see that as a valid argument against me (as I would read in, or eisegesis, what I would wish to see, but Aggie? What is his ulterior motive? Wouldn't he be more inclined to your argument that marriage is merely a spiritual and not a physical bond? That it's all symbolism and not reality?

Again, Aggie's motive to read foolish spiritualism into the scripture is because he believes scripture (and belief in scripture) to be foolishness. Can you really not sense that?

[Straybow]

CA Supreme Court heard arguments... they are leaning toward affirming the amendment but recognizing the marriages performed in those 8 months to be valid.

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't believe in "sola scriptura." I don't believe in pagan Greek philosophy or medieval superstition either. So I assiduously study doctrine to purge that which comes from the latter two. The rabbinic writings are a context, not an authority.

Then there is no higher authority then yourself.

Nothing matters but your own interpretation. I don't believe that's a very firm base on which to rest your faith.

There have always been a teaching authority, scripture and tradition of the church, such that the interpretation is not restricted to our own beliefs, our own blind spots and our own desires. You talk about 'purging' medieval superstition, as if the Christian faith itself were superstition. You elevate the rabbis who themselves rejected Christ.

I have no problem with their interpretation of the Old testament, but they are not an authority for the New. They have rejected Christ, and you would rely on them to tell you of Christ himself?

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben... when will you learn? When an ideologue like Aggie, who believes the Bible is full of crap, agrees with you that the ancient view on marriage is consubstantiation, which he believes is also full of crap, he is saying your beliefs are full of crap. In case connecting the dots for you hasn't sunk in, he isn't complimenting you.

I believe in truth and that there is a law written on our hearts. I believe that Aggie speaks the truth of what Christ is speaking, and that I am rather ashamed to find myself defending Agathon, who isn't a believer, who is more open to the truth of Christ then someone who claims to follow his teachings.

I haven't always been a Christian Straybow. I turned my back on much of the house that you've built for yourself on sand, because I was confronted with the issue of authority.

Second, people believed in phlogiston before the 19th century, too, yet I don't see you insisting that is superior to modern chemistry. The rise of Greek philosophy in Christian thought is fairly well traced through the first few centuries, and anything based on that is fruit of the same tree.

I've read Plato and the Greeks myself. I realise Paul's truth when he teaches that there is a law written on the hearts of men, such that all are aware of the Law and the truth, as he teaches in Romans. For how could we come to him, were we not connected to him in some way? How could we recognise the truth when we hear it if we all did not have immortal souls.

The fruits come from the same tree, Christ himself. For as Paul says, good fruit is not the same as bad fruit.

When some drunken ass beats his wife and puts her in the hospital, that's the wonderful blessing of consubstantiality? When some pervert marries a woman so he can molest her daughter, again that mysterious metaphysical bond is at work? But I've discussed with you the fallacies of neoplatonic accident and substance in RC doctrine before.

No, they are violations of both, for as the two are united in one. Why is beating your wife wrong, moreso then beating your brother and your sister? Do you believe them to be no different from each other? As Paul says, again in Ephesians that you are to love your wife as if she was your own body.

Ephesians 5:28

"In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."

This only makes sense under consubstantiality, where the two bodies literally become one flesh. You do not hurt your wife because hurting her is like tearing at your own flesh.

I dont believe the story is an instruction on water-walking. People don't get converted and suddenly start walking on top of the puddles instead of through them. Unless there's something to RCism that you haven't shared with us.

Why do you hate Roman Catholics straybow? We are your brothers and sisters in Christ. I've been a protestant, and while there are certain things on which I disagree, I would never say you are foolish for believing in these things. I have a great debt to the Mennonites.

Again, I don't see the RC church routinely multiplying bread to feed the poor, so whatever power it demonstrated isn't a trick the pontificate has figured out.

I guess turning aside one of the greatest conquerers, ever in the history of man doesn't count?

Exactly so; Christ never speaks of consubstantiality. It is not a difficult concept. It is a fraudulent one. The RC church says that one can't divorce because marrige is a sacrament joining the neoplatonic substance of the man and wife, but then plays both sides and claims that sometimes the sacrament didn't take.

That is not what we claim. We claim that the sacrament was never done in the first place. It would be no different then if you were baptised in the name of satan, or if you were confirmed without a priest, or if you ordained yourself and started your own church. Annulments occur where and only where the sacrament has not been validly conferred.

No, they can't tell at the time they perform the rites, or after the intended consummation. They don't come back the next day, or a week later, and say, "Hey, we have to do this over because of this or that deficiency in the sacramental process."

Again, if the couple chooses never to consummate their marriage, are they considered to be married? If information arises later on that would have affected it, (ie a prior marriage), then yes an annulment will be granted. There are many such situations which crop up where the sacrament was not validly confirmed.

Happened just so to a woman who then left the RC and was attending my church. She wasn't even interviewed by the diocese. The priest who had been a family friend and favorite mentor since her childhood presented the papers to her, unannounced, without so much as a word of sympathy. What an eye-opener! Would to God you would open your eyes, brother.

I do! What are the other options? You have a church founded entirely on divorce, and a movement that rests itself on sand. On what authority does a marriage rest, if the priest or the deacons or the pastors themselves do not have the authority to marry you? You cannot ordain yourself, and you cannot marry yourself, yet you would have me believe that I ought to trust a man who is himself self-ordained with my soul and my care in marriage!

I agree that annulments are falsely granted and that is a problem. No different from people who abuse the eucharist by taking it without the proper preparation, or pretend to be catholic. Or the folks that lie to their priests in confession. Or the priests that themselves are great sinners and still prepare the holy Eucharist by which Christ himself is brought before his church. That is the human aspect of the church. That says nothing about the doctrine of annulments in and of themselves. To cry for reform is to cry for the restoration of the Catholic doctrine, not the condemnation and the rejection. All the other alternatives have their own issues.

Oh is it? Really? You can test it? Measure it? Just like you could with a physical amputation? And do you really suppose I don't know people who are divorced? Please...

I don't know of any Christian who would question that there is a spiritual bond in marriage. You certainly don't see anything wrong with divorce after divorce and yet you whine about annulments? Take the plank out of your own eye!

I have before, in discussing RC fallacies, and I've repeated it above. On one hand a couple must have sex to consummate the marriage. On the other, a couple that are physically incapable of sex because of age or some medical condition could be validly married in the RC. Also, annulments are granted where lack of consummation is not the case.

Could yes, but that is a valid clause for granting annulments. I'm not saying that is a necessary clause, but that is a sufficient clause. Do you concede that annulments are granted for the sole reason of lack of consummation?

None that I am aware of. It is my own reasoned and impassioned opinion. On top of that, I'm technically stretching the word "midrash" which wasn't used that way in Jesus' day. It means "exposition" or "commentary."

Then why are you appealing to it as an authority? Why should I consider your own opinion over mine and the tradition of the church?

Because Jesus didn't say, "Don't you know about consubstantiation?" He said the issue was "hardness of heart," not indissolubility of some hypothetical spiritual bond.

He also says what God has brought together, let man not tear asunder, but did you leave out that quote?

The ancient Jews didn't follow the gentiles into their speculations about spiritual essences, although medieval Jews did adopt many gentile philosophies. Here is a small sample of talmudic teachings on marriage from the 1st cen BCE-1st cen CE. They're quite a mix of the practical and fantastic, but consubstantiality is notably absent.

I don't care what Jewish people teach about Christ, straybow. They don't believe in him, so why should I expect them to get his teachings right on marriage? Are you a Christian or are you a Jew? You seem to believe more in the rabbis, then in Christ, himself.

The issue of divorce is not an issue on which Jews and Christians agree, as they have different concepts of marriage. The two are not equivalent, which is what Christ discusses. Why would you bind yourself to the Mosaic law and reject Christ?

Again, Aggie's motive to read foolish spiritualism into the scripture is because he believes scripture (and belief in scripture) to be foolishness. Can you really not sense that?

No, I don't, not on this issue. He has set aside his own prejudices in offering his best understanding of the text. You, on the other hand, have laced your entire rebuttal with attacks on Catholicism, and are hampered by your own interpretation. Your eyes are completely blind to the truth of Christ.

Why don't you drop your hatred of the pope, and just look at the passages in the way that Aggie has translated them? Open your eyes for just a second and read what he is trying to say, and teach to you successfully.

[DaShi]

Why do you care about what people think of Catholicism?