How to embrace God's wisdom?

[Heraclitus]

@Elok, JM:
I would love to comment more extensively and will do so when I'll have time but let me first just focus a tiny bit on the sexism angle.


You are using a convenient definition of the word, I don't think the husband is more or less important than the wife or superior from a christian perspective, but they and women and men in general have different roles. This translates into different upbringings and societal expectations. This in itself is sexist by most recent definitions of sexism.

[Elok]

Wouldn't it make more sense to divvy up the roles in a relationship based on who's better at what? E.G., my wife generally handles the taxes because I'm a hopeless screwup at math, while I handle bugs because...okay, that one may actually be largely gender-defined. My wife thinks a lot like a man in many respects, but she still wigs out about the stupid little critters, so I get to scoop them up and throw them outside. In any case, what specific roles are delineated by Christianity?

[SlowwHand]

Play to the strengths of the couple, as you said.

[Jon Miller]

Yeah. It seems quite obvious to me.

JM

[Imran Siddiqui]

Basically... what Sloww said.

I also think you have to realize that the Bible was written by individuals at a certain point in time. So obviously Paul is going to be somewhat misogynistic, because he doesn't know any better. His society was incredibly anti-woman and he was living in that context. But Paul made some big leaps when he stated that not only did women have to submit to men, but men had to treat women as themselves and that there is no man nor woman in Christ. Those were massive leaps for women in his time.

Similar stuff for homosexuality. The Biblical authors are writing at times where homosexuality is considered really bad. They don't know that homosexuality is a part of a person's genetic makeup. And as Sloww said, God doesn't make mistakes.

Basically, I'd say that God is fine with homosexuals and wants them to commit to each other in front of Him. I also believe that God's ideal view is no sex before marriage because of the strong emotional ties that result from sex, and that being a reason it was reserved for such a commitment. However, if you slip up (and I am unmarried and yet have had sex), there won't be terrible judgement put upon you, but you just have not lived up to God's ideal view, but none of us are perfect. We can only strive to live as God wants us to and try to do the best we can.

[SlowwHand]

Basically, I'd say that God is fine with homosexuals and wants them to commit to each other in front of Him. I also believe that God's ideal view is no sex before marriage because of the strong emotional ties that result from sex, and that being a reason it was reserved for such a commitment. However, if you slip up (and I am unmarried and yet have had sex), there won't be terrible judgement put upon you, but you just have not lived up to God's ideal view, but none of us are perfect. We can only strive to live as God wants us to and try to do the best we can.

This just pushed me to the point of wanting to allow gay marriages and not just gay unions in a civic ceremony with full legal rights. I believe you're right. If he doesn't make mistakes, it seems it would only follow that you're correct.

[Al B. Sure!]

Wow so the Bible was written by men now and isn't the literal word of God?

Nice to see the Christians make up their own dogma to suit their own prejudices

[Imran Siddiqui]

And you were saying Hera is the troll?

Considering that the vast majority of Christians don't affirm the Bible as being literal word of God (Catholics, for one, accept evolution!), you are talking out your butt again.

[Jon Miller]

Wow so the Bible was written by men now and isn't the literal word of God?

Nice to see the Christians make up their own dogma to suit their own prejudices

Very few Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and the Bible doesn't claim to be the literal word of God (so those that do claim it, don't make much sense).

JM

[DaShi]

I think Heraclitus is trolling trying to show how absurd religion is. The thing about gays and okay to be sexist makes me think it's a troll.

He's simple-minded enough to be taken in by religion. However, I would have guessed that Scientology would attract him.

[Al B. Sure!]

Imran & Jon Miller, just because a lot of Christians are like you and are trying to fit their duh modern sensibilities into something some priest kings designed to keep illiterate shepherds and farmers in check 3000 years ago doesn't mean it's okay to de-deify the supposed Word of God.

The Bible IS (supposed to be) the Word of YHWH. No ifs ands or buts about it.

If you want to twist Christianity into whatever you see fit (as most Christians do), just abandon the religion and make your own damn crap up to however you want it to be.

[Al B. Sure!]

Is not the Bible His complete revelation?

[Al B. Sure!]

Since Imran mentioned Catholics:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html

11. Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.(1) In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him (2) they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, (3) they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted. (4)

[Provost Harrison]

I gave up years Albert. They squirm like worms and won't even argue on a level playing field. It's pointless. And you know what, this horsesh*t never ends. And the amazing thing is, if an atheist dares to criticise their precious faith, they run off whining and crying. The churches are doing it now. Perhaps it is because their religion is just outmoded nonsense.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I was waiting for Alby to respond (I had this pulled up and waiting):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article574768.ece

THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.

The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture

But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”.

In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.

They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.

The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”

They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.

“Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”

After all, the Catholic Church made peace with evolution a while back. The vast majority of Christians realize that each book of the Bible was written by a man, inspired by the Holy Spirit, yes, but still written by a man. And men are flawed and fallen creatures who don't necessarily get everything perfect and have their own biases and ideas of what should be written. That and ancient histories were more concerned with learning lessons rather than getting everything completely accurate. And let's not forget that the Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew and the New Testament in ancient Greek and those texts have been translated over and over - hence the wide variety of translations of the Scriptures. Hard to call it a completely inerrant text when you aren't sure what translation to use (King James? NIV? The Message? NLT? NRSV?).