Comments on: This Religiously Confused Life

By: jc.

jc. — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:28:54 +0000

Ho-hum.

By: Daveh

Daveh — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 03:20:05 +0000

Sorry, the bile comment came from jc. My bad, it’s been a long night. When I wrote that comment about religion being a building block of civilization that should not be dismissed as irrelevant, it was more in response to jc’s comment, not Sweeney’s opinions. I should have specified that.

By: Daveh

Daveh — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 02:59:53 +0000

Fair enough Muffti. But you also must acknowledge that Sweeney did not use particularly respectful language in his post (bile?), and you know what, I’m perfectly okay with that. It’s his right. However, if he sees fit to flame my beliefs, then he also must accept that I have a right to flame his. Otherwise, I understand your point. However, there are many people who believe in God, many of them quite rational (there are plenty of scientists out there who disagree with Dawkins’ atheism). For those people, religion has primal value and moral force. And because atheists and deists must share society, neither can dismiss the other’s beliefs lightly as having no value.

By: Grand Muffti

Grand Muffti — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:30:25 +0000

Sorry, Daveh, Muffti was being a little mean but he thought it was awfully mean of YOU to be so dismissive of the thoughts of Sweeney, especially in a wayt hat invovled a patently fallacious argument. But Muffti appologizes for being mean and probably uncharitable.

Muffti isn’t dimissing religion; but as an atheist he does dismiss God. There is a deep question as to what the value of religion is when you take God out of the equation that truthfully, Muffti isn’t sure how to answer. But he does think it frees you up a little bit to reject the parts of religion that you find odious: the view of homosexuality as a prime example.

By: Tom Morrissey

Tom Morrissey — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:42:03 +0000

True enough about heretics, er, Protestants, Ben-David, But most Protestants (especially the mainline ones, Methodists, Anglicans, etc.) forebear from reading the Bible literally. Look at US Episcopalians and their struggle to square gay marriage with Scripture.

And trust me on this one– if you were Christian, you’d be a papist, too. I can even see you as a worthy successor to Cardinal Ratzinger in his former gig at enforcing doctrinal purity….

By: Jim R

Jim R — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 04:15:15 +0000

I get the answers to all the confusion, conflicts, mysteries, and myths in the Bible with a steady diet of Rabbi Shmuley, staring in “Shalom in the Home”, each Sunday(maybe Saturday in Israel ) at 7PM EST on The Learning Channel (TLC).

Adding some Marker’s Mark and a roll of weed, I come to realize great spirits always encounter irritating opposition from mediocer minds.

By: Daveh

Daveh — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:38:34 +0000

Hey Muffti, religion is still a prime moral force in modern times. It is what inspired people like the Dalai Llama, Natan Sharansky, Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King Jr., to name a few. Feel free to disagree with religion all you want. However, I just personally think it is a little silly to dismiss offhand something that has been, and still is, the source of guidance and philosophical thought for some of the most brilliant and saintly people… especially when it comes to discussing morality. You may disagree with them, but religious books are definitely more than just nutty stories and random preaching. They contain concrete and highly intricate commentary about the human condition and the nature of the world.

By: Ben-David

Ben-David — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:17:27 +0000

Laya – you apologized to Morrissey a bit to soon… because one of the major, revolutionary notions of the Protestant Reformation was the idea that people should directly access the Bible, and that their interpretations (without “Popish” intervention to establish orthodox interpretations) should be given weight.

The fragmented, federal nature of Protestantism is one lasting legacy of this.

So large numbers of Christians – especially in Protestant America – still do put direct Bible reading front and center in their religious/moral program.

By: Tom Morrissey

Tom Morrissey — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:13:42 +0000

In a way, Laya, your question illustrates my point. Some stuff gets carried forward, other stuff doesn’t; the literal approach has the virtue of consistency. Non-literalists are certainly subject to the charge of picking and choosing, as if in a cafeteria. The essence of Catholicism is: we’ll do the picking and choosing for you. (Luther had different ideas.)

It’s also important to add that lots of Christians are revisiting traditional teaching on homosexuality. Most advocates of that change, though, aren’t basing it on a reading of a passage here or there– rather, in a broad way, on Jesus’s teachings of love, acceptance and inclusion.

By: Laya

Laya — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:52:10 +0000

Tom – Thanks for the clarification, I know I was being a little simplistic. My goal was not to properly parse Christian theology, but to explain a basic differnce. FWIW my knowledge of Christianity comes largely from living my first 18 years in a predominately Dutch-Christian town.

That having been said, if, as you said
“the Christian approach is to view the Bible as a whole and ask: what vision of sexuality and family is advanced in Scripture?”
then I don’t understand why the prohibition against homosexuality sticks, but issues of sexuality which included lots about refraining from sex around menstruation and in many other circumstances did not.
Why is one vision of correct sexuality more valid than the other, when taken as a whole?