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Originally Posted by MoneyGuy
If you believe that god's word never changes (as I believe), if the pope is infallible why then have different popes ruled differently on matters of faith? If God's word never changes, how then can different popes rule differently and both be right?
I agree, but I'm just clarifying that the Pope being "infallible" isn't supposed to mean that he never makes mistakes. You can mock him for all kinds of things, like his terrible taste in hats, but infallibility actually makes a kind of sense in context.
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If you believe that god's word never changes (as I believe), if the pope is infallible why then have different popes ruled differently on matters of faith? If God's word never changes, how then can different popes rule differently and both be right?
.
If you think Gods word never changes, who do think has interpretted it correctly. There is about a million different interpretations. Do you think the Catholics have interpretted it more correct than say, the Westboro Baptist church? and why?
If you think Gods word never changes, who do think has interpretted it correctly. There is about a million different interpretations. Do you think the Catholics have interpretted it more correct than say, the Westboro Baptist church? and why?
I don't KNOW who has interpreted it correctly, although I have my opinions. My opinion is that the Mormons, for example, are way wrong. I've studied their tenants and they are bizarre. I don't want to offend any Mormons here, but believers here are pretty thick skinned given the crap we take often without comment (we've been called morons for our beliefs).
Yes, Catholics are, I think, more right than the wingnut Westboro goofs, but that's a pretty low bar. I'm a former Catholic and left the church, in part, because of disagreement with many of their tenants. Westboro is a dangerous group, I think we can all agree on that.
If you're trying to draw me into a debate that no one will win or profit from, I won't engage. However, I have answered your questions. Others have tried before to draw us into arguments over theology, and those pissing matches get nowhere. If that's not your intention, I apologize for inferring that possibility.
To describe my beliefs, if you know the work of Dr. Francis Collins, it's pretty much there. Essentially, I believe in a creator as the only rational explanation for this universe that makes sense to me. It's all in Collins' book. Nothing that science has discovered has challenged my beliefs, in fact I feel each new discovery confirms my beliefs. I believe in evolution as a tool of a creator and in an old earth and old universe.
Essentially, I believe in a creator as the only rational explanation for this universe that makes sense to me. It's all in Collins' book. Nothing that science has discovered has challenged my beliefs, in fact I feel each new discovery confirms my beliefs. I believe in evolution as a tool of a creator and in an old earth and old universe.
I don't KNOW who has interpreted it correctly, although I have my opinions. My opinion is that the Mormons, for example, are way wrong. I've studied their tenants and they are bizarre. I don't want to offend any Mormons here, but believers here are pretty thick skinned given the crap we take often without comment (we've been called morons for our beliefs).
Yes, Catholics are, I think, more right than the wingnut Westboro goofs, but that's a pretty low bar. I'm a former Catholic and left the church, in part, because of disagreement with many of their tenants. Westboro is a dangerous group, I think we can all agree on that.
If you're trying to draw me into a debate that no one will win or profit from, I won't engage. However, I have answered your questions. Others have tried before to draw us into arguments over theology, and those pissing matches get nowhere. If that's not your intention, I apologize for inferring that possibility.
To describe my beliefs, if you know the work of Dr. Francis Collins, it's pretty much there. Essentially, I believe in a creator as the only rational explanation for this universe that makes sense to me. It's all in Collins' book. Nothing that science has discovered has challenged my beliefs, in fact I feel each new discovery confirms my beliefs. I believe in evolution as a tool of a creator and in an old earth and old universe.
I'm getting confused trying to figure just how confused you are.
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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Originally Posted by DuffMan
If you think Gods word never changes, who do think has interpretted it correctly. There is about a million different interpretations. Do you think the Catholics have interpretted it more correct than say, the Westboro Baptist church? and why?
You can take any verse out of context and twist it to mean whatever you want. How the interpretation stands up to the rest of the passage or theme of the Bible is what you look for. Homosexuality may be a sin but to say "God hates Fags" is wrong. Love the sinner, hate the sin is a common theme in the Bible.
You can take any verse out of context and twist it to mean whatever you want. How the interpretation stands up to the rest of the passage or theme of the Bible is what you look for. Homosexuality may be a sin but to say "God hates Fags" is wrong. Love the sinner, hate the sin is a common theme in the Bible.
Without trying to sound too offensive to christians, considering homosexuality a sin is just as ######ed as saying "god hates fags".
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You can take any verse out of context and twist it to mean whatever you want. How the interpretation stands up to the rest of the passage or theme of the Bible is what you look for.
I think that this begs the question of method, and how to ensure that one's hermeneutics are to be weighed with regards to correctness and functionality. The problem that I have with this extremely general statement is that much of the Christian religion is founded upon precepts and interpretations of scriptures that are clearly in contravention of your own good advice. When examining the New Testament as a means to supply meaning to the Old Testament, one encounters many instances in which the founders of the religion and the earliest Christian interpreters didn't concern themselves AT ALL with "how their interpretation stands up to the rest of the passage or theme of the Bible".
Quite to the contrary, I think that you will find that attempting to isolate a "good" exegetical method in a confessional landscape is a fool's errand. In actual fact, scripture and the church survive in large part on the creativity of their own self-perception and interpretative conventions. Scripture remains relevant and useful only in a context in which it is extremely malleable, and subject to an infinitude of meanings.
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Originally Posted by Dion
Homosexuality may be a sin but to say "God hates Fags" is wrong. Love the sinner, hate the sin is a common theme in the Bible.
Where is this "a common theme in the Bible"?
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
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Originally Posted by Textcritic
I think that this begs the question of method, and how to ensure that one's hermeneutics are to be weighed with regards to correctness and functionality. The problem that I have with this extremely general statement is that much of the Christian religion is founded upon precepts and interpretations of scriptures that are clearly in contravention of your own good advice. When examining the New Testament as a means to supply meaning to the Old Testament, one encounters many instances in which the founders of the religion and the earliest Christian interpreters didn't concern themselves AT ALL with "how their interpretation stands up to the rest of the passage or theme of the Bible".
Quite to the contrary, I think that you will find that attempting to isolate a "good" exegetical method in a confessional landscape is a fool's errand. In actual fact, scripture and the church survive in large part on the creativity of their own self-perception and interpretative conventions. Scripture remains relevant and useful only in a context in which it is extremely malleable, and subject to an infinitude of meanings.
Thank you for educating me on my ignorance
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Where is this "a common theme in the Bible"?
Poor choice of words on my part. The God of my understanding is about forgiveness, love for his people and the willingness to help the sinner. I see none of that from the Westbro church except judgement and hate.
Poor choice of words on my part. The God of my understanding is about forgiveness, love for his people and the willingness to help the sinner. I see none of that from the Westbro church except judgement and hate.
I agree. Unfortunately, the Bible—at least in its most natural and straightforward sense—is not a good place from which to argue this theology. In the last sentence of my last post, this is precisely why I pointed to the need for creativity in the Church's exegesis and exposition of scripture. I wrote this elsewhere a few years ago:
We have become a thoroughly textualized society.(1) In the process we have moved further and further away from the dynamic nature of words and language that lay at the heart of our civilization. For a long time the Jewish and Christian faiths have moved respectively very rapidly on the course from fluidity to fixity in our Scriptures, but for the most part, the role of the interpretive communities have always functioned as a check against where the fundamentalists in both camps would have us arrive in our veneration of the canons. Only recently have we caught glimpses of the flexible nature of the Scriptures in antiquity. The phenomenon of the so-called “Rewritten Bible” that has been the subject of increasing discussions in scholarly circles in the past fifty years of Qumran studies has revealed just how extensive and integral the interpretive community was to the process of Scripture transmission in antiquity.(2) Before the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 c.e. at the hands of Vespasian and his Roman invaders, “Scripture” was most certainly not well defined, and any forms of it were always held in tension with the communities that wrote, read, and re-wrote their own sacred texts. The very process of Scripture transmission was informed closely by the pervasive demands of the present to adapt, contextualize, and re-shape the ancient texts to meet current needs. In his assessment of how rewritten “biblical” texts aide our understanding of Scripture transmission, Daniel Falk drew the following conclusions:
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Scripture was a community project and a process. It was owned by successive generations who made it speak to their situation. Increasingly, however, Scripture became static, a fixed thing, a text. Thus we see two aspects that are flip-sides of the same coin. On the one hand, reworking is part of the process in the formation of Scripture. Like a stone that is rubbed until smooth, it seems that the handling of a text by successive generations hones it to the timeless quality necessary for it to be Scripture. On the other hand, the open character that calls forth further interpretation and application is an essential aspect of what constitutes Scripture. It is from this openness to give rise to multiple interpretations that comes its remarkable power to sustain different communities throughout the harsh realities of history.(3)
The Church needs a dynamic collection of Scripture quite simply because it cannot foresee what lies ahead: The concrete hedge that fundamentalists have constructed around their Bibles and their hermeneutic ensures that these will become ill-equipped—if not so already—to address changing cultures in a changing world. Our assurance comes only and completely from life in Christ, and not from the fixed and literal definitions of words in a book. Which is why Christians need not fear the frailties of doctrines based on these words that are prone to change. Jesus himself promised that the gates of Hell would never prevail against his Church. In the spirit of such assurance, it is incumbent upon the Church to embrace change boldly; for we know that in all things Christ is victorious. To live in the shadow of God and to be part of his Kingdom is to live without fear; the fearless will never be timid in the face of the ever-evolving world.
(1) Cf. Walter Ong’s landmark work Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Routlage, 1982).
(2) For a history of scholarship in “Rewritten Bible” cf. works by Falk, Nickelsburg, Brooke, and White Crawford
(3) Falk, Parabiblical Texts, 152–53.
This is in my opinion the most sensible and progressive way for Christians to handle their scriptures.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Do you foresee any reformation or sea change in the literalists, it seems so utterly entrenched in them that what you describe seems to be a long ways away.
Do you foresee any reformation or sea change in the literalists, it seems so utterly entrenched in them that what you describe seems to be a long ways away.
Unfortunately, I share your sense of pessimism. I don't see any change on the horizon, based on most of my interactions with literalists. But this doesn't excuse me from attempting to encourage change.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Kind of on topic, many of you know since moving to Iceland I have become active in our humanist group and one of our major goals is to make Iceland a more secular society to reflect the attitudes and beliefs of our current society.
The biggest target is our state church, and one of our battles was to get ourselves listed as an option for citizens to put their stipen of money to us instead of a religious organization like the state church, buddhists, etc..
Anyhow we won a major victory recently and here is an article on the situation in Iceland in case anyone is interested in reading more. We will be doing an international conference in 2015 in Reykjavik focusing on science, reason and critical thinking in the 21st century (working title.) Should have a number of big speakers in the science and secular communities, you jerks should come down!
AronRa has been really keen on whats happening in Iceland and was nice enough to post this blog. Mods hope its OK to post the whole thing, I have permission to repost this in its entirety.
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I’ve become rather interested in Icelandic politics of late. The following article was written by fellow humanist, Dr. Svanur Sigurbjörnsson, and sent to me at the request of Thor Viðar Jónsson, of sidmennt.is, the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association.
Dr. Sigurbjörnsson says he is now in a group with the Pagans (Asatruarfelag) and Bhuddists to continue the fight for separation of church and state. I found his article interesting and asked to share it here.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Iceland was under the Norwegian and then the Danish crown from 1262. Its first step towards independence was in 1874 when the Danish king handed the nation its first constitution. In it the freedom to choose one’s religion or life stance was secured for the first time since the Christian (Catholic) takeover in the year 1000. There had been a few attempts by individuals to acquire another belief before that but at the time around 99% of Icelanders were registered Christian. Slowly other congregations formed, at first mainly some free Evangelical Lutheran splits from the main Evangelical Lutheran church which is known as the National Church. Its official name is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland or ELCI. Also the Catholic Church sprung up again with the help of nuns and priests sent from Europe. Mormons and others followed suit.
Now there are 39 religious groups registered at the National Registry, 29 thereof are Christian. A new law was ratified on January 30, 2013 in the Icelandic Parliament (Althing), granting non-religious life stance groups almost an equal legal status and funding with religions. Soon the 23 year old Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, which is called Siðmennt in Icelandic, will be granted registration. Still the ELCI has deeply rooted special privileges in financial, legal and social matters.
THE STRUGGLE FOR SEPARATION
At the turn of the 20th century there was an unsuccessful struggle for total separation of church and state, but in Iceland, the left wing politicians and workers unions (which favored separation) didn’t have enough power. The country was governed by right wing conservatives, business owners and other powerful classes which strongly supported the clerical system. So unlike Central, Western Europe, and the United States separation of church and state didn’t have strong support here. Politics evolved in many ways towards a secular democracy, but a theocratic leech was allowed to be attached to it. In 1907 (and well before that) it was apparent that the ELCI could not be sustained financially by its huge ownership of farm land because the country was changing rapidly from being mainly agricultural into being urban and depending on fisheries. The ELCI, due to its stronghold within the political sector and its special protection clause in the constitution, was able to make a very comfortable deal with the state back then which was repeated and secured in a law passed in 1997. It ensured the ELCI a handsome salary for all its priests, bishops, and office staff, for an unlimited amount of time into the future, in return for all the land previously owned by the ELCI except the land that churches were built on.
By 1987 the ELCI had run into difficulties collecting its member fees and got another good deal with the authorities, namely that members’ dues were turned into a form of tax that ensured the ELCI and other registered religious groups their monthly fee, irrespective of their members’ ability to pay it. Additionally the ELCI got an exclusive 30% extra for special funds to cover costs of housing, teaching theology, holding administrative conferences, and much more. For this system to work the registration of all Icelanders at the National Registry into either a religious organization or not had to be used.
That registration began earlier and at the start of it the default registration was the ELCI and all newborn babies were automatically registered into their mother’s church without asking the mother or the father. This was partly changed with the new law from January 30th so that the automatic registration of babies only applies if both parents are members of the same church. This is to ensure equal rights of the sexes but does not protect the rights of the child to stay out of a life stance organization (religious or secular) in order for it to decide for itself when it has reached the age of legal and financial independence. This church tax is collected for every
member aged 16 and older but children are not legally adults in Iceland until the age of 18. The new law is a step in the right direction but still contains many inconsistencies.
SOCIAL AWARENESS KEPT LOW
After the mid-20th century the issue of separation of church and state disappeared from political discussion and was never an issue in any election. The ELCI cleverly made sure that politicians believed that any movement for separation would cost them votes. Until the late 20th century religious education in elementary schools was only about Christianity and totally without any critical element in it. Some prominent thinkers and writers such as the Nobel prize winner in literature Halldór K. Laxness praised humanism and criticized the anachronistic church in the 1960’s. Well educated people were aware of the huge impact the Age of Enlightenment had had on our culture but philosophy, ethics, secularism and humanism were carefully excluded from the curriculum. Instead a lot of Icelanders are convinced that Christianity was the sine qua non for the rise of democracy and all good things acquired in society. The strategy of the ELCI of giving generations of Icelanders only a tunnel vision look of the wide variety of life stances and philosophies of life, succeeded in most cases and the result is a population largely ignorant of what a secular society is and what it is worth. Icelanders are rather naïve in discussing life stances, religion, and philosophical issues. This is also reflected in the relative scientific illiteracy and gullibility of Icelanders regarding health hoaxes, supernatural phenomena, and spiritual mediums.
Over the past 15 years or so this has begun to change for the better because of the efforts of organizations like Vantrú (Disbelief) and Siðmennt (Iceland Ethical Humanist Association). The younger generation is now much more atheistic and almost half of people under 40 years old say that they are not religious compared to only around 15% of those over 60 years old.
IN FAVOR OF SEPARATION BUT REFERENDUM RESULTS AT ODDS
In polls taken over the last 16 years there has been almost consistent support by 60-75% of the population for separation of church and state. Still, in October 2012, when the only national referendum since the ratification of the current constitution in 1944 took place, 59% of the voters voted “yes” on the question of whether the ELCI should be mentioned in a new constitution or not. The question did not state directly that the ELCI should continue as a state church and some people who favor separation accidentally voted “yes”. In the run-up campaign before the national referendum, the ELCI used all its superior resources and access to state radio and several newspapers to justify their position. They inspired fear that if the ELCI lost its constitutionally protected status people living out in the countryside would not get burial services because the state church is irreplaceable for all kinds of social assistance. The ELCI suggested that all other religions and life stance organizations should also be mentioned in the constitution and be granted similar rights as itself. It presented a soft front and its position gained momentum because of the new and popular first female bishop. After its victory that positive suggestion was forgotten and never mentioned by them again. The ELCI suggestion of more equality was a campaign strategy rather than a genuine push for equality.
The only time that the media asked the members of government whether we should continue having a state church was in 2010 when a sexual misconduct charge against a former bishop of the ELCI reached its height and the bishop at the time (Karl Sigurbjörnsson) said that it was up to God to judge his predecessor. The question of separation seemed to be raised more as a punishment for the ELCI than a true interest in separation. The politicians did not follow up on it.
OUR CURRENT POSITION
As medieval as it may sound, today all tax payers still pay a church tax. In 2012 93.6% (3.67 billion Icelandic crowns) of it went to the ELCI although its members are 76.2% of the nation and decreasing each year. Its priests are government employees and have around 40% higher salaries than unspecialized physicians and
around 70% more than psychologists. They have all kinds of financial and status privileges beyond that of the leaders of other life stance organizations and are alone enjoying the spoils of 874 years of religious monopoly and religious taxation (10% of income since the year 1067) for which the whole nation had to pay dearly. With the law from 1997 the state church was given autonomy over its internal affairs so government authorities no longer have a say in how the ELCI spends its billions. That has given many of the ELCI spokespersons a reason to have the audacity to say that the ELCI is in fact separated from the state! With that twisted view they try to invalidate the demand for separation.
A few years ago, the Ásatrúarfélag, pagan society of Iceland, sued the state for discrimination and asked for their share of one of the funds that only the state church has access to, but the Supreme Court of Iceland ruled that although they had logical grounds for their claim, the ELCI was given the right for special handling according to the constitution. This was allowed even though it is also stated in the constitution that no citizen should be discriminated against on religious grounds. Another justification was that the ELCI provides its service to all Icelanders irrespective of their life stance. The ELCI states on its web page that “all are welcome to its service and no questions are asked of people´s religion”. On the other hand it is stated in its internal bylaws that their housing cannot be used to service other than Christians and in order for their priests to perform a wedding service at least one of the to-be-wed has to be a Christian. The ELCI is then only for Christians, not the whole nation.
What the future holds is unclear but there are some signs of improvement in understanding the nature of this issue and its importance. Humanists, Pagans, Soka Gakkai Buddhists and various atheists individually or in groups are joining forces in continuing the struggle and they are optimistic that a secular society can be achieved in Iceland.
-Svanur Sigurbjörnsson. Thanks to Hope Knútsson and Svavar Kjarrval for their proofreading, input and corrections.
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