God must be so much bigger than what ancients said about God (or what anyone says about God). God, "the ground of being" isn't a person, isn't a member of a human religion, and surely wouldn't reject anyone for any reason. Fundamentalism has made religion a weapon of oppression which has done far more damage than good.
Monday, July 07, 2014
My response to someone who insisted that his fundamentalist views were biblical and being biblical made them right...he further said his views were unquestionable b/c the bible "teaches its readers to believe it in its entirety."
The bible does not teach the reader to believe it in its entirety because the bible isn't the bible in the bible. the canon of scripture wasn't closed until LONG after the life of Jesus. the bible the people in the NT knew was the Septuagint (Hebrew Scriptures in Greek including the books that Protestants now call the Apocrypha which are part of Catholic bibles)...there is no New TEstament in the New Testament. Anyway, that bible "in its entirety" tells slaves to obey their masters, forbids tattoos, demands a kosher diet and a 7th day (Friday night to Saturday night) Sabbath and assumes the world is flat (with literal corners) and doesn't seem troubled by two contradictory creation accounts (and other contradictions). So, "biblolatry" isn't being more faithful or more devout, just less thoughtful. The doctrine of the Trinity wasn't hammered out until the 4th century (again, long after Jesus) and even if the bible did fall out of the sky fully written, it is beyond weak to say "the bible is true because it says it is."
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Furthermore...
The argument that god's righteousness is offended by god's own creation (which one writer said god thought was very good) and so god's "love" will forgive us wretched toads if we grovel and beg and are truly sorry (and believe that Jesus' life purpose was a glorified suicide mission) is a circular argument suggesting that god can only forgive those who stroke his [sic] ego, but only ego strokers who in no way doubt the atonement myth (which has much more to do with Anslem than the bible) are accepted, and this dynamic that god set up himself [sic] is somehow loving because some people are spared the divine wrath if they jump through the right hoops...that whole bizarre set up is unworthy of 21st century dwellers and is not anything I would embrace or preach. the bible writers used metaphors and idioms that were meaningful to them, translators translated those texts as best they could but even the best translations aren't bias free, and church councils and teachers have interpreted those texts in ways that have historically privileged heterosexual men of european descent. that doesn't make god flawed; it makes those using God's name to control, intimidate, and exclude others flawed and "their" god is their weapon to achieve their aims. I would have no interest in a deity that required a human sacrifice, preferred one religion to all others, or would condemn any soul to endless torment or isolation for any reason...such a god's heaven couldn't possibly be much better than the hell of that god's creating. eternity "safe" with a tyrant would never really feel safe enough. - durrell
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