Christians. Why do you respect a God that kills humans and does not denounce slavery?

some think jesus was gay

lot of menfolk around

lot of bathing and kissing

[hubba hubba hosanna]

 

Talking about a god/gods,is as futile as guessing how many grains of sand are on the earth or how many planets are occupied by frogs.No one knows and humans are not meant to know.We and EVERYTHING else have been in existance for exactly the same amount of time in one form or another.---2 cents.

 

He also hung out with female prostitutes...But anyway, whats your point??

I actually don't believe in the divinity of Christ either. I think there is more evidence that after his death people started saying things like that. And it was common at the time for greatly respected men to be called "the son of god." For instance, Agustus Caesar was also considered to be the son of the Gods...But that doesn't mean Im going to belittle his message of peace and love because I can't find the records of him speaking out for homosexuals (again, a group that in a nominal sense, did not exist until about 100 years ago, but apparently you would rather not speak to that point)

 

And as it has already been pointed out, it may not have been recorded. The people who approved the New Testament did not include the messages that undercut their power or messages they could not agree on. For example, if Jesus did want Mary Magdalene to lead his disciples, do you think Peter would have approved and recorded it? Her position would threaten his power, which might have lead to her being called a prostitute. Who knows? All I'm saying is that those in power weren't going to threaten their position by adding messages that undercut their power.

Peace and love

 

bradley,

what the fuck do you mean by homosexuals not existing 100 years ago

just curious [greek]

 

absolutely true, hippie_chick....666? hmm, anyway...Many things were ommitted from the new testament. And there is no denying that religion has been used by many throughout history as a way of controlling the masses, and the early catholic church was certainly no different. Constantine used Christianity to unify an empire...But, what people did in Jesus' name after his death does not really say much about the man himself.

 

we are a part of him even as you read this and i type this. everything that is has always been. just in different shapes in forms. i dont believe that God "evolves"

 

guys this is really kinda pointless anyways.

 

I don't mean that people didn't engage in same sex relationships, I just mean that it is a relatively recent idea to label someone and categorize them based on their sexual preferences. So, a real community or self identified group of gay people most likely did not exist in early Jewish culture. Whether or not there would have been one, had society allowed it is another issue...Im just trying to say that the social climate was much different than it is today. Comparing then to now in these kinds of ways it like apples to oranges.

 

On the other hand, there was Mary Magdalene. But seriously, Bradley is right that the idea of homosexuality as an orientation, as opposed to specified same sex acts, is relatively new--something to keep in mind in understanding Biblical passages that seem to condemn same sex acts.

It's true that Jesus wasn't the first to be called son of a God. Alexander the Great was called son of Ammun-Zeus, and Caesar Augustus, the emperor when Jesus was born, was referred to as son of a god (which was literally true, since he had the Senate proclaim his deceased father by adoption, Julius Caesar, a god). But to call an itinerant Jewish peasant preacher by this title was regarded as subversive, especially given the Jewish tradition of monotheism.

As for Jesus being deficient because he didn't eliminate slavery, discrimination against women, discrimination against gays, etc., I guess you could also fault him for not eliminating the common cold and cancer, clarifying when life begins and ends, taking a stand on abortion, changing the outcome of the 2000 and 2004 elections,etc. But I don't think so. This reminds me of the criticisms of Washington and Jefferson for owning slaves. If you put Jesus in historical context, he was quite radical in challenging social taboos by ignoring customary barriers against hobnobbing with women, the poor, and social undesirables--more so than just about anybody else from the era I can think of. The authentic letters of St. Paul(e.g., Romans, Galatians, as opposed to the fake ones that are also in the Bible) also speak of a radical equality in Christ in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. The "slave morality" label, courtesy of Nietzsche, is less a criticism of Jesus than some of the later Roman collaborators and conservatives who took over the Christian movement.

 

what are the fake letters?

and you can't say for certain that jesus did not change the situation concerning slaves women or gays.
sure, it didn't happen as soon as he was born, but who is to say that things would not be radically different if Jesus Christ had never been presented to the world.

Okie, you've been saying some stuff about God evolving. I'd like to hear why you think this.

 

I’m sorry DL,

This is why I don’t like to answer multiple questions, no one takes the time to read and try to understand the answers. They’re in such a hurry to answer back that they just don’t take the time.

Such as your statement; “If we are to believe that the flood happened then we are descended from Noah, not Adam and Eve.” I just have to ask, who was Noah descended from? Your statement here makes as much sense as saying I’m descended from my father but not from my father’s father. So if Noah was a descendant of Adam and Eve and we are descendants of Noah, then lo and behold we are descendants of Adam and Eve.

This comment is totally from left field; Christian tradition does not show any of us as reincarnated. Of course Christian tradition does'nt show any of us as reincarnated, because reincarnation has nothing to do with Christianity but resurrection is mentioned many times in the Bible and is the hope held out for those who die. That is why in my comment I mentioned resurrection and not reincarnation. So why do you bring up reincarnation out of the blue?

OWB

 

I'm not sure which of your comments and questions are addressed to me.

• I mentioned some "fake letters" of St. Paul. I was referring to the so-called pseudegraphical epistles. Of the fourteen letters that Paul is supposed to have written, seven are generally accepted as authentically written by him, but four (1st & 2nd Timothy, Titus, and Ephesians) are thought to have been written by somebody else, and scholars divide 50-50 on Colossians and 2nd Thes.
• I guess I'd said that Jesus changed the situation concerning slaves and women by treating them as equals to everybody else. Christianity was a major influence in ending slavery in Europe.
• The stuff about God evolving was mainly a "poetic" way of saying that ideas about God evolved over the centuries. But I've also been reading up on a brand of theology called process theology in which God does develop along with, and in response to, his creations. I'm new to this, so I don't know whether I quite buy it.

Is that what you were asking about?

 

yeah that was it.

i definatly dont buy God developing with us though.

so, is there no room for christianity to fit in with reincarnation then?

 

Rather important omissions.
The critics would have had a field day.

Regards
DL

 

neodude1212, to answer your question about reincarnation, there are some who call themselves Christian that believe in it but a careful reading of the Bible shows that reincarnation is never mentioned in the Bible and even the concept is not present.

 

Then He must be bored silly.

What does He do all day with no input. Sit and play with it?

Regards
DL

 

yeah cuz im sure the average day to day person or "critic" back then was totally concerned with the fate of women and slaves. Jesus didn't write the bible dude. and im sure the bible does not encapsulate ever single word he ever said during his lsife.

 

why do you pretend to know that God is bored, or what God does. there are any number of possibilities that he does anything, or he does nothing at all, or he his bored, or he is not bored. I wouldn't necessarily attribute human boredom to him though.

Your never going to make a definite conclusion about the nature of God, so basically, all your threads are totally pointless.

 

[stolen from wikipedia]

7th century BC

• 630 BCE Dorian aristocrats in Crete adopt formal pederastic relations between adult princes and adolescent boys, with the double aim to educate the youths and curb population growth; see Cretan pederasty.

Pederasty spread through ancient Greece, influencing sports, literature, politics, philosophy, art and warfare, and causing, according to some, a flowering of culture; it was associated with gymnasia and athletic nudity.


[skip forward a bit]




4th century AD

• 342 - The sons of Constantine I, Constans and Constantius II, pass a law read variously by historians as outlawing gay prostitution, outlawing gay marriage, and most severely, outlawing homosexuality altogether.

6th century AD

• 529 - Justinian's Code outlaws homosexuality in the Byzantine Empire. However, the populations of Constantinople and other Byzantine cities are very much opposed to Justinian I and Theodora on this issue, including the Christian laity. The public resists attempts by both Justinian and Theodora to prosecute their rivals with the law.[citation needed]

• 589 - In early medieval Visigothic Spain, after the conversion from Arianism to Catholicism, there is great persecution of scapegoats in an attempt to unite the Hispano-Roman majority with the Visigothic minority. These scapegoats include most notably gays and Jews. Homosexuality is criminalized. However, outside of Spain, homosexuality remains completely legal, and even relatively accepted, in almost all of Europe.