What is your religious background

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Your interpretation of the OT is well founded, but erroneous itself.

 

The OT was written at a different time in our evolution. It was the baby steps that began our walk into becoming more civilized. You say there methods were barbaric; well of course they were! They had no well defined set of laws up to that time. And chauvinism is an aspect of being an animal. They hadn't evolved socially enough to realise this. So they qualified and quanitified humans based on certain characteristics. Men had to hunt for food, so they were more naturally physical, and stronger, and therefore dominant.

 

Also, my family is jewish. They do not look at any of the Ot as literal. They consider it a guideline, as I said before, on how to live. Creationism is a metaphor, as are the miracles in the bible. They believe that in all likelyhood that some of the stories were completely fabricated to create meaningful stories. But these stories none the less have value.

 

The NT, on the otherhand, is farther along our evolution. As we change, so do our values. This is evident in the NT. I am surprised more people haven't come to this realization, and still insist on comparing the two.

 

I would say that the NT is over embellished, though. Its purpose should have been to spread the ideas of a certain person and the chain of events that occured due to such a person. Instead, the NT includes a lot of commentary that has little to do with the message and more to do with the person.

[Pyrotex]

The OT was written at a time often called "the great awakening" -- most of the world's great religions got their start in the same 500-year period, even the ones no longer extant.

 

One common element of religion, and its enabler, writing, was to establish the tribal (social) history, and thereby giving permanence to the the tribal (social) identity.

 

Why does Jewishnes still exist as a social identity? The OT of course. Why does Baalishness NOT exist? They never learned to write -- or codify their religion.

 

One way that a religion forms impermeable social boundaries is by creating DISTINCTIONS. A distinction is a sensible property that identifies that a person is or is not of a specific tribe, nation or religion. [For the Jews, all 3 were the same.] Jewish Law established extreme forms of behavior in areas of diet, marriage, rituals, dress, social protocols (such as oppressing mixed-Jewish people like the Samaritans), location-locking (God=Ark of Covenant=Jeruselum), and physical scars (circumcision). This visibly and socially separated them from other cultures and kept them distinct. [except from them hot Moabite women!]

 

The success of an archaeo-religion was the extent to which it distinguished THAT people over the centuries, and kept them separate and identifiable. The OT was probably the hands-down winner among all archaeo-scriptures in this regard.

 

The NT is a hodge-podge, not merely of "books" but of intentions. There is one "gospel" repeated four times by four authors. Gospels were an attempt at "mythologizing" -- creating a new variation on the super-man-god-redemption theme that other religions had been doing for 1500 years. What separates the NT gospels from all others was that the others allowed that their super-man-gods were myths, and the NT insisted that its was an historically real person.

 

The NT then has "The Acts" which was an attempt to record the early church history, specifically, the history of Paul. And then there are a bunch of Paul's letters, at least two of which are frauds. [Titus and I forget which the other one is--maybe Timothy II.]

The NT is predominately an attempt to create a religious "movement" based loosely on the teachings of Jesus--and keeping that movement "separate and distinct".

 

At this, Paul [who WAS a real historical person] was a total failure. By the time of his death or shortly thereafter, factionalism set in like multiple infections and would have destroyed christianity, had it not been for Emperor Constantine, who had a large fractious empire and came up with the idea that if he imposed one standard religion on all his people, it would help him hold his empire together. But he needed a specific kind of religion, something new, something patriarchal, something that could be centralized. He chose christianity and the rest is history.

 

Oh yes, and then there's The Revelations of John, which is a thing unto itself. Kind of like Nostradamus on drugs. Some call it prophesy, but historically, "prophecy" has always been a code-word for "unintelligible". :phones:

 

There are two basic problems with the NT. 1) The gospels are internally inconsistent. 2) The lack of unambiguous instructions. Whereas the OT has 100's of commands and laws and edicts, the NT has perhaps 2 dozen, and many of them seem rather insignificant, like having women wear head coverings. This hasn't stopped the Fundies, who manage to interpret "rules" into every gesture and comment the Apostles and Paul made. [Law by example]

 

But by and large, I would not say the principle message of the NT is the words of Jesus, but rather, the words of Paul. Paul never mentions the life of Jesus at all, and only rarely the words of Jesus. Paul has his own message, this is never fully or unambiguously spelled out. I believe that Paul was a great speaker in person, and never got around to codifying his spoken words on paper.

 

For almost two millenia, we've been trying to "guess" what the message and rules and rituals of the "early church" actually were. This "guessing game" consumes a huge fraction of the intellectual energy and time of the American population today.

 

Including you two! :hihi:

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

The NT was written because of Jesus, yet his teachings seem to have been pushed aside by those who wrote the NT. The NT misses the meaning behind his life.

 

You claim the jewish laws create extreme forms of behavior. Like what? How extreme was there behavior in reference to that time period? It seems unfair to be biased towards an ideology that was more civilized than any other during that time period, even if it is considered barbaric today.

 

And most of the early books of the bible were first handed down generation to generation by word of mouth, until finally written by moses. Baalishness doesn't exist because it was absorbed by other ideologies. Also, tribes existed well into the 20th century that had no written language, but practiced the same religion for centuries.

 

Religions evolve, but their principles stay the same. In fact, the error in religious beliefs spawn from the specifics that count out other possibilities. There can be multiple ideas that hold the same truths.

 

I do not try to guess what the early church wanted, because the church is not a representation of Jesus. The message is clear.

[Mike C]

To All

 

Rather than discuss the merits of the OT and the NT, I'll promote the religion that dominates our culture and economy in the US today.

 

It is the DOLLAR that is an absolute necessity in our modern world today.

Where the ancient religions had their animal representatives like the Egyptian sun god Ra that the hawk represented to the lion that the Jewish religion uses as its sun god representative.

 

So in our modern world (US), the reprentative for the dollar is the 'dog'. Our advertisings most always portray dogs as family members.

 

So I am concerned with the state of our country and economy here and now.

That is why I am criticizing the 'dollar chauvinists' in our country as a major problem and a byproduct of the OT.

 

Mike C

[Pyrotex]

Hello Dudes and Dudettes!!

 

May I be allowed to point out that this thread is, or was, to allow us to post our religious backgrounds. Let's keep that in mind, please.

[REASON]

I was raised a Methodist. My father is a retired Methodist Minister. My parents divorced when I was nine, and after that my involvement with the church became sporatic (mostly when I was with my father).

 

Through my own journey, I have come to identify my beliefs as Agnostic Humanist.

 

Hypography is one of the churches I currently attend. The congregation is great and I can always rely on finding a good message. :evil:

[eric l]

I was born and raised a Roman Catoholic (which is or was pretty much what you could expect in Beglium in those days), and might very well have become a priest or monk or brother in some congregation. But I never experienced the presence of God, like some have, and started reading more than just the schoolbooks about the church and its history.

Well, I even started wondering why the churches (plural intended) called themselves Christian if their New Testament put so much more importance on the words of Saint Paul than on the teachings of Jesus himself. (Just realizing that this would take me on the same sidetrack Pyorotex is complaing of)

So now I simply refuse to join any church or organized religious comunity. But I like to discus religious matters in private or in a very small circle. And I gladly assist to any celebration in any church, chapel, mosque, synagogue or temple if invited by a friend.

[Pyrotex]

...I do not try to guess what the early church wanted, because the church is not a representation of Jesus. The message is clear.

Of course it is, dear boy, of course it is. :)

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Eric, you may not feel blessed, but you bless others with your attitude towards other religions.

 

And hypography is definitly a wonderful congregation.

[Pyrotex]

...hypography is definitly a wonderful congregation.

Domini Domini Verbatum est decorum oreo.

 

You're all Hypographites, now. Blessings upon you. :eek_big: