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ORIGINAL: Rule

The returning does not have anything to do with the 'first principles'. The people of those days were barely above animal status in my opinion and would not recognize a moral concept if it lifted its hat to them.

And yet here this poster is blissfully assuming and asserting that those humans were moral beings. So I said: prove it.

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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

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ORIGINAL: Rule

The returning does not have anything to do with the 'first principles'. The people of those days were barely above animal status in my opinion and would not recognize a moral concept if it lifted its hat to them.

And yet here this poster is blissfully assuming and asserting that those humans were moral beings. So I said: prove it.

So you believe the Ancient Greeks who gave us concepts like democracy and philosophy were barely above animal status? How very interesting.

Moral concepts absolutely predate writings that are used as religious foundational texts. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand history very well. Long before the Bible ever existed people had concepts of morality.

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ORIGINAL: Apocalypso

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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux
Jesus simplified it - he said I give you two commandments: to love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your mind and all your strength. And the second is like it - love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is the whole of the law and the prophets.

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17 Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

18 For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

(Matthew 5:17-19 KJ21)

At the very least, I think the idea that Jesus was replacing the body of the law with two commandments is highly debatable.

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ORIGINAL: MrBukani

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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

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ORIGINAL: Rule

The returning does not have anything to do with the 'first principles'. The people of those days were barely above animal status in my opinion and would not recognize a moral concept if it lifted its hat to them.

And yet here this poster is blissfully assuming and asserting that those humans were moral beings. So I said: prove it.

So you believe the Ancient Greeks who gave us concepts like democracy and philosophy were barely above animal status? How very interesting.

Moral concepts absolutely predate writings that are used as religious foundational texts. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand history very well. Long before the Bible ever existed people had concepts of morality.

Sure they did, vikings had to hack and slash their way through pools of blood to enter walhalla.

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

And they went to Vallhalla, and not the town in North Dakota.

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ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr

I've been pondering the actual title of this thread and it's been gnawing at me.

The very word "liberal" without the current political connotation means free of established, traditional, orthodox or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas.

I am not sure that one can be a follower of a religion and still claim to be "liberal"; at least, not when you balance that with the fact that "following a religion" demands some rigidity (I think that's a word) of thought.

In other words; I'm not sure someone can be a "liberal Christian".

If we add in the political connotation of what the word has become, I'm not sure how someone who considers themselves a liberal could have any truck with any religious group; especially Christians since the liberals are constantly claiming that Christians are the enemy; evil, racist, mal-contents bent on ruining the world and starting wars in their wake.

I think it may be a matter of: "It's the other guys but it's not me".

In summation; I don't think liberal Christians hate the bible. I think Christians hate liberalism and liberals hate Christians (and the bible).



Peace and comfort,



Michael

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For those who think it is permissible to pick and choose according to one's personal sense of what the text of the Bible means, I only have this to say.

Then why can't I just ignore the part about "I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me."

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Noting all the dueling interpretations of the Bible, not to mention all the dueling editions (and the centuries in which most of the population couldn't even read it - hence the term The Great Speckled Bird), I always thought that the practices of the liberal part of Quakerism made an internal sense.

Their idea of Bible study is for everyone to bring their own different copy, and go around the room reading in turn. Thus, while you are hearing the words of the person across from you, your eyes are matching them up to what is in your lap... sometimes with significant differences.

After that, instead of paying some potential pederast to tell the flock what it means, they communally share silence in order to receive whatever divine light may come to them.

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Read 'The Gathered Meeting' by Thomas R. Kelly.

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ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess

FR

For those who think it is permissible to pick and choose according to one's personal sense of what the text of the Bible means, I only have this to say.

Then why can't I just ignore the part about "I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me."

If one can use the cafeteria approach, and the approach is considered personal to the individual then why do Christians tell me my soul is doomed if I reject the Christian god or place other gods before the Christian god? If we can pick and choose then why is NOT a legitimate choice to say I pick a different god (but follow other teachings of the Bible OR I pick NO god, but follow other teachings of the Bible.) NEITHER of the options I present is a legitimate option under ANY Christian church of ANY denomination. So there is NO concept of personal interpretation of the Bible because at the end of the day, the various Christian positions still maintain that you MUST believe in the Christian god. There is NO option in Christianity for NO belief in god but just leading a moral life.

Again, someone explain to me why picking and choosing some things and rejecting other things from this text is permissible, but picking and choosing other things and rejecting other things is NOT. Who gets to decide this? And if it not upto the individual then who is the ultimate arbiter? And why should they be the ultimate arbiter? And someone explain to me (yes, I've asked before, but no one has yet to give me a legitimate answer) why belief in god in general, or in a particular god, is necessary in order to lead a moral life?

Surely people are not arguing that only through belief in a Christian god (vs. a god of another religion, or NO god at all) can one lead a moral life. And if people are NOT saying that, then does this not mean there can absolutely be different interpretations of the idea of "god" including the absence of "god"? We don't need god to be moral. Is it not more altruistic to do the right thing simply because one believes it to be better than to do the right thing because one thinks one will be "rewarded" by the being known as "god" for having followed the rules? I give to charity not because the Bible or any religious text says that I should in order to save my soul. I don't believe in an after-life or "rewards" in the after life for good behavior. I behave kindly to people in the here and now because it is the humane thing to do. Period. I don't need to believe in a god or the teachings of a god to be a humane person. So then what, exactly, does the concept of "god" add to my personal existence? And why am I not free to interpret "god" right out of every religious text.....

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

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Seems to me that if you want to *be* a Christian you have to follow Christian beliefs - you don't really get to pick and choose the convenient bits and the non convenient bits.

Folks say that a lot, and I always think "Why not? Because someone else feels qualified to decide what my religious heritage should mean to me?"

Anyone familiar with the history of Christianity knows that "picking and choosing"--or discerning and weighing, to use verbs that capture the heft of the work involved--has been part of the religion's evolution from the beginning. A few examples:

-- Right from the start, the Bible clues savvy readers in to the need for thought and discernment: The Priestly creation account of Genesis 1 gives way to the much older Jahwist (I think) story in Genesis 2, which unfolds in a different order. They cannot both be literally true.

-- There were fierce debates in the early church about whether gentile converts to Christianity had to become Jews first.

-- At some point, someone or ones had to decide which gospels, epistles, and such were canonical. Even today, Catholic Bibles include books that Protestants don't entirely accept.

-- A question that may seem elementary today (the divinity of Christ) took centuries and the Council of Nicea, called by Constantine after he'd grown tired of the theological squabbles, to resolve. Gregory of Nyssa famously noted the extent of the debate: "Ask a man for change, he philosophises on the Begotten and the Unbegotten; ask the price of bread, you are told 'the Father is greater, the Son inferior;' ask if the bath is ready, they say the Son is made from nothing."

-- Other parts of the creed came even later. The filioque took a millennium to win papal approval, and the Orthodox churches still reject it.

-- The Reformation splintered western Christendom into dozens, perhaps hundreds, of denominations and sects.

-- Christianity itself (if it even exists as a single entity) assigns different weights to different teachings. Murder's pretty universally taken as a grave sin. Eating fish on Friday (even before Vatican II), not so much.

I see two ways of looking at this "picking and choosing":

(a) Conservative popes and curialists--and, I've noticed, some atheists--bewail the spread of "cafeteria Christianity."

(b) I prefer the classic elephant parable, in which blind men touch different parts of the great gray beast and come away with vastly different impressions of it. I think those of us attempting a Christian path have the inescapable challenge, both historically and individually, of listening wisely and modestly to one another, of drawing (to borrow from Anglican theology) on scripture, tradition, and reason; of reworking our images of "the elephant" as we learn more; and walking humbly and lovingly, as best we can, with our God.

ETA: The Book of Common Prayer does a good job of briefly expressing what I'd see as a liberal Christian approach to scripture: "Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for
our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life...."

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux

Given that the God described is honest, true and good...

That in itself take a lot of picking and choosing.

K.

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Given that there is a Christian God

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While every man should honestly seek God - and quest for a personal understanding - it is not a wise choice to summarily discard the work that other people have already done.

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Secondly, churches do more than teach. The community of believers exhort each other, support each other and encourage each other in the faith. Forming your own church of bob deprives you of these resources.

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Pax