Simple question?

Quote: Nareed

I'll use just one illustration:

Emperor Justinian famously survived a massive revolt in his own capital (the Nica riots) by employing rather brutal means. He's remembered also because he built the Hagia Sophia church, and he also ordered a compendium of all of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, which was a cornerstone of Western law for a very long time.

One of his lesser known acts was to order all Jews in the Byzantine empire to use the Septuagint in their liturgy. What is the Septuagint? It's a Greek translation of the Bible (more precisely the Old Testament) from the traditional Hebrew. It's called Septuagint because it took, allegedly, 70 rabbis to do this massive work.

Now, why would Justinian care what language Jews used in their prayers? Because he thought by making them use Greek rather than Hebrew, they'd more easily come around to Christianity.

So here's this man doing unto others. More specifically, he's forbidding loyal citizens of the Empire from choosing how to practice their religion, and inducing them to ultimately betray their faith for another one.

This is not quite as brutal as ordering troops into a closed stadium to massacre the rioters gathered there, but the purpose and intent is as bad.

To be sure he could have done worse. And given what Jews suffered under "Christian love" for the following 1600 years, Justinian's actions were so mild as to hardly be worth notice. But in the time and context, they were pretty bad.

This illustration should fall under the, 'its a nice story if only it were true' category. The Septuagint (LXX) was composed around the 3rd Century BC and was in common use among Jews throughout the Middle East for centuries before Justinian. It was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and it widely attested to. It is true that after Christianity came into existence some Jews started to distrust it because of its shared language with this new religion and its writings. There were also some mistakes found in the LXX translation. So I trust Nareed's history that indeed Justinian ordered everyone to use the LXX but it was not as if the Jews in the Byzantine Empire did not know Greek or did not know of or some already were using the LXX.

Quote: FrGamble

Oh, how I wish for the sake of women's health and dignity we did indeed have no need for the pill, IUDs or Norplant.

You could sue "God" and demand he plant in pheromones and a mating season. That way human sex would be reduced to the animal status desired by the church: for reproductive purposes only. The rest of the time, humans would have no desire nor need for sex.

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Check the tape I did no such thing.

I'll find it.

Quote: FrGamble

Are you purposely trying to be confusing? You write this line as if I said that explicitly verse 1 is 'just opinion'. You also seem to be suggesting that 'just an opinion' of one of the greatest apostles and the best evangelist the Church has ever known should be just dismissed as unimportant.

So, are we supposed to follow the advice in the bible, or not? the advice of one of the greatest apostles is to not touch women. clearly this isn't what the church now teaches, and this advice contradicts other advice elsewhere in the bible, or other lessons.

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Or it is a case of someone who really doesn't know Scripture and trying very hard to force certain passages to say and prove what they desperately want to show.

I am not desperate at all. I'm trying to show the logic behind why some atheists don't believe in god. the bible is not inerrant, and it is contradictory and inconsistent. if the bible is imperfect, it isn't the word of god which is perfect, which leads us to the bible not being the word of god, and the bible says god is real, but the bible isn't perfect, so is god real?

The explanations for the inconsistencies are really unsatisfying - I've attached one below.

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Absolutely not true. Every time Paul speaks of wives he also talks about the duties of a husband. He is always harder on the husband by the way.

I wasn't talking about just Paul, I was talking about all of the other places in the bible where it tells women to submit to their men, as men are the head of the family.
http://christianthinktank.com/not2obey.html
look at the twisting of logic and words on that page to try to change the meaning of what 'head of the family' means.
these other passages don't have equal wife to husband as husband to wife sorts of passages, they have different things listed, unequal things.
this contradicts paul's writing of husband and wife as equals.
by the way, the 'wife submit to your husbands' movement among christians is still alive, so clearly they are also disregarding the advice of Paul.

Quote: FrGamble

I appreciate it about as much as you appreciate what I am trying to do.

All human lives are inherently valuable. It's horrifying to see them wasted on the service of false beliefs and even worse than false prejudices. Should I not try to prevent this? It's not just religion. You don't see it here, but I also advocate against things like astrology, numerology, superstition, quack treatments and so on. Religion is just one of these things.

If anything, your refusal to even recognize you have a problem is the clearest indication you are suffering and badly need help. Of course, you're not the only one. We should pass laws forbidding the unnatural practice of celibacy for religious reason (for non-religious reasons it's ok). We should also allow all civil institutions to refuse service to Christians and especially to Christian churches on First Amendment grounds. After all, being forced to provide a service or goods would involve people in the practice of Christianity, and that's just wrong.

In particular we e should forbid Christians from using the terms "religion" and "Bible." I mean, the way they practice it's a cult of personality to Jesus, and the Bible should refer only tot he true word of the ONE true God, Jehovah, what Christians call the "Old" Testament.

What would it take for you to realize your false beliefs and practices hurts not only others but most of all yourself? Do you have to carry this delusion to the end, literally to the grave, in order to know this? Wouldn't your rather enjoy your life here on this world, the only life you'll ever have?

Are you beginning to feel loved and accepted yet??

All of what I wrote above is completely contrary to my own position and beliefs. Oh, I think it's terrible to waste one's life on the service of religion, but it's your choice to do so and none of my business to convince you otherwise.

I limit myself to advocating against the worse effects of religion (which is hard because there are so many of them), and to confront religious people with the consequences of their practices (again, too many bad consequences). and I call it war because that's what it is. My intent is to destroy religion as an intellectual force. I know I can't achieve this end, which is why I'm not dedicating my life to it. But I can chip away at religion.

Quote: FrGamble

This illustration should fall under the, 'its a nice story if only it were true' category.

Yes, well, I suppose it's possible that aliens were the ones who built the Hagia Sophia. I mean, the sheer colossal size of the edifice is well beyond the technology of iron age primitives.

Seriously, have you noticed all the "aliens built this ancient monumental building" is almost exclusively applied to non-European peoples? To the Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Maya, etc. Rarely or never to Rome, Greece or Byzantium.

Now, is it your contention that Justinian did not "suggest" Jews use the Septuagint exclusively in their prayer services?

As to languages in an empire, it's complicated. Government officials (meaning the rich) and merchants would know the official language to some degree. How large a degree depended on many factors and varied widely. For example, a merchant in Judea might know whatever language the Arabs of the time used than he knew Greek. He'd deal with the Arab merchants more than with Byzantine officials. Most other people in a province might know bits and pieces of the official language, but wouldn't speak it fluently and the vast majority would be unable to read it (or their own native tongue for that matter).

I suppose, then, the Septuagint might have been popular among Jews living in Constantinople and the other highly Greek areas of the empire, but not in Judea, Egypt, Syria, etc. Those living in the old European Roman provinces would be far more likely to speak Latin than Greek, too.

Quote: Nareed

All of what I wrote above is completely contrary to my own position and beliefs. Oh, I think it's terrible to waste one's life on the service of religion, but it's your choice to do so and none of my business to convince you otherwise.

I limit myself to advocating against the worse effects of religion (which is hard because there are so many of them), and to confront religious people with the consequences of their practices (again, too many bad consequences). and I call it war because that's what it is. My intent is to destroy religion as an intellectual force. I know I can't achieve this end, which is why I'm not dedicating my life to it. But I can chip away at religion.

I too realize that I cannot achieve the end I desire, which is why I need to humbly bow out of our discussions on these issues. You are not open to really look at these issues and I don't blame you. With only dead words on a computer screen I have no chance to adequately demonstrate my deep concern and care for you, not by arguments or debate, but by friendship. I leave it to those who God might put into your life who can make real the love of God in ways I simply cannot do siting here at my desk.

Quote: FrGamble

You are not open to really look at these issues and I don't blame you. With only dead words on a computer screen I have no chance to adequately demonstrate my deep concern and care for you, not by arguments or debate, but by friendship.

<roll-eyes>

It's been a long time since I've been opened to accept oppression, no matter what guise it might show up in, and no matter who might be peddling it.

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I leave it to those who God might put into your life who can make real the love of God in ways I simply cannot do siting here at my desk.

What have they ever done to you? :)

Quote: FrGamble

The challenges to our first and foundational freedom are quite new and I don't know examples in our history when these concerns of yours materialized. This sounds a little like fear mongering to me.

Do you know a system that has not been and cannot be gamed?

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They are not discriminating

Yes, they are.

You'd be singing a different tune if it were an adoption agency that excluded Catholics, because all things being equal, non-Catholics make better parents.

The thing is that discrimination and prejudice against Catholics in the US is no longer respectable, while that against LGBT still is.

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No I mean what I said. Do you have any idea how many couples of a man and woman desire to adopt children?

So a same sex couple going to a Catholic adoption agency would be placed in a waiting line and their application judged squarely on their fitness and not on the fact of what types of genitals make up the couple? Or would they be summarily rejected?

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I do not want to downgrade same sex unions, I want to give them equal status under the law.

You do know that in all 50 states they do have the same equal status under the law now, don't you?

You just seem massively unhappy about this.

Quote: FrGamble

Thanks again.

You're welcome still.

Quote: FrG

First of all I think we have to be careful and tone down the rhetoric about the Church and the history of Christianity. Millennia of oppression, violence, and evil is an outrageous exaggeration.

But we don't, and it's not.

I think I'm a forgiving person, and one who understands a lot when it comes to being the victim of hate or violence. But I'm not a bullshitter. Never have been. What I enjoy most of all, what I respect most of all, is brutal honesty. I try to always admit when I am wrong, even if what I'm wrong about is something passionate. I recently got into one of these situations with terapined when I snap came to the defense of the Oregon crew. Standing up against the Feds, using the 2nd Amendment, hell yeah I was on their side. Didn't take but two posts before I started getting enough of a picture that, hey, what you're defending ain't all that cool. So I flipped. Why? Have to. It's what's right.

What I HATE is when people try to justify wrong. It doesn't matter how many faced the guillotine in France, it doesn't matter how many the Iroquois made walk the torture tree. That's them, and they will face their own judgement. I don't see at all how it excuses anything the church did, or why they're even brought in to compare. The church did some evil, dastardly things. Nothing can change that.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the church should still be browbeaten over stuff that happened a thousand years ago. The other half of me is German, pretty sure Nareed has no ill feelings towards me because my heritage did some really sh!tty things last century. But, BUT,... man, the church claims to be so much better. It is supposed to be the pinnacle of all that is good. It is supposed to be a shinning beacon in a world of darkness. When you place yourself upon such a high pedestal, you lose a lot of wiggle room. I could go out right now and f#$% up a bunch of people at my local bar. Not many will care. But if I was a cop and did the same, they'd have my head on a stake. Why? Because I am supposed to be above that. I have placed myself in a position of unwavering good, and I did evil. That stings more. I might only do it once, but that once will follow me forever because of who and what I was supposed to be. And that's why "not as bad" holds no water.

Quote: FrG

I had to laugh a little bit when you called me a liberal priest. It is a sad state of affairs and the work of the devil that the message of the Jesus and the Church has been so poorly taught to people or twisted by the media and others that you would think that I am saying anything that any Catholic and any Christian would or should tell you.

It's not that, though. Yes, I have had bad experiences with the children of God. Being told at the age of 7 that me and my whole family was going to burn because I committed the terrible sin of Trick or Treating certainly was an evil act, and I still remember those nightmares these 28 years later. But my post that caused this comment wasn't about twisted members or sly media. It comes right from your book. Mathew 10:33. It says clearly, concisely, and right to the point that if I deny Jesus, he'll deny me before God. And I do deny the Jesus, at least as anything more than a mortal philosopher. That's why I had such a shock when you told me what you did. I actually briefly looked to see if there were different flavors of Catholicism after that comment, because I had no idea what you were on lol.

Really,... sure, I've had bad God experiences by what you would call confused or mistaken members of your flock. But the foundation, the very beginning of my atheism, started just like this. It started just like Dalex's posts, and I really wish I could get everyone to shut up and just have you answer his queries for like a month straight lol. There are so, so many inconsistencies, so many contradictions, so many things that cannot be glossed over by calling them allegory or parable. They're just impossible to be true. It's a complete breakdown of very simple logic. And that was entirely my beginning in atheism. Even at 7yrs old, I saw it as a story no realer than Santa. 14-16, it really took off. This, that, the other, they make no sense, they do not compute, CANNOT compute. I am dying to know how you get passed that. I know it comes off as an insult, and most people can't look past the insult to see the message, but all I can say is it seems like willful ignorance. That you know it can't be right, but you want so badly for it to be right that you just ignore it.

I can't think of any other reason, and I am dying to know how you get passed that.

Quote: Face

It doesn't necessarily mean that the church should still be browbeaten over stuff that happened a thousand years ago. The other half of me is German, pretty sure Nareed has no ill feelings towards me because my heritage did some really sh!tty things last century.

I've never judged anyone by what their ancestors did.

Germany, now, did something rather unusual after WWI: it allowed a full account to be made of all the atrocities, war crimes, crimes against humanity, etc. committed by the Nazis, and explicitly regretted them. It then paid reparations, including a great deal of money and supplies which wound up in the nascent state of Israel.

When the church does this, we can begin to move on.