Christian Nationalism; The Right-wing Addiction

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(07-11-2022, 12:15 AM)Lucidus Wrote: My issue isn't with the religious belief in and of itself. People have the right to believe anything they wish, even when it can't be verified to be true. People should be free to believe in any god or and any religion, and they should be able to live their own lives according to that belief.

The problem is when those same people want to impose that belief on others; desiring laws and policies that are based on affirmations of interpretations of recollections of assertions made on ancient parchments.  

I wonder how much "respect" Christians would have if Islam ascended to a position of power and influence within American politics; openly advocating for legislation that's in adherence with Allah, the Quran and Sharia?

Bingo: as I have been saying for a while now, religion (especially the Catholic Faith, as it is what I am most-familiar with), is inherently a FANTASTIC thing: there is a shit-ton of wisdom in the pages of the Bible (mainly Old Testament) and a bunch of lessons and morals are conveyed, that are UNIVERSAL, whether based in religion, nature, etc.

It's when assholes (ie: Americans that have destroyed and distorted the words in a book) insert their own selfish beliefs/interpretations and all that great stuff, to take advantage and manipulate people, is where religion gets a bad rap: that's not the fault of what the religion stands for, that's the fault of selfish human beings (and yes, I realise the hypocrisy of a religion created to control people, being an, "innocent thing," in this case).

But of course, like *everything* on the planet, nothing is black and white when it comes to morals, laws (except laws of nature and science; those are infallible), thus a book, written by men, where things have been passed on verbally, should be taken contextually, a stance that Catholicism has taken since many years before I was born. When read contextually, the Bible is an awesome book, full of great stories, lots of wisdom and a huge cast of characters that reflect everyday humans that you come across in your daily life (I mean, maybe not Kings and leaders of nations, but you get my drift).

And yes, I am FULLY aware of the MANY serious and awful transgressions that members of the Catholic Church have done in the many centuries since the religion's inception... but again, these are men inserting their own selfish goals and desires and using a book as their reasoning; God or any other entity in the Canon did not explicitly state that the crusades were to happen, for example.

TL;DR: religion isn't bad, man is bad.

(07-11-2022, 01:10 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Churches have changed in the last 20 years. Don't let the extremists ruin the work that many others have gone thru


There is definitely some stories in the Bible that have roots based on true stories.
How true is anyone's guess. 

Kinda hard to say the Flood didn't happen, when cultures all around the world have references to it in their history. 
Just like cities being destroyed from Fires raining down from the skies, earthquakes, it has been proven that some of those cites lived along faultlines, near volcanoes, or even Meteorites falling from the skies. Cities abandoned because of droughts. These things all happened. No denying any of that from a scientific stance. I think alot of it was man not understanding WHY those things happened, so just easier to say the God(s) were punishing us.

After that, the stories are left open to interpretation. Four of us might read the same story and likely come away with four different interpretations.
As far as what Jesus/God thinks? we will likely never know, best i take away from all of it, is be kind and treat everyone respectfully and live a good life and be true to yourself and others. Anything else you take away from it, likely is what some MAN's interpretation is of some story. Guess there is only one true way to know the answers for sure, but i'm not in a big hurry to find out.

Hence the need to take things contextually; Samson (if he did exist) did NOT push down two pillars and crushed all of the Philistines; it's an allegorical way of teaching you that if you do stupid shit and allow demons (ie: Delilah) to overcome you, it can be your ruin and downfall and that redemption may come at the cost of your life.

Or the Ark; whether or not EVERY creature was put on and all that jazz (which we know is kinda, almost impossible), the story is clearly meant to state the same thing as above: if things are craptastic and there's no way of undoing all of the shit that has happened, one way to right everything is to start anew: FLOOD your current life and WASH AWAY all of the bad shit and then once you have weathered the fallout from doing it, you should come out on the other side with a fresh, new perspective on things and be able to start anew.

Context, meaning, morals; that's what the Bible should be read as, not followed word for word and adhered to, word for word.