Religion and sexuality

[Pure]

Hi 'she'

Summer Morning said: "The hebrew original, on which the evangelists and Paul based their writings, describes her {Mary}with a word that can be translated as both "young girl" and "virgin". The Greek translation of the bible, the Septuagint, kept "virgin" - the pretty virgo of the Vulgata."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You said,

Whoa. Now, that's interesting. If the original writer really did intend to say "a young girl," he'd be a bit frazzled to see that a slight misinterpretation resulted in a cult of the Virgin that has irrevocably altered that way Christ and his humanity are perceived, and that has also cursed the New Testament with some credibility issues that it might not deserve.

Can you recommend a good layperson resource that gives some non-"faith-based" background on the Old and New Testaments? I've always been curious about how accurately the King James Bible reflected the collection of translated and re-translated writings upon which it was based...And who decided which books were "apocryphal" and shouldn't be included? Did King James get the final word on whether Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, or was that already decided?

Yes the original writer, (like most Jews now), would be stunned about the virgin cult.

There are a number of books of Bible and church history if you are really interested. Depending how scholarly you want to read.

Incidentally it's interesting that, based on what's in their Biblical 'books', neither Paul nor John (as in Gospel) seem to be aware of the Virgin Birth concept. It seems to have evolved.

J.

 

[Pure]

Hi Dirty Slut,

Keep up the good postings. I tend to agree that Jesus' teaching were not particularly focussed on sex (rules and issues), or on the concept of sex as evil.** It seems to be a pre occupation of a number of later self-said Christians, and endlessly harped on and manipulated by self-said evangelists for the last hundred years or so.

Since he did keep company with prostitutes (and other 'marginal' figures) he cannot have had a bee in his bonnet about sexual evil.

This fact would not be that surprising, since Jesus was obvously familiar with the Torah. While the adultery issue is there, the 'fornication' issue is not primary. Nor is sex held to be other than natural and necessary.

J.

**I see only five refs to 'fornication' in the Gospels, and allowing for overlap, there are, aside from the ground-of-divorce issue (Mt 5:32), only a one or two sayings about fornication; the main one being at Mark 7:21, repeated in Matthew 15:19.

//For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride and foolishness....// RV Mk 7:21

It cannot be said that sex, aside from adultery, occupies the main or most prominent place on that list.

 

[Guest]

Here’s some input from a Catholic or two. Me, I was born into a Catholic family and culture (Mexican). The Mexican part saved me from the Puritanism of this country, also from the American Catholicism of my times. I did not attend Catholic schools until the sixth grade at age 11 (makes a huge difference in one’s formation).

The excerpts below are the current mainstream thinking of “liberal” Catholics who are more prolific in the states than elsewhere. I myself am fed up with the institutional Church (Rome, the pope and his minions). The only thing that keeps me attending any organized service is the sense of community of like-minded Catholics. I go to the SF parish that is dominated by gay and lesbian members. The AIDS crisis brought this parish together as a true Christian-Catholic community that serves the people, and the surrounding community. It is the Catholic Church of my ideals. According to the “Constitution” of the Catholic Church, the church is “the people of God”, not its dogma or institutionalization. This was declared and accepted as official at the second Vatican council in the mid-sixties. Since then, and more so now, the Roman curia (the old men who really run the RCC) have been fighting against this reality. JP2 is the very worst kind of autocrat/dictator. At this point in his too long career I don’t know how long it will take to recover from his “reign”. My only faith is in the “people of God”.

Robert Kaiser has been covering the Vatican for Time and Newsweek since Vatican II. He and others have a website for liberal Catholics wherein he posts his “Rome Diaries”, the latest news on the goings on at the Vatican. He’s somewhat like a specialized gossip columnist with all the right contacts. These excerpts are telling re. the current very real politics and issues in the RCC. (url at end)

<<
They also see a much more radical need: for the official Church to get beyond what A.W. Richard Sipe calls "a pre-Copernican stage of understanding regarding human sexuality" based as it is "on a patently false anthropology that renders magisterial pronouncements noncredible."
,,,
The official Church, says Sipe, cannot recognize and celebrate healthy sexuality or, in the case of seminarians and priests, cannot even talk about it as a good that can be "joyfully and voluntarily renounced." Sipe is a former Benedictine monk and a psychiatrist who has written as much about sex and the priesthood as any man alive. He has seen a good many troubled priests. And he knows why they are troubled.

They suffer from something that the Redemptorist Bernard Haring, one of the 20th century's most admired moral theologians, called an "ecclesiogenic pathology." Which means that the system itself is making some priests ill – not to mention those of us who keep listening to spokesmen for that system.

What spokesmen? Well, for instance, Pope John Paul II. The world has admired him for speaking out against institutional evils outside the Church. In a talk on November 17 to the bishops of Madras-Mylapore, Madurai and Pondicherry-Cuddalore, for example, he inveighed against the caste system in India. But he pays no attention to the caste system in his own Church, the self-protecting club of celibate males. And he, too, is caught up in denial about what the Church has done to its priests (not to mention many of us) with its pre-Copernican teaching on sexual morality.

The pope could launch a thoroughgoing re-evaluation of the Church's pathogenic system. Not only has he failed to do that; he has intimidated others who'd like to do so.

At the Synod on the Family in 1980, he blew up when San Francisco's Archbishop John Quinn suggested that the Church revisit its teaching on birth control – and forced him to make a public retraction. Through the years, he has had numerous theologians disciplined for their attempts to do some new moral reasoning on a host of sexual issues. And in late September of this year he clobbered the newly nominated Cardinal Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien, the archbishop of Edinburgh and St. Andrews in Scotland, for telling the press he welcomed a Church debate on contraception and promising that he would continue to speak out on other sexual issues that hadn't gotten enough of a public airing in the Church, including homosexuality and priestly celibacy.
…
Birth control is not an issue for most American Catholics. At one time, before Vatican II and before the deliberations of the papal birth control commission were leaked to the world, we did take Church teaching on this question rather seriously. But after a huge public debate in the 1960s about birth control, good Catholics realized that Church teaching on this issue was skewed. It created untold hardship on families, particularly on good Catholic moms and dads who feared making love because they couldn't chance having another mouth to feed. It made them a little crazy – another example of Sipe's "ecclesiogenic pathology." When Paul VI turned aside his own commission's recommendations to change the Church's teaching (which had been leaked to the press by the late Gary MacEoin) and signed the encyclical Humanae Vitae, it was almost universally rejected, and not only by lay folks.

A third of the world's bishops issued their own highly nuanced statements that added up to one thing: their people should continue to make love, even if they had to take some measures to prevent having another baby. Some went even further, saying, with the commission members, that couples who had good reasons not to make a baby had a duty to use the most efficacious means to prevent that from happening. And not stop making love to each other.
…
This move did nothing to shore up the bishops' dwindling moral authority. They have come down hard against a practical conscience-decision – it is not a faith issue at all; I put it in the category of sexual politics – that has already been made by 85 percent of the Catholic couples in the land. By doing that, they lose whatever little credibility they have left on a host of other moral issues, This move compels many to say, "If the bishops can be so wrong about birth control, what makes anyone think they can be right on any other moral issue?"

Right now, California's Catholic bishops have a case before the state supreme court, asking that their employees be exempt from a state law that says health insurance plans must authorize prescription contraceptives as part of their coverage. The bishops are maintaining this rule puts people who work for the Church in a conflict situation, because artificial forms of birth control are banned by the Church.

Whose Church? The bishops' Church? Or the peoples' Church? Their people – who decided long ago to exile the pope from their bedrooms – simply ignore their silly bans. Can the bishops be so stupid – not to know that? I think they do know. I suspect they simply want to be able to tell Rome they are following the pope's orders. If so, they are forgetting their role as bishops – not to serve the pope, but to serve the people.
>>

Rome Diary - Dec. 2003

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Aesthteics of prime importance

Within the last year I became more acutely aware of something I’ve known for years, but have taken for granted: the fact that North American society is tainted with puritanical ideals. Since I was never a supporter of those ideals I lived for about forty years in North America without realising how profoundly they were effecting my life. I’m a politically radical person; a Marxist who endorses some forms of socialism merely because they are more socially acceptable than anarchy. I’m angry over the fact that right wing religious extremists have, in my view, completely hijacked the economic and cultural life of the entire continent, and I was looking for a way to fight back.

Since the control exerted by the right wingers includes a strangle hold on the media, there seemed little point in writing essays of social criticism, because they would never be published. It occurred to me, however, that the only reason others tolerate bullying by rightist leaders is because they, the people, have low expectations from life. They are convinced they don’t deserve better quality homes; more nutritious food; a night at the proverbial opera etc. Puritanical austerity has been made next to Godliness in their lives. So whenever people ask for something, whether it’s better road maintenance or more facilities to express themselves creatively, they are simply told that the economy won’t stand it, as though the economics of merchant capitalism are on a par with God’s laws and are always above question. I decided from there, that the most subversive thing I could do to fight back would be to write things that celebrate a more opulent lifestyle for everyone, in which the appreciation of the material world is more irrevocably linked to our spiritual fulfillment.

Talk about a sexy mind!

Some people don't realize this- and just refuse to see it when it's pointed out to them. But for those who do, we realize that it doesn't matter if you are religious or not- society is effected by these ideals. And although we claim that sex is good *in the right context* we still have many unhealthy and even puritanical ideas about it. Never will this be clearer than when you try to explain 'the birds and the bees' to your children. If it's so good and healthy, if society doesn't place it in a negative and 'dirty' light, something diferent and seperate from the rest of our lives- then why is it so hard to discuss it with our children? *Why* are we uncomfortable, when we *know* that it is natural and healthy? *Why* is it harder to discuss than grades or war or money?

On the topic of how many 'Christianitys' their are- there *are* more than one- many more- but each one thinks (believes whole heartedly,) they theirs is the one true faith- the one true christianity. And tho many christians think that "there" definition of what makes them christian define what a christian is, many denominations and sects do consider thenselves to be christian and don't believe what another christian considers to be a basic tenent. Many for instance *dont* believe in the trinity, or *don't* believe in 'original sin' or don't believe any number of particular things. I have a Catholic friend and she doesnt' believe that you need to be 'saved' the way that protostants do, Catholics aren't 'saved' (and they are not 'born again') they have a completely diferent 'system.' So one christian may say that being a christian means being saved or being born again, yet a catholic is a christian who would say that being a christian means something else.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Religion and sexuality

If there is a God, that's got to be one of the thousands of times a day when he puts his head in his hands and goes, "No, no, no, no...What is it with you people and your genitalia, anyway? I thought you'd like those parts."

Amen!

 

[sweetnpetite]

Anyone interested in these topics, sexuality, religion, control, religious history should read "The Da Vinci Code." It's a fictional novel, but it's packed with information. I just finished it, and no matter what you might have heard about it, it is an excellent book, no matter what you POV is religiously. I've just finished reading it, and I'm off to start a thread about it.

Bye now.

 

[shereads]

Incidentally it's interesting that, based on what's in their Biblical 'books', neither Paul nor John (as in Gospel) seem to be aware of the Virgin Birth concept. It seems to have evolved.

In fact, you can see how it may have evolved in a scene from Python's "Life of Brian," when the crowd who've mistaken Brian for the Messiah begin questioning his mom (Terry Jones in hideous drag).

"Are you by any chance a virgin?"

"What? Am I a virgin?! Well that's personal, isn't it!"

Crowd murmurs in agreement: "She's a virgin." "Yes, definitely." "Virgin."

 

[Gary Chambers]

Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

SaidieRose,

I tend to describe myself as an agnostic. For the record I was christened Church of England, then I was exposed to a number of uniquely Canadian churches (the Church of Mary Kaye; the Gospel Brethren of V8 Pickup Trucks, The Fellowship of Frozen Ballocks etc.). I also spent about a year in Catholic school, and by my mid to late teens agnosticism was setting in. About five years ago while living in the Bible belt, I took an interest in the Baha’i faith and ended up acquiring a membership card which I still carry, although I do not call myself a practising Baha’i. I came under more authoritarian pressure to attend services during a stint in the army than I did as a boy at home. I tried to wiggle out of it in the army too, by selecting a religion for which there was no priest on the base. I was told in that case I could practise the humility of a Budhist monk by staying behind and washing the barrack room floor. So I attented some Christian services as a soldier too, although in retrospect I think washing the floor may have been a more memorable religious experience.

Shereads,

Regarding Jesus’ celibacy, a friend popped in last night and we discussed this thread. He told me that he believes Mary Magdelene was Jesus’ wife and I told him I’m inclined to agree, but asked what evidence he had to support the theory, other than plain common sense. He told me there is chapter and verse in which Jesus and Mary Magdelene attend a wedding in Galilee and his mother was organising the celebration. He pointed out that at that time it was traditional for Hebrew mothers to organise weddings for their sons. So he concludes Jesus and Mary Magdelene were actually attending their own wedding. I have no problem with it. I’ve long felt they were probably lovers, so marriage hardly seems out of the question.

The issue of the virgin birth was settled for me when I read the Infancy Gospels, which I think are part of the Apocrypha. They explain that in those times, young women were sent into the temple as they came of age, to live with the priests until they were betrothed to a husband. When Mary was brought out of the temple for betrothal, no man wanted her, so the priests forced her upon Joseph who objected because it would make him a laughing stock. From this I conclude that she may have come out of the temple pregnant, possibly having been deflowered and impregnated by a priest.

Perdita,

Though I’m not much of an adherent to any particular religion, I must confess a sneaking regard for the old Christian churches: Catholic, Anglican, C. of E., Lutheran etc. There’s something about talking to a priest who has attended a seminary, perhaps holds a degree in theology, or has some similar distinguishing quality, that inspires a level of respect if not confidence. Three months at Bible camp and a dip in someone’s irrigation canal does not seem a sufficient qualification to advise others on their status vis-a-vis eternity.

I’m also a bit worried about the level of unrest among American Catholics. If J2 is given the shove, it might open the door for a Pope Jerry Fallwell campaign. We’re better off with the devil we know, non?

 

[Guest]

Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

Gary, I've been fortunate to know real priests, true servants of the people, mostly Jesuits but for a couple in my youth who served the poor Mexican community in Detroit. More than a couple priests I count as friends are among the best men I know.

As for the unrest among U.S. Catholics I welcome it, but I am too ambivalent to join the ranks that are working for change. There are books and much literature available on who might be the next pope (Kaiser's diaries provide much info). I would hope for another John XXIII, one of my true heroes, but even someone with only a fraction of his humility, intelligence and generosity of spirit would be good. On the other hand, if the RCC gets another right-wing head it might just cause hell or heaven to break loose. It would be messy but I put my faith in the people.

Re. the virginity of Mary there are a great many, including theologians, who recognize it as myth and more to do with patriarchal oppression. There is a world history of virgin births of gods from the Egyptians to the Chinese to the Aztecs. It's too prevalent a foundation for patriarchy and politics.

Perdita

 

[shereads]

Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

Three months at Bible camp and a dip in someone’s irrigation canal does not seem a sufficient qualification to advise others on their status vis-a-vis eternity.

Uber-ROFL. Mega-LOL.

I will fight Gauche to the death for the right to become your personal bitch.* Maybe because I spent my earliest years far from the Bible camp crowd, by the time I got there I was capable of feeling contempt for the canal dippers - but still too young to deal with the awful reality that I was alone in my contempt and must keep it a secret at all costs.

GC, it's been several decades since the Baptist Church force-fed my soul on grape juice and saltine crackers, and until I laughed out loud at your one-line summary of that world, I didn't realize just how lonely an experience it was. Thank you for understanding why I disdain my Bible Belt roots. Now if someone could help me stop tripping over them.

The Bible Belt has a wet foot/dry foot policy: Baptists, in the part of the U.S. where I lived among them, get the full-immersion dip; Methodists get sprinkled, which would at least have been less embarrassing at age 10 than wearing the Cannon Mills 50/50 cotton/poly blend toga, and climbing into the fiberglass hip-bath to be dunked by a well-meaning old bible-thumper with a lump in his trousers.

The canal would have been nice. Outdoors and all.



And they think D/s is wierd.



*Gauche, I don't mean to imply that you want to become Gary Chambers' bitch, but I think you did say you loved him. I need him more than you do. Name your weapon.

 

[Gary Chambers]

Gary Chambers I think I love you. It's to do with your political ideas which concur so smoothly with my own and which coincidentally lead me to my question;

Isn't religion just politics? (Make of that what you will)

Gary pauses momentarily to give Gauche a pensive gaze, then dons his trilby hat and grey flannel trousers and affects his best Tony Hancock voice: “Hello, hello, I shall have to watch myself there.”

Talk about a sexy mind!

I’ll try and fathom a response to that as soon as I can stop beaming over it.

Uber-ROFL. Mega-LOL.

I will fight Gauche to the death for the right to become your personal bitch...Gauche, I don't mean to imply that you want to become Gary Chambers' bitch, but I think you did say you loved him. I need him more than you do. Name your weapon.

Interesting, I’ve never been a blood sport before. No, no Gauche, it’s a ‘picador’ not ‘pricka...oh, never mind. Just one question though: after the duel, which one of us will be sectioned and distributed in equal portions to the local poor? If it’s me I think I’d rather stand up for a threesome: two pints of Director’s bitter and a mint julep in a neutral territory.

Gary, I've been fortunate to know real priests, true servants of the people, mostly Jesuits but for a couple in my youth who served the poor Mexican community in Detroit. More than a couple priests I count as friends are among the best men I know.

...I would hope for another John XXIII, one of my true heroes, but even someone with only a fraction of his humility, intelligence and generosity of spirit would be good...

Re. the virginity of Mary there are a great many, including theologians, who recognize it as myth and more to do with patriarchal oppression...

Perdita

I have a friend who is an Anglican priest (recently retired), and have gotten to know a couple of Catholic priests through my journalism work. The most recent one was the priest on the Caribbean island of Monserrat during and after the volcano there. I got the impression the church had sent him to Monserrat to begin easing him into retirement, but instead he ended up being a major leadership figure for a tiny nation in a time of great tragedy and hardship. Faced with the shocking realities of his vocation, and probably with the toughest assignment of his entire career, he became so popular that his eventual departure was a genuine trauma for everyone, Catholic and protestant alike. So I understand what you mean when you talk about a good priest’s life of service to people.

My Anglican priest friend once had a parish in a small Canadian town where I lived, right in the Bible belt of southern Alberta. I remember the Sunday he woke up the smugly pious and wealthy population there by delivering a sermon that stated the story of Adam and Eve is a fine story with many important lessons hidden in its theme, but it isn’t true in the literal sense. You don’t have to be a church goer to appreciate the intellect and courage of such professionals. In that man’s case I also remember that the bane of his life were those Bible camp clergy who were continually trying to lure away his flock and insisted he, along with the local Lutheran and Catholic priests were all bound for hell because they did not accept the gospels at their literal face value.

I’m a little surprised that you don't name John Paul I as your favourite Pope. I thought he was everyone’s favourite. I gained my appreciation of him after reading David Yallop’s, In God’s Name:

http://www.namebase.org/sources/HN.html

My remark about dissent leading to a Jerry Fallwell style Pope was, of course, a joke. What isn’t a joke is that I’m not sure another John Paul I or a John XXIII will come along any time soon. Under its current leadership the Vatican seems to be as conservative as it could possibly be, and it would take a dramatic shift in thinking to change that, at a time when conservative ideals are claiming a majority of hearts and minds. Still, you are closer to the daily thinking of the church than I am, so I can only hope your optimism is warranted. Simple things like allowing those at risk of sexually transmitted diseases to use condoms would obviously be a huge step forward.

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

[*Gauche, I don't mean to imply that you want to become Gary Chambers' bitch, but I think you did say you loved him. I need him more than you do. Name your weapon.

She,

My weapon of choice is sarcasm of which I am no mean proponent (or litotes at a push). My love is a distance/unrequited thing and admits of no bitchiness. But I'll still wrestle you if you'd like (the winner decided by one fall, one submission or one face-sitting)

Gary,

More 'proof' that the wedding was actually Jesus' wedding to Mary was offered to me by an English teacher when I was at school. The miracle of turning water into wine; apparently it was the groom's prerogative to provide wine at weddings.

Gauche

Edited to include Hmm Hancock and Partridge? (not sure about the 3some though as I'm not entirely secure in my own sexuality just yet.)

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

... I'm not entirely secure in my own sexuality just yet.)

Now he tells us?! I'm in shock.

Perdita

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

I'll still wrestle you if you'd like (the winner decided by one fall, one submission or one face-sitting)

Yes, let's wrestle. You, me, Gary Chambers.

I don't want any of us sectioned off and given to the poor. To paraphrase Gauche in another thread, "What have the poor ever done for us?"

Speaking of hacking people into portions, did anyone else, during their childhood, find the Old Testament image of God to be the least majestic character in all of literature?

Part of the Biblical God's PR problem has to be the use of the word "jealous" to explain why we shall have no other gods before Him. (King James version?) At a time when kids are being taught that jealousy and revenge are bad things, we're also memorizing the Ten Commandments to win our Jesus poster. Now I wonder if god might have seemed less petulent if the translations had been more accurate.

There are at least two plot issues that secretly made me feel less than fully loving toward God when I was a child (not a good thing; I spent some long nights lying awake, wondering how hot hell would be, once I learned that God knew my thoughts).

1) God's test of Abraham...Why not test Abraham by having him split himself in two (slowly, so God could say "Made ya look!" and giggle, before things went too far) instead of terrifying Abraham's son? Sure, you can argue that God never intended to let the son be killed, but you have to know that the kid became a lifetime bed-wetter after that incident and could never watch Dad carve the Thanksgiving turkey without seeing his shrink later.

2) Who did the begetting for Adam and Eve's sons? Did God condone incest and for how many generations? When did it stop being okay?

EDITED to add the third thing. There will be other things I'll remember that used to make me worry about God's personality, but I'll be in the office later so I'll stop with this one:

3) The slaughter of the first-born children of Egypt. What? He couldn't think of something as simple as twisting Pharoahs testicles until Pharoah agreed to whatever Moses wanted? God in the Old Testament is presented as the God of the Hebrews to the exclusion of other people, so where did we get the One God notion? When does monotheism enter the picture, biblically?

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

2) Who did the begetting for Adam and Eve's sons? Did God condone incest and for how many generations? When did it stop being okay?

Apparently, although it's only an allusion, He made everyone else at that time too. (either that or he meant the natural beings already there; neanderthals etc?) because whoever it was that was cast out for killing his brother had to go live with people in the Land of Nod? (Hull, Yorkshire)

Gauche (searching for a spandex outfit for when the wrestling starts)

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Keep The Pope Off The Moon !

because whoever it was that was cast out for killing his brother had to go live with people in the Land of Nod? (Hull, Yorkshire)

That makes sense. Killing your brother would have been a far more serious crime if there had only been, what, 6 people?

Unless..."Land of Nod" is a euphemism, like the "farm in the country" where my dad took our cocker spaniel to live, after it tried to bite my cousin.

 

[sensualpilgrim]

Hi

I'm Sensual Pilgrim from NYC. I'm glad to see this thread as I has been exploring the theme of religion, spirituality, mythlogy and sex in my art for the last few years. I have some ideas of my own which I will get into later. Hope this keep up!

 

[Pure]

Hi Bridge,

you said,

Part of the Biblical God's PR problem has to be the use of the word "jealous" to explain why we shall have no other gods before Him. (King James version?) At a time when kids are being taught that jealousy and revenge are bad things, we're also memorizing the Ten Commandments to win our Jesus poster. Now I wonder if god might have seemed less petulent if the translations had been more accurate.

You're right. Some newer Jewish translations of those OT passages use 'passion' or 'indignation' instead of 'jealousy.'

There are at least two plot issues that secretly made me feel less than fully loving toward God when I was a child (not a good thing; I spent some long nights lying awake, wondering how hot hell would be, once I learned that God knew my thoughts).

1) God's test of Abraham...Why not test Abraham by having him split himself in two (slowly, so God could say "Made ya look!" and giggle, before things went too far) instead of terrifying Abraham's son? Sure, you can argue that God never intended to let the son be killed, but you have to know that the kid became a lifetime bed-wetter after that incident and could never watch Dad carve the Thanksgiving turkey without seeing his shrink later.

Yes, definite need for a shrink to deal with the thanksgiving avoidance issue.

2) Who did the begetting for Adam and Eve's sons? Did God condone incest and for how many generations? When did it stop being okay?

You forgot the old problem of whether or not Adam had a navel.


EDITED to add the third thing. There will be other things I'll remember that used to make me worry about God's personality, but I'll be in the office later so I'll stop with this one:

3) The slaughter of the first-born children of Egypt. What? He couldn't think of something as simple as twisting Pharoahs testicles until Pharoah agreed to whatever Moses wanted? God in the Old Testament is presented as the God of the Hebrews to the exclusion of other people, so where did we get the One God notion? When does monotheism enter the picture, biblically?

I don't think the bolded phrase is very accurate. Though I'm not sure what 'not being the God of other people' means. There are several 'universalistic' passages in the OT/Tanach. I don't think Jews have more problem with this than say, Catholics (i.e., can non-Catholics be saved?) before John XXIII.

As to the last question; the non monotheistic ideas are pretty well trimmed out of the OT, though that may have come through later redaction, e.g., after the Babylonian exile of ca. 550 BCE.
Occasionally other gods are spoken of as if they existed and had authority over other (nonJewish) peoples [Ex 12:12; Num 33:4].

did anyone else, during their childhood, find the Old Testament image of God to be the least majestic character in all of literature?

No, I'd say --as an adult--some Christian's--say, Falwell's-- depictions of (NT) God qualify for that award.

Further, to go back to an earlier point made, "God's" alleged fascination with the genitals (dislike of sex/fucking) is mostly an NT issue stemming from certain interpretations of St. Pauls letters

J.

 

[Guest]

This speaks to the 'religion' part of this thread, but I like it well enough. It's part of a longer article and book review of A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love by Richard Dawkins. (url below). - Perdita
-------------
from: The Ethics of Belief - Simon Blackburn (The New Republic Online)

The betrayal of science that does arouse him to fury comes from religion. Dawkins is an atheist, a strenuous and militant and proud one. He thinks religious belief is a dangerous virus, and that it is a crime to infect the mind of a child with it. He believes that "only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today." He calls religions "dangerous collective delusions," and he thinks that they are sinks of falsehood (most of them have to be, since only one can be true). He especially regrets their public influence. He is made apoplectic by the pontifications of religious "leaders" on such questions as whether human clones would be fully human, made in blissful ignorance of the fact that identical twins are clones of each other.

Religion in England is not terribly demanding. It is not typically to be thought of in terms of, say, the Kansas School Board or the teaching of "creationist science," things about which any educated person should be deeply disturbed. Nor in its native form is English religion a matter of clerics telling you what you can eat or whom you can marry. It is not even a matter of oily frauds on television fleecing the poor and the stupid of their savings. It is seen largely as a set of marginal but aesthetically pleasing rituals: the King's College carol service, a stroll around Salisbury or York, watercress sandwiches and a bit of Elgar. And so it is not really done to dump on English religion too heavily; better to raise your hat to a vicar than raise your fists to him. This puts Dawkins in the somewhat paradoxical position of being an evangelical atheist in a country where evangelicals of any kind are largely mistrusted. At least until recently, his crusading seemed to many people in England a little bit over the top, a touch embarrassing. Surtout, pas de zèle: Talleyrand's excellent motto, goes down well in England, yet Dawkins is zealous.

But he has a good excuse. The religious virus is a cunning enemy, and recent years have actually seen creationist schools creeping into the United Kingdom, while our prime minister, who together with his wife is the beneficiary of a marvelous gene that enables him to believe absolutely whatever he would like to believe, has set up an influential committee for increasing religiosity in the workings of government. (Although nominally a Catholic, Cherie Blair goes in more for New Age nonsense, but as far as I am aware the government has not yet been instructed to consult crystal balls.) Dawkins thinks, and I agree with him, that we cannot afford to be complacent. Even if we have little religious zealotry at home, we do not have to go as far as America or the Middle East to find it. We only need to look across the sea to Northern Ireland to be reminded of what happens once the religious virus takes hold. And Dawkins has a further reason for his zeal: evolution and biology have been and still are frequent targets of those infected by religion. They are areas where what we are--large primates--conflicts most sharply with what such people would like to think of us as being: children of God, little lower than angels, specially anointed. When wishful thinking collides with science, it is generally wishful thinking that wins, and Dawkins is right to be driven wild by it.

url

 

[shereads]

I tend to agree that religion can be one of the most harmful forces. Yet I disagree that children shouldn't be encouraged to believe in miracles and magic. There are things beyond our understanding. Atheism is a religion in its own way - the denial that other beliefs might be right, or should at least be allowed to be wrong.

Edited to add: I remain vehemently opposed to any weakening of the separation of church and state. I applauded the efforts of that poor schmuck who caught hell from the entire country for suing to remove the words "under God" from the pledge that his daughter was reciting each day at school. A minor issue? Not if you know that those words are not original to the pledge; not if you happen to be an atheist choosing to raise your child as an atheist; and not if you believe that church and state are separate, period, and that each time the line between them is shifted, and no one calls attention to the shift, we come closer to the loss of another liberty.

 

[shereads]

Uh-oh.

CHRIST CONVERTS TO ISLAM

JERUSALEM (Onion.com)—In a surprise announcement with far-reaching theological implications, Jesus Christ revealed Monday that He has converted to "the one true religion" of Islam.

The controversial announcement has sent shockwaves through religious circles around the globe.

As part of His conversion, Christ said He has taken a new name, Isa Ibn Maryam al-Salaam Christ Shabazz.

Christ, 33, is urging Christians worldwide to renounce His former religion of Christianity and join Him in embracing the Muslim way of life.

"People of all nations, in the past, you have heard Me say that whosoever shall believe in Me shall not die, but have eternal life," Christ said. "But now, I say unto you, forget I ever said that. There is only one holy revelation of Allah, the Qur'an, which was dictated to the Prophet Mohammed, Praise Be Unto Him, by the Archangel Jibreel in the seventh century after I died."

"I was wrong, and I know that now," He added. "I deeply regret any problems or confusion I may have caused."

The controversial retraction of two millennia of Christian doctrine has provoked strongly divided reaction. Millions of devout Christians have heeded His instructions and converted to Islam. Millions more, however, have decried the recalcitrant Christ's apostasy, breaking ties with Him and calling His conversion "a heathen act" of "utmost blasphemy before Himself."

"Jesus, or Isa Shabazz, or whatever He's calling Himself these days, is the way, the truth and the light," said devout Catholic Kathleen Langan of Cork, Ireland. "If He told me to be a Buddhist, I'd do it. All praise and thanks to Allah."

Ruth-Anne Girolamo, a Sunday school teacher in Stillwater, OK, disagreed. "I've been a Bible-believing Christian all my life, and nothing, not even a direct order from Christ Himself, is going to change that," Girolamo said.

The Roman Catholic Church is just as divided: Approximately half the members of the Vatican's College of Cardinals have advocated embracing Islamic law, while the other half is calling for Christ's immediate excommunication.

In perhaps the oddest development, the Jews For Jesus organization announced Monday that it has split into three separate groups: Jews Still For Jesus, Jews For Allah, and Jews For Just Being Jews Again.

 

[Guest]

I tend to agree that religion can be one of the most harmful forces. Yet I disagree that children shouldn't be encouraged to believe in miracles and magic. There are things beyond our understanding. Atheism is a religion in its own way - the denial that other beliefs might be right, or should at least be allowed to be wrong.

ella, there are other ways of introducing children to miracles and magic than religion. Personally I'm ambivalent about whether to introduce or inculcate one's beliefs on a child (I didn't with my sons).

I would not call atheism a religion, it's nowhere near institutionalized like any sect or cult, except perhaps in academia. I haven't seen the likes of prosletizing atheists as I have believers.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

Learning to Read Anew

This is an excerpt by a Catholic nun on how to better read The Bible. I find it refreshing, and applicable to much reading. The complete article can be found via the url. - Perdita
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Interpreting the Bible: The Right and the Responsibility - Sandra Schneiders, I.H.M.

As we know, all meaningful human expression must be interpreted to be understood. This is true of a film or novel, of a cartoon or a racing form, of a letter from a friend or a facial expression.

There is no such thing as reading a text "at face value," that is, without interpretation. To refuse to interpret is one way of interpreting, namely, literalism. It does not deliver the "real unvarnished meaning" but condemns the reader to a superficial (at best) or erroneous reading.

Given that interpretation is necessary for genuine encounter with the word of God through Sacred Scripture, how is such interpretation to be done?

A full answer to this question would involve us in a course of study in the field of hermeneutics and is plainly beyond the scope of this article.

It is possible, however, to indicate briefly some foundational convictions with which to approach biblical study or reading and a few practical techniques or methods to aid such study.

First, we must be convinced that God does indeed desire to communicate with us and that the Bible is a privileged form of that communication.

Second, however, we must realize that the Bible is not a crystal ball. It is a text, and like all great texts it grows in meaning as our life experience expands. But texts are themselves also products of the times, places, cultures and circumstances in which they were written. Consequently, interpretation involves the encounter between two complex sets of factors: ourselves with all our personal and communal experiential baggage (both positive and negative) and the text in all its challenging historical, cultural, religious and linguistic strangeness. Therefore, we can expect that biblical interpretation will be a complex process.

Third, we readers are limited human beings. If we require preparation and effort to read the stock market report, we must expect interpretation of the biblical text to require effort: study, prayer, discussion.

Liberal Catholic website

 

[Svenskaflicka]

When I was a teenager I was a member of the Baptist church youth group, attended several services, and sang in the youth choir.

Because I was in love with one of the cute guys in the group.

He turned out to be gay.

Today, my attitude towards religious believes is:

"Fuck religion!"

 

[Guest]

Ah, Flicka, I knew you'd have a unique and better reason for saying fuck religion than the rest of us. Bless you.

Perdita