Lady Bishops

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
You dont believe in anything that contradicts your own perspective. You are the epitome of a spiritual buffet king, you accept those elements which fits in with your own perspective and reject those which don't depending on the shifting sands of social convention and secular liberalism.

Strange that Jesus makes reference to Jonah, the flood and m ...[text shortened]... re not important, its all fluff and clouds and candy floss as far as you are concerned.

Spew!

Don't you guys just accept those elements which fit in with Charles Russell's perspective and reject those he didn't like?

Originally posted by Suzianne to someone else
So tell me then. Just how does a cherry-picker like you pick just what to believe in the Bible in order to be a Christian?

What do you make of 1 Timothy 2:12... "Let a woman learn in silence with full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but she is to remain silent." ?

The post that was quoted here has been removed

It does not really matter if Mount Sinai was volcanic. What matters is that God came down on it to give instructions to Moses as the leader of Israel.

HalleluYah !!! Praise the LORD! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Originally posted by Suzianne
Don't you guys just accept those elements which fit in with Charles Russell's perspective and reject those he didn't like?

sigh. . . . hot in the desert today. Look! a caravan of camels.

Actually we have rejected many of Brother Russells original teachings, but you wouldn't know that because you operate on a level of willfull ignorance.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Um, okay then, so it's only half of the NT that is real?

Not even that. Just the Gospels? And maybe some of the letters not written by Paul? Really?

EDIT: okay, after some thought, I guess it's cool that I have finally found a Christian more liberal than me. But come on...

real in this case has more meanings. that's why i don't want to use the word "real" and i am sorry if it slipped at any point.


some events in the bible might have happen, as in historical fact.
some events are metaphorical.
some events don't have meaning and are just there to give a narrative.

the next thing a christian, jew or a muslim reading the quran (what i am saying qualifies for it as well) needs to realize is that those events bear the mark of that age and are not universal truths.

in an age where slavery was common practice, that slaves were brutally oppressed, the bible told us how to treat our slaves well. for that age it was an incredible kindness but of course, we outgrew slavery and now we find the practice, no matter how many kind rules we attach to it, reprehensible.

likewise paul, in the very first years of christianity, had to make some choices regarding women. the imperative was to procreate, take care of the children, in order to offset the high mortality. we took care of the less physical proficient half of the human population. most women were not fit to carry 50kilos of armor, were not fit to sail the seas.

restricting women's freedom could have been justified by practical reasons.

this changed in the 20th century. we were plentiful enough, we had enough machinery to offset the physical disadvantage that women have. there is absolutely no reason now to keep women subservient. paul's sayings no longer apply.


2000 years have passed since the new testament and even more since the OT. it isn't odd that some of the more specific rules no longer apply. the core of christianity, that of sacrifice, of love, of compassion still does. the rest is fluff.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Said the person with ZERO faith.

Yes... That's a good thing.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
real in this case has more meanings. that's why i don't want to use the word "real" and i am sorry if it slipped at any point.


some events in the bible might have happen, as in historical fact.
some events are metaphorical.
some events don't have meaning and are just there to give a narrative.

the next thing a christian, jew or a muslim reading ...[text shortened]... e core of christianity, that of sacrifice, of love, of compassion still does. the rest is fluff.

Some of what you say here I agree with, about seeing things through our modern lens and how some laws may no longer apply, but calling some of this outright lies, even after applying much of what you say, seems to show some kind of bias.

I disagree that "the rest is fluff". That "fluff" determines a realistic basis for determining veracity for prophecy, as well as discovering a deeper reason or meaning behind the will of God. I don't think God does "fluff". I think it's there for a reason.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Yes... That's a good thing.

No, it's not. It blinds you to a deeper meaning for some things.

They say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. This reminds me of you, gouging out one of your two eyes, so that you can be the one-eyed king of the blind.

Denying a deeper understanding is just ignorance, no matter how you slice it.

Originally posted by Suzianne
No, it's not. It blinds you to a deeper meaning for some things.

They say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. This reminds me of you, gouging out one of your two eyes, so that you can be the one-eyed king of the blind.

Denying a deeper understanding is just ignorance, no matter how you slice it.

The 'deeper meaning' you think you have you made up. It's not real.

Only fraudsters and confidence tricksters claim that you need faith to
believe what they say, because they cannot prove it because it's either
not known to be true, or is known not to be true.


Everything we know to be true, we know because it has been verified
by using the scientific method.

NOTHING has EVER been shown to be true via faith.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Denying a deeper understanding is just ignorance, no matter how you slice it.

An I guess you are one of the blind men, so convinced that you have a deeper understanding? Sorry, but if ignorance was the problem, you would be able to teach us instead of all the waffle. You know perfectly well that you have no secret knowledge.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Some of what you say here I agree with, about seeing things through our modern lens and how some laws may no longer apply, but calling some of this outright lies, even after applying much of what you say, seems to show some kind of bias.

I disagree that "the rest is fluff". That "fluff" determines a realistic basis for determining veracity for prophecy, ...[text shortened]... aning behind the will of God. I don't think God does "fluff". I think it's there for a reason.

what reason? that's important. if the reason is "it is too much work to have a committee take it out" then it qualifies as fluff.


what use is there for a christian, who was told that everyone can receive salvation and is never too late to repent, the story of the canaanites who were declared beyond salvation and were given the exact date of their annihilation? that even though Christianity was for everyone, merely 2000 years prior god decided one tribe of barbarians was more important than any other person in the world.



does that story sound christiany to you? why is it still in the bible? why can't it be labelled useless (at best) and horrible (if being entirely fair)?

The post that was quoted here has been removed

The Riemann hypothesis is not one of those things. "Facts is facts" as Pogo would say.

The deeper understanding I am talking about is of things unseen, those things we cannot know through 'facts'. I've said many times that "Science (or 'facts' ) is the 'how' of things; Religion (or 'faith' ) is the 'why' of things." Two sides to the same coin of Knowledge. I continually find it amazing that people become focused on only one side of this coin, either 'fact' or 'faith', while ignoring the other side. Those who claim that 'fact' is most important and those who claim that 'faith' is most important both make this mistake. They cannot see the other side of the coin, in fact, many claim that there is no 'other side'. This is why the arguments here will never end.

GF has made the claim that there is no need to understand the 'why' of the universe, because there is no reason 'why', and furthermore that we can all get by perfectly well without ever knowing a 'why'. This is the blindness of which I was speaking. Additionally, we have seen the folly of rejecting the 'how' side as well. Those fundamentalists who reject science have been shouted down in this forum forever, and rightfully so. 'Facts' cannot be argued against, that is because of their very nature as 'facts'. 'Tis far easier to be blinded to the 'faith' side of the coin because as I said, it is of things 'unseen': we can get by, day to day, perfectly well in this age of Grace, without ever exploring the 'faith' side of the coin. It is as if we are born on the 'facts' side, the exploration of which typically takes us well into adulthood, before the existence of the 'other side' ever becomes known to us, usually through the tales of the experiences of others. Sometimes we are lucky enough to discover it at the source through our own precocious exploration of it at an earlier age, before we grow into adulthood and can finally build our systems to 'shutter' our awareness of its actual existence from our lives. Sometimes we are lucky enough to stumble across a friend who can act as a tour guide to this 'other side' and expose us to it before we get these shutters on our awareness fully built.

(Pardon my analogy, and thanks to any who have the patience to follow me along through my description of it.)

It remains that the actions we take in our lives are fully up to us. We can choose not to build our 'shutters' against the 'scary' or 'farcical' (depending on your own outlook) 'other side'. We can choose to brave the unknown and go explore this 'other side' at any time. In other words, we can choose to believe in its existence or to not believe in it, at any time, even after we have been there and seen it for ourselves. Either way, this is called 'denial'. Some make this easier in their own mind, by claiming it just doesn't exist, or by claiming that the 'other side' is just 'rubbish' (with no meaning), or even that it is 'artificial', built by man in order to confuse the rest of us into following along and to control those of 'weaker' minds.

But clearly, all men of 'intelligence', who claim exclusive ownership of knowledge, owe it to themselves to fully explore this coin of knowledge, instead of insisting that they have seen it all and know all about it, even before they become aware of its 'other side'. To refuse to even pick it up, turn it over and inspect this coin for themselves, they willfully blind themselves to another side of knowledge, which has the capacity to change their lives irrevocably for the better, is the very definition of 'ignorant'.

Okay, I wonder why this post hasn't ignited a virtual firestorm, but maybe it's because it got buried pretty quickly, so I'll bump this just this once and see if it gets a better response.

If not, oh well, I guess genius is rarely rewarded in its own time. 😀

(...um, yeah, that's a joke! 🙂 )