American Christianity in Terrible Danger!! !! !!

I like this quote a great deal.

ROFFLES

DING DING DING DING DING

I can think of few institutions more boring than mainstream Christianty. What's next, a war on dinner before dessert?

"You called?"

http://theoriginalsoundtrack.com/art/allywedding/IMG_0317.JPG

I can guarantee you that I've never heard of anyone else at this conference and that half of these people just dropped by for a photo op.

b-b-b-but the TV shows with the homseckshuals! And the BOOBS in my Superbowl! And that violent hip-hopper music!

There's a GGW video I'd see.

there are sooooo many things wrong with this statement

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/6010/crbc0604052ee.gif

"Hello, I'm Dr. Jones, and I think this book is the greatest science book ever"

?

How do Christians explain ignoring no-shellfish (and no beard cutting, no blended fabrics, et al) and prosecuting no-gay-sex? I mean, godless lefties like me try to get mileage out of that hypocrisy, but now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever heard the Christian justification for the selectivity. They just disappear down their martyrdom holes when it comes up, afaict.

Cultural things verss morality

Versus*

I read something recently that said that Jesus dying for our sins pretty much wiped the books on the Old Testament, but that he (He?) somehow made some anti-homo proclamation in the New Testament too (Romans?). Don't know how this squares with actual theology or whatever.

Except that Leviticus is usually the first book that gets trotted out in demonization of gays...there has to be some specific mental triple-salchow they're doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism

i don't remember anything in the New Testament where Jesus bashes gays, though i DO remember him denouncing divorce.

if memory serves me right, they found some pretty creative ways to read the Bible to justify segregation.

romans 1

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

super jackoff sesh

but Romans is all about Paul, not Jesus.

and Paul didn't like pussy all that much, either.

See, the question doesn't really go anywhere, 'cause the people on the inside ain't talkin'. #breakingbad

I've heard the explanation that God gave us all these really strange, confusing rules because we were so sinful and that Jesus' sacrifice gave us the freedom to follow the rules that aren't batshit

i think this is a fairly good explanation of this stuff: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/07/09/making-sense-of-scriptures-inconsistency/

Thank you! That's the clearest explanation I've seen yet.

It's a very good explanation, and like most theological explanations, it's sophistry.

keller's argument depends on drawing a sharp line between the general "moral" guidance of the old testament, which he insists is still fully binding, and system of mosaic civil laws (especially those related to temple sacrifice and cleanliness during worship), which he says was superseded by christ's life and sacrifice. this allows old testament proscriptions against homosexuality to remain in force while christians enjoy crab cakes, blended fabrics and the company of menstruating women.

unfortunately, the line keller is trying to patrol is not only arbitrary, but self-invented. he infers it from his reading of the bible, but neither jesus nor paul directly endorses his interpretation. the "reason" may be "clear" to keller, but there's no reason to think that all good and sensible christians will agree. old testament injunctions against homosexuality are arguably cleanliness laws, after all, and we can sensibly describe the many cruel statutes concerning adulterous and dishonest women as essentially moral in nature.

in john 7:53—8:11, jesus strongly suggests that good christians cannot prosecute the moral sins of an allegedly adulterous woman ("Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone..."). if they take the implications of this advice to heart, how can contemporary christians feel justified in persecuting homesexuals? the hypocrisy is stunning.

iirc, the only strong new testament support for the christian intolerance of homosexuality comes not from jesus but from paul, in romans 1:26-27, and it's a pretty thin justification for the war contemporary christians have chosen to wage against homosexuality:

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

that's it. paul clearly condemns such behavior, but it's not at all clear that god does or that other christians must. god apparently engineered this in the first place, and the "penalty" paul speaks of seems not to be something imposed by the law of man.

In short, the coming of Christ changed how we worship, but not how we live.

Hmm, so the oyster po-boy falls under "how we worship," not "how we live."

in john 7:53—8:11, jesus strongly suggests that good christians cannot prosecute the moral sins of an allegedly adulterous woman ("Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone..."). if they take the implications of this advice to heart, how can contemporary christians feel justified in persecuting homesexuals? the hypocrisy is stunning.
― contenderizer, Monday, July 30, 2012 7:39 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they often simply argue that this particular passage of the bible is invalid because it isn't found in some of the earlier manuscripts.

Attempted to have this issue out with my extremely conservative, extremely religious brother-in-law, on a Facebook thread he started about Dan Cathy. I thought maybe since I was venturing into his territory instead of him commenting on my screeching lefty wall posts, he'd engage — but dang, it was like walking into Deadwood and suddenly the main street is empty, all the shop doors are banging shut and the little kids are being pulled into their homes by terrified mothers.

well you do have a history of trolling him, do you not

I am always amused at the Malthusian implications for the world of the desperately pro-natality moralism of the ancient Hebrews, a smallish tribe constantly getting kicked around who want more members to defend themselves/hold onto some territory to call their own. The tribal instincts of Judaism have kept them as a distinct people for millenia; as for keeping them safe and secure, perhaps less so. Xtians who fetishize all this stuff strike me as some of the most ignorant ppl, both factually and spiritually, ever, but maybe that's my mother's Catholic take on it all imprinting itself on my youthful, atheistic mind.

I.e., Onan's sin isn't whacking off, it's not knocking up his widowed sister-in-law...

well you do have a history of trolling him, do you not

― mookieproof, Wednesday, August 1, 2012 2:33 PM (34 minutes ago)

I'm an opinionated godless lefty, and I don't approach religious topics with any reverence, so I'm sure he thinks I'm trolling. In this case I went out of my way to agree with a few points in his opening argument, and kept things civil in the thread. But as soon as I gave his holy text the hairy eyeball, he rolled up the thread and said "I'm out."

I'm an opinionated godless lefty, and I don't approach religious topics with any reverence, so I'm sure he thinks I'm trolling.

i've found out, through sad experience, that the mere act of debating w/ conservatives and putting forth lefty arguments is interpreted by them as "trolling." and not just about religious topics but even about stuff like economics, race relations, etc. (all of which are "theological" arguments of a sort, too, come to think of it).

I got opinionated with a friend's father-in-law yesterday on fb (over this chik-fil-a garbage). He basically equated the mayor of boston telling c-f-a to not build a store in boston with the nazi program to exterminate the jews. I got real opinionated with him (inspired by YOU WmC!), but she ended up just deleting our exchange. I guess for family sensitivity reasons.

"if you dont wanna have a Christ, then don't"

i've found out, through sad experience, that the mere act of debating w/ conservatives and putting forth lefty arguments is interpreted by them as "trolling." and not just about religious topics but even about stuff like economics, race relations, etc. (all of which are "theological" arguments of a sort, too, come to think of it).

Problem is, not everybody argues for the same reason. Left-leaning folks tend to do so for Enlightenmnt reasons i.e. thru rational intercourse the strength of my stance will convince you that your stance is wrong and this you'll change your mind, because all our brains are the same and think the same way, right?

What if you argued more out a way to attack others, loudly bolster your own self-reassurance, and prove your tribal allegiance to others?

Also, people take any discussion about this they have strong emotional and identity -based holds on as personal attacks, which jacks up their defense systems and makes them even less susceptible to any entreaty.

Chris Mooney(dude who wrote The Republican War on Science) has a new book out about this stuff, and heres a bit about it.

One of his basic points(with a heavy amount of caveats that he himself includes in the book), talking about the basic personality differences that tend to underscore different ways of thinking:

[here comes one of my patented text dumps]

1. Conservatives have different personalities than liberals on average—less openness to new experiences, for instance, and more conscientiousness.

2. Conservatives have different psychological needs than liberals on average—including, importantly, the psychological need for closure, or to have a definitive belief about something…to have certainty. This is not a comment on the quality of conservative reasoning, by the way (something Kahan is mistaken on); rather, it is a comment on conservative motivations in processing information.

3. Conservatives tend more strongly towards authoritarianism, a personality type or disposition associated with an intolerance of ambiguity and seeing the world in sharply defined, black and white terms. Authoritarianism is not a "quality of reasoning" measure either, but this is a trait that has been associated with reasoning errors, such as committing the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), and also with more selective exposure to friendly sources of information.

4. On a moral level, conservatives are more group oriented—more likely to affirm loyalty to the unit, the tribe, the team—and more respectful of authority. This is based on Jonathan Haidt’s work, but it also echoes the research on authoritarianism.

Desmogblog (http://s.tt/1jKjL)

Also, this convo crosses over with all the Chick Fil A shit going on

What if you argued more out a way to attack others, loudly bolster your own self-reassurance, and prove your tribal allegiance to others?

^^^ yeah, this very much. i can't tell you how many discussions i've had w/ conservatives that end up becoming either a game of "gotcha!" or an attempt to "prove" that my arguments are not being made in good faith.

Lower liberal need for closure explains all the non-existent progressive legislation.

Higher liberal intolerance for top-down single-message reinforcement explains that lower political effectiveness, too. We imagine the system to be far different than what it is, and that Enlightenment values to rule the day, even when they don't.

i can't tell you how many discussions i've had w/ conservatives that end up becoming either a game of "gotcha!" or an attempt to "prove" that my arguments are not being made in good faith.

Exactly. You're going into a conversational process with people who do not hold the same values as you do and see argument in a _very_ different light.

I've listed a buncha books over the last coupla years that I think folks need to read to explain American political bullshit, and let me add two new to them:

1. Chris Mooney's The Republican Brain - The Science of Why They Deny Science--And Reality

2. George Lakoff's The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic

Both books go into the brain work of how we actually think about politics. That motivated reasoning and confirmation bias and _dis_confirmation bias are far, FAR stronger operating systems that a trad liberal version of how Reason works and where it fails.

But as many people have pointed out, one of the American progressive failings is not understanding the psychology of people who ain't American progressives, and thus not bothering to fund investigations of it because they just assumed this shit was "obvious."

Is it a failing, or just a feature built into the 2 "sides"?

such a butthurt religion

read Ben Carson's latest statement if you want to end your life early via aneurysm

he can fix those can't he

xxp as opposed to?

i've heard the others can be nice

So they always claim