And as for you Toblerone, you wrote: “But then, being automatically forgiven for everything that you did, and everything that you will do in the future, with no requirement to better your behavior – that is quite a tempting way to see God. Why attempt to refrain from sinning, since Jesus will forgive it all anyway?”

You might want to check out my blog for an answer to that. Christianity DOES have a requirement to better your behaviour!

The rest, as they say….Is History…..

Or maybe it can be a novel about two boys and their adventures on the Mississippi River in the 1800s. Nope, that’s too much of a “specific historical narrative,” which may lead me to read deeper and investigate why they were rafting on the river, which leads back to all that sermonizing.

I better just stick to a book about rafts. I do have a choice, right? To believe what I want to believe? That doesn’t make me a fool, does it?

Most religions seem to be based upon some version of the golden rule as a moral framework. Thus, if a person becomes disenchanted with the story telling aspects of religion they can still use the moral parts as a way to guide their own personal behavior.

Living a moral life and trying to “do right” does not require belief in a specific historical narrative.

Long time no Latin. And the meditative experience is worse for it. Some parishes still do it. Dumbest changes resulted from Vatican II back in 60s. Altar flipped around, English. Worst of all, the music. Singing crapass Sebastian Temple tunes instead of centuries-old Latin hymns. Art that was created by people who were making a gift of their finest skills. I guess those changes qualify as bending to society’s need for “relevance”, at least in the way Mass was celebrated.

A pretty good summary here.

Hmmmm…. Like someone asked earlier, then what the heck were you doing sitting in church Sunday, Jeff? Waiting for the lightning bolt to hit you with a revelation about the virgin birth?

And what’s this about “at least we believe in the message of Christianity and think the world is better off for his teaching. Right?”

Uh, the message of Christianity is God in the flesh coming to earth to sacrifice himself for mankind to forever bridge the gap caused by man’s sin and God’s perfection. And since sin is passed on from one man to another through birth, then how does a perfect God become a man without becoming sin himself? Well, through a virgin birth.

Does that clear it up for you?

There’s stuff i’d put differently myself, but that’s a sermon i’d be delighted to hear from any lay member, let alone youth Sunday school teacher.

Pax, Jeff (the one in Ohio)

http://knapsack.blogspot.com

Peace, Jeff

You’re joking, right? When’s the last time you went to a Latin Mass?

If you’re a Christian believer, you’re already Jewish. Christians are waiting for the same Messiah the Jews are. The level of faith Paul talks about in Romans 8 is called “emuna” in Jewish theology. Yeshua came out of the grave on the feast of First Fruits (sound familiar? Paul talks about that, too). Pentecost is a Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Word; Christians celebrate the same thing in a wider context.

Don’t confuse a religious structure with the spiritual truth it was established to represent. Any organization can stray from its roots.

In the long run, all religions must change if they are to survive. No one believes in ancient pagan gods anymore, yet traditions from pagan religions can be found in christianity, which adopted these traditions so that those practicing them could be persuaded to join the Church. It was “Happy Saturnalia” long before it was “Merry Christmas”.

Please go to the secular web (www.infidels.org) for further rantings along these lines.

You don’t change what a religion is, you accept or you find one that matches you.

That being said, I’m a proof person. While I believe there was a man named Jesus and the basic stories told in the gospels are based in truth, I don’t see how any religion is reality. While I could accept a way of life through the teachings of christianity, I can’t accept the dogma baggage that goes with it.

Keep up the debate!

But then, being automatically forgiven for everything that you did, and everything that you will do in the future, with no requirement to better your behavior – that is quite a tempting way to see God. Why attempt to refrain from sinning, since Jesus will forgive it all anyway?

I like your treatise on learning from one’s mistakes, but I fear it is not shared by the Catholic church. This is the same church that refuses to include other gospels – those of Judas, Mary, Thomas, etc. and instead picks only the 4 gospels that tell the same story in the same words. If scholars were to find that the other gospels had meaning and relevance, or that a heretical gospel shed some additional light on the life of Jesus, would the church be willing to say “sorry, it was a mistake to leave that part out!” I doubt it.

As to what kind of God is in the Old Testament bible – the Bible was written for the people of the time. When they needed a warlike god, Yahweh was warlike. When they needed him to be jealous, he was jealous. When they (later) needed him to be compassionate, kind, loving, he was. Yahweh has always, and only, been what the people at the time needed him to be.

I recommend reading Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, and John Shelby Spong, to give you further questions to ponder…

As a devotional this Easter, I sat and thought about a few words of his, the Beatitudes, and how they measured up to the 10 Commandments. I always thought the 10 Commandments were wise, so if the Beatitudes said something about them that I needed to know, maybe I could appreciate Christianity all the more.