Paul is not Jesus. One could argue that Paul twisted Jesus' message into a pretzel, not that many decades after Jesus' death.____________________Converse22, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
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Masturbation and christians
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Im a cunt because I think for myself rather then follow the pope or any other looney and let them do my thinking for me ?Im glad there are sheep like you, us wolves need to eat. Your wrong as well, I have done a great deal of study on many different churches. You cant form an opinion on what you dont understand, besides its good to know your enemys when they confront you and tell you you need to be saved.I busted the dog fuck out of my hand today, Im glad your not near me or Id have to add injury upon it and slap the shit out of you.
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Are you kidding me? Not only, you've broken a forum rule, you've broken a law. Good job. Dick.
You're just like Organized Religion - one shoves the belief of god, while the other one shoves their belief there isn't one. That's what I thought. Cunt.
Oh - I don't really care about your damn long essay style writings; write me a paragraph about some dog getting hit, and I'll glock you to the floor.
Don't hurt animals.
Ahh - Sorry, GravityKiller. I'm just fucking pissed like a demon!!Fuck it, I'll pm you. So damn tired, best frind in hospital.Sorry for unleashing my rage on you! Any whom; contiue on.
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I was about to complain that your poetry had been lacking lately... thanks for this!
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it is poetry isnt it ?I havent had time as of late due to work, but that ended when the asshole owner shut the doors and went skiing in eurpoe for a few weeks and shit canned all of his employees, even those that had been around for 20+ years and told us we can come back in march, that led to the anger, and my current broken hand. Its ok I should be healed up enough to wreak some major damage to a certain fuckhead upon his return to the US. Besides it was my right hand I busted up, and it was never the one that did all the damage to faces and bone structures in the past, watch out for the left !
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wait wait wait, I got the PM, that shits settled, however, I busted the dogfuck out my hand, I didnt bust the fuck out of a dog, aside from that what law did I break? I said I was glad you were not here as Id have to slap the shit out of you, thats not a threat, belive me I know teh difference, I walk that razors edge daily in my real life, sometimes I stray over it and knock the shit out of some asshole that needs it.I never did much care for rules and laws, I do what I like.my essay style rants have been reffered to as a "cluster fuck of words"I dont think they meant it aht way, but I take it as a compliment
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Psh, for sure! I've had serious fights - not badly enouugh for bone breaking, but you get the idea Your ramble of words can be useful!Take all the compliments that are needed But for now, I'm going to go sniff a line of coke, get blazed, and finish up my Biology homework - hey, someone needs to dissect
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"You're forgetting one thing, the church was created to help guide the people to 'heaven'. Yes? Well then, if they say that masturbating is a sin then it is. Because the church represents Jesus. Thus, everything that the church says we shouldn't do, is concidered to have been said by jesus. Jesus couldn't relate to modern times 2000 years ago, thats why there is a church that constantly adapts to the times and makes rules that are easier for us to understand. Saying that masterubation isn't mentioned in teh bible is just a way for christians to still think that there not sinning even though they are."I just dont know where to start with load of rubbish
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I'll be praying for ya buzzie...
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Please, don't call what I have learned rubish without supporting information to back it up.
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Whether or not you masterbate is a CHOICE. The religion you are part of is a CHOICE. How you CHOOSE to interpret that religion is a CHOICE. It is a very broad thing, with very personal interpretations. Bottom line, irrigardless of what you beleive, is, DO WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU.Who wrote the bible, who changed it, what the church stands for, or whether or not there is, isn't,or might be a God, doesn't really matter here. I don't see how masterbation is something that will effect the community as a whole. Do what is right for you. If you feel like there is answer in prayer do that...As for all the argument over this...why can't we realize that we live in a melting pot? Fighting over something we CANNOT control, is just flipping stupid. I am a Christian, but I beleve MAN HAS corrupted his word, therefore, I beleive that when we get there, God will let us know what we did wrong, and give us one last chance to correct it. It's the hate in your heart that will doom you forever, with out a last chance....
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Wow this thread seems to have taken on a life of its own!
damien said:
In reply to:
Which particular passage about masturbation or sexuality do you think has been "spun" in translation? I doubt you'd be any more pleased with the "actual" translation.
/i wasn't thinking of any one specific passage as such. However it is well known amongst scholars that the Bible has been 'edited' in the past to suit certain agendas. We know for a fact that the four Gospels in the New Testament only represent a fraction of the Gospels that were actually written. I recently bought a book in my local cathedral shop which was about the various ancient Gospels which didn't make it into the Canon of the New Testament. Perhaps the best known of those is the4 Protavengalem of St James but there were many others besides including the Gospel of Thomas, The infacy of Thomas and I even think one by Mary Magdalene.
The bottom line on masturbation is that it's not mentioned explicitly in the Bible and I would certainly interpret ant passages which relate to sexual wrongdoing within the time and cultural context within which they were written as well as the light of modern morality. Most churches would I think take the view that masturbation as such was not a sin although other activities related to it might be.
I know it's but one tradition but the Anglican church has always appealed to Scripture, Reason and Tradition not 'sola scriptura' in reaching decisions about matters of morality as well as other things.
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Scripture, Reason and TraditionReligious fundamentalists will buy into the first concept, but not the second or third.
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I agree with you about there not being anything mentioned in the Bible directly concerning whether masturbation is a sin or not.I disagree with blanket statements concerning the purity (unaltered state) of the Bible...especially the KJV. People, especially non-believers and athiests, are fond of saying it's been altered to another's agenda...but never seem to be able to point to where. Is that too much to ask, to point where? Other portions of scripture that were written are of dubious value...I've read some of what is found in the Apocryphal (contains books that were omitted from the Bible), and, being quite familiar with the Bible myself, find that there are portions that don't fit. Some were written by Gnostics and seem...how shall I say this...not inspired by God. They don't fit in with the rest of the Bible, which is why they were omitted. But, they were not destroyed. You can go out and pick up a copy of the Apocryphal and find out for yourself.As for modern morality, it is not the yardstick to be measuring anything moral by any stretch. It would be like measuring the accuracy of a ruler with your own foot and deferring, in the case of arguement, to your foot. The Bible is the yardstick you should be using for the very reason that it DOES lie outside of our own personal ideas about what morals should be...that will waver with our desires of what they should be. To say that another might have altered the Bible for their own perposes does not make us incapable of attempting to do the same with morals ourselves.
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In reply to:people, especially non-believers and athiests, are fond of saying it's been altered to another's agenda...but never seem to be able to point to where. Is that too much to ask, to point where?You must not be very well-read on the matter, and why should you be, since you think that, as a fundamentalist, your beliefs are correct by definition, and exploring them is a big waste of time, and might offend your deity?I've written recently about the difficulty of translating from the ancient languages of the scriptures to modern languages. It is very difficult to maintain the intent of the original words, written in the context of their time. Newer translations of biblical scriptures are in some places at variance with the King James version, since scholarship in ancient languages has progressed quite a bit since the days of Old English.It's pretty hard to argue that the original Catholic translation of the scriptures into vulgate Latin is accurate. Dare I say that the church had an agenda?Here's a Web page by a Christian clergyman on the ins and outs of currently-available versions of the bible.Interesting historical information on bible translation into English. An essay written by a Pentecostal minister about problems with bible translations.book: Distorting Scripture?: The Challenge of Bible Translation & Gender Accuracy (about the NIV translation)Some specifics about the difficulty in translation from the ancient languages. Much more on problems in translation by Andrew Harrison, posted today.Most of those articles are not deeply academic, but you can find many articles by academics in religion and linguistics who have written a lot about pitfalls in translation and interpretation.In any case, your faith in the flawless accuracy of the KJV is misplaced, and if you'd read up on the subject, you'd understand why.In reply to:Other portions of scripture that were written are of dubious value...I've read some of what is found in the Apocryphal (contains books that were omitted from the Bible), and, being quite familiar with the Bible myself, find that there are portions that don't fit. Some were written by Gnostics and seem...how shall I say this...not inspired by God. They don't fit in with the rest of the Bible, which is why they were omitted. But, they were not destroyed. You can go out and pick up a copy of the Apocryphal and find out for yourself.On the matter of the canonical books versus the Apocrypha, I wonder what qualifies you to decide which ones are "real" and which aren't. There are many people who consider the Apocrypha, or various parts of it, to be inspired. Can you back up your opinion with anything besides your opinion?In reply to:As for modern morality, it is not the yardstick to be measuring anything moral by any stretch. It would be like measuring the accuracy of a ruler with your own foot and deferring, in the case of arguement, to your foot. The Bible is the yardstick you should be using for the very reason that it DOES lie outside of our own personal ideas about what morals should be...that will waver with our desires of what they should be. To say that another might have altered the Bible for their own perposes does not make us incapable of attempting to do the same with morals ourselves.There are many books of ethics and morality, from the scriptures of the ancient religions through the writings of the philosophers, through the Boy Scout credo. Which one are you going to believe? A minority of the world population interprets the Christian bible literally. Anyone can make the case that his holy book is the correct one, and an atheist can make the case that none of them are.There's only a slight difference between a fundamentalist and an atheist: A fundamentalist says that his scriptures are right and the thousands of others are wrong. An atheist would say that the fundamentalist is almost correct. He's just off by one.
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The fundamentalist cannot live with uncertainty. The English-speaking Christian fundamentalist has the problem that there are some differences in manuscripts of the original texts, and differences between translations. This he cannot cope with, so he must have a standard English translation that he can consider inerrant or he is lost.The Muslim fundamentalist has less problem here, as all Muslims are expected to read the Koran in the original. There are some textual differences between manuscripts, but as the work was written much later they are fewer, and there is a standard received version.
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I agree, and what you say about the Koran is absolutely correct. In fact, the Mormons and Scientologists (who speak English) have an even easier time.> The fundamentalist cannot live with uncertainty.That bears repeating.
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Steve, you don't understand some of the things I've been saying all along. My familiarity with the Bible is how I base my view of the ommitted books. There are some that I like and I think are valid. Some of the words of Solomon omitted from the Bible are quite telling...much is about people like you, as a matter of fact (mockers). But when we stop and think about the intent of the Bible, we see that it's about us...not about how to judge others. My familiarity with the Bible is what qualifies me to see this. Apparently, I'm not alone in my views. Take a look at how the decision was made as to what books should be included...hundreds of knowledgeable folks made the decisions.For the record, I don't take everything in the Bible as litteral. There is alot of metaphor and symbolism in it...especially in the book of Revelations and, to a lesser extent, Genesis.Now, as to your links, they have pointed out some difficulty in understanding some of the wording found in Bibles... but this is far different than finding errors. For one who is truly interested in knowing what is found in the Bible, it does not present an unsurmountable problem.
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My familiarity not absolute knowlage>There are some that I like and I think are validyou choice as a man>Take a look at how the decision was made as to what books should be includedthe choice of men, not god>There is alot of metaphor and symbolism in itwide open to interpretation through anyone's personal filtersI'm not actually cririsizing your words but just showing how your ideas represent the problems with the system in general. When we talk of the word of god, we talk as humans. When we describe god, we describe her in human terms.Your own words suggest there is no absolute truth to be found in the bible or anywhere... so what's the point?The faithful both take lives and save them, they both fornicate and abstain. Take comfort in your faith because in the end, that's all it was ever for.
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Sure there's absolute truth. Just because we humans are foulable doesn't mean it's not there. We are simpley charged with doing the best we can to get to it. BUT...if one starts out with something else (other than the Bible), then the odds are already stacked against them.As for the metaphors and symbolism, yes, they are open to interpretation...but in my experience (and that of many others I've spoken with) it's amazing how often those who approach them in good faith reach the same conclusions. It's when one is, at the start, not honest with themselves about their motives for looking into the Bible that they find a difference of opinion as to the meaning. The Bible helps those who are honest with themselves and who are honestly looking for answers. Take a personal agenda (or vendetta) into it and you won't get as much out of it.
