Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit  The Jews also have a companion set of teachings based on the Oral Torah, which was also received by Moses from God at the same time as those written parts we have in our Bibles. In the beginning, these more detailed instructions from God, which were only passed down orally from a master to a student and had to be memorized until they could be recited four times, further elaborated on how to carry out these laws of those OT books.
From the Oral law, the first thing that needed to be done is that there had to be a trial. It had to be established at that trial, by at least two witnesses, that the witnesses had seen all the sin from beginning. And it also had to be a fact that the witnesses warned the person that they were about to sin and of the death penalty for their sin. And the witnesses also had to testify that after the warning, the sinner acknowledged they understood the warning but was still going to sin. The accusers had to be willing to be the ones to carry out the punishment if they were the ones making the accusations. If any of these elements were missing, there could be no death penalty or stoning.
Knowing these men knew all this, Jesus said, "You who are without sin cast the first stone." and bent down and started writing. By Oral law, even though he was without sin, He wasn't the one that was supposed to stone her because He wasn't her accuser. Some think while He was waiting, that maybe He really was from God. But we can't tell if they dropped their rocks just from remembering their own sins; somehow I think it had to be more to it and involved what He was writing. To be granted mercy, realizing He knew and still hadn't accused them, while in the process of seeking someone else's death certainly seems to be enough to cause someone to drop their rocks and leave.
When Jesus looked up and said, "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" her trial was over because there were not the required accusers to proceed. |
It would seem that religions today are completely
minunderstanding the
stoning process then. Maybe you should have a nice, academic talk with them about it. Tell them how to do it right. Not to mention all the gun violence going on, which is really just throwing lead stones at high speeds..
Thank God these ancient texts are still so popular so these things can keep happening. How wonderful that, as a race, we cannot move on from killing in God's name.
We couldn't just have people follow simple social precepts like "Do no harm" or "leave things better than you found them" could we? We have to look to the Bible! The book that recommends stoning, but doesn't apparently come with the proper legal process documents. That's where we need to get our morals from. Sharp thinking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit We don't study these other set of detailed instructions God gave Moses because we are not required to follow the Torah laws to the letter like the Jews. The OT books that are in our Bibles are there mainly to help us better understand those New Testament verses that refer to OT verses or principles.
The New Covenant Jesus made with us is one of faith and following His Spirit. He told us that all of those Oral and Written teachings, the Law, were based on loving God and loving our neighbor. That's pretty clear and simple to understand. |
Love your neighbor as yourself. Sure.
So how does that make pre-marital sex a sin?
Christians seem to completely miss the nuance of that statement. Love your neighbor as yourself. Simply put, that means to do no harm.
Meanwhile, a classic example of
doing harm would be to legally make a subset of the citizenry second class under the law, would it not?
Would you want marriage to be made illegal for you? Of course you wouldn't. Would you want to be fired from work for your sexual orientation? Of course not. So how should you treat others?
You would think the answer would be obvious.. but it won't be. Not to Christians. Not to you guys. You don't believe what you preach, simple as that. Not the vast majority anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit But if a person wants to go deeper and understand more about the God of the Bible, studying these other teachings can help. The more I learn, the more I see that God made provisions for mercy all along. |
Why would you need God to "make provisions for mercy"?
The implication is that you can't be a good person on your own.
This is the opposite of accountability.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit I hope others can see the this same picture of God in those teachings that I see, that God is not the one seeking to punish or accuse, |
The ones seeking to punish and accuse are ones who use God's name in vain. They use God's name to preach hatred, bigotry, discrimination and fear.
These people use God's name to tell the young and impressionable that even if something they are doing
causes no harm, like masterbation or premarital sex, it's a sin.
These are people who try to scare others with the idea of an eternal Hell. Then they place the blame for creating the situation somewhere outside of themselves. Blame God.
That, is using God's name in vain.
Those are the people who want to punish and accuse. It's remarkably easy to spot people who want to do this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit I know we have been discussing gay rights on another thread and because most Christians think homosexuality is a sin, it may seem like we are judging or condemning a person but we are not. Believing what the Bible says about sex is not the same as bringing a person before God to be stoned. The disagreement in beliefs shouldn't cause a person to feel judged. |
No, it's pretty much the fact that I don't have the same legal rights as other people that makes me feel judged.
It's also the fact that when I have sex with the person I love, which doesn't do any harm, but which does bring us closer, and which does add a lot of joy and intimacy to both our lives, you so-called "Christians" tell us it's a sin.
Because, you think, Bible said so.
What a mess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit My friends laugh at me when I say, "We all could be gay" And they say "Maybe you could but not me." But I really believe that. We all could be gay or commit adultery or molest a child or kill someone or lie, steal or cheat but for the grace of God, like Paul said. I think whatever power we have over doing something wrong either came to us as a gift or comes from submitting to God and following Him. |
There but by the grace of God go I. Sure.
The meta-message is the same as "Do onto others or you would have them do onto you" and "Love your neighbor as yourself."
Guess what? Singling our minorities and taking away their equal rights, while calling them sinners, does not follow the message.
That's much closer to beating your wife while telling her you only hit her because you love her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightSpirit That's one reason I asked the questions of how you know you were born gay, to understand God better and if that is really what He allows. |
"What He allows."
*sigh.*
This is exactly why it's such a mess trying to have any rational conversation with religious people. For just this reason. What He allows. Well let's see.. He allows torture, genocide, Bush's war that killed a million Iraqis, six million more dead in the Congo, that's all just this decade..
He allows babies to get Lyme disease perinatally. It eats their bones and spine.
This is just opting fully out of any responsibility and believing that anything that does or doesn't happen is because God allowed it.
Try replacing God with "magical fairies" or "colorful unicorns" to see just how ridiculous this sounds..
I don't believe or disbelieve in a God / higher power per se. But, assuming God does exist, he sure as hell wouldn't think that the best way to communicate to me is via an incredibly violent, ignorant, racist, contradictory and obsolete book like the Bible.
Belief in the Bible basically requires a complete
lack of faith.
When you say you believe everything in the Bible, you are saying you believe:
1) That it's OK to own slaves, provided they are strangers or heathens. (Leviticus 25:44-46)
2) In committing genocide based on race (Samuel 15:2-3)
3) That God wants war (Exodus 15:3)
4) In committing genocide based on ethnicity as long as you spare the virgins.(Numbers 31)
5) In killing anyone who worships a different god or who worships differently. (Deuteronomy 13:6-16)
6) In killing disobedient children as prescribed by Old Testament law. (Mark 7:9)
7) In killing anyone who refuses to be ruled by Jesus. (Luke 19:22-27)
Saying you believe all those things is a straight up lie. If you really held all those beliefs you would be in jail right now for murdering just about everyone you met.
Also, believing in a God that would bane people to Hell is just crazy. You have to believe that good equals evil for that to make sense. And I don't believe that.
I'm all for spirituality, peacefulness, ethical behavior, etc. Unfortunately organized religion does everything but move people towards that.
Do you want to continue to test what atrocities God will allow? Well here's a newsflash. You're committing the atrocities, not God. You're committing the prejudice and the violence, the hatred and the bigotry. Not God.
You.
Is your faith in God so weak that you genuinely believe that nothing written today is just as inspired, if not drastically more so than the Bible?
Are your morals so weak that you have to look to a 2,000 year old book to figure out what is harmful and what is not?