Religion discussion

[MOM4Evr]

The reason why some people don't like Christians is because they don't behave the way their own faith tells them to.

Spot on. We're all human, and we can't act right all the time. That's why we need a Savior in the first place!

I'm assuming that the people involved don't understand or follow everything dictated in their respective holy books, because it's really not possible to do that without deciding that some rules or morals trump others. Local religious figures and politicians take advantage of that confusion, and pick out random scripture to lead people in violence, hate, or just support of whatever agenda they happen to follow.

While it's true that some people mislead others by misquoting Scripture, and can even incite people to war (Take the Crusades for example: were we ever told in the Bible to murder Jews? Good grief, no.), I (and a lot of other Christians I know) place a very strong emphasis on reading the Bible and understanding what it says. I've read through the Bible about twice myself and I haven't seen anything like that.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp."

While it's true that this does seem harsh for a modern-day reader, I think it shows just how seriously God takes sin.

Jesus clarifies that even though He's clearly shown no respect for religious laws of the time

Well, He did follow the laws about children obeying their parents in Luke 2:51. And He didn't murder, steal, or commit adultery, from as far as I can see.
I'd invite you to go back and look in the passages where the Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. Was He actually breaking the Sabbath, or were the Pharisees just misinterpreting His actions?

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

At first glance, it may seem that Jesus did, in fact, abolish the Law. But what was the purpose of the Law in the first place? Micah 6:6-8 is a good summary as to Israel's state following the Law.

[Lava89]

I speculate that this passage was added for political reasons, because it doesn't fit with Jesus' message.

If it was politically inspired, why would people who ended up losing their lives over defending their religious beliefs even follow Jesus at all?

Jesus was said to be sinless; and that goes beyond just the Ten Commandments. He had to follow the laws that he set up in the first place, so his self sacrifice would have sufficed the debt that needed to be fulfilled. Like MOM4Evr said, what the Pharisees perceived as breaking the law and what Jesus did were two different things. In fact, Jesus raised the standard of the law.

Matthew 5:27-28
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

[RoboBlue]

While it's true that some people mislead others by misquoting Scripture, and can even incite people to war (Take the Crusades for example: were we ever told in the Bible to murder Jews? Good grief, no.), I (and a lot of other Christians I know) place a very strong emphasis on reading the Bible and understanding what it says. I've read through the Bible about twice myself and I haven't seen anything like that.

The very next thing you quoted is something like that.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp."

While it's true that this does seem harsh for a modern-day reader, I think it shows just how seriously God takes sin.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you fail to see that God ordering the summary execution of an innocent man for the sole reason of "he didn't honor me" sends a very destructive, easily manipulated message. Yes, I understand that it was the law of the time, but this type of proverb is exactly what people like Osama Bin Ladin can use to convince others that murder is right, because "God said so."

Jesus clarifies that even though He's clearly shown no respect for religious laws of the time

Well, He did follow the laws about children obeying their parents in Luke 2:51. And He didn't murder, steal, or commit adultery, from as far as I can see.
I'd invite you to go back and look in the passages where the Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. Was He actually breaking the Sabbath, or were the Pharisees just misinterpreting His actions?

Jesus was said to be sinless; and that goes beyond just the Ten Commandments. He had to follow the laws that he set up in the first place, so his self sacrifice would have sufficed the debt that needed to be fulfilled. Like MOM4Evr said, what the Pharisees perceived as breaking the law and what Jesus did were two different things. In fact, Jesus raised the standard of the law.

I find it very hard to believe that the "observe the sabbath" commandment was misinterpreted, because the two separate written records of it are almost identical:

But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.

But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.

When Jesus performed a miracle on the sabbath (John 9:14–16), he was doing 'God's work', which is still literally work. The fact that the commandment makes no sense outside of ritualism really doesn't make a difference if you're arguing that Jesus never sinned. He broke one of the ten commandments, the law written in stone by God, and to this day Christians celebrate the day of resurrection and totally ignore the sabbath.

At first glance, it may seem that Jesus did, in fact, abolish the Law. But what was the purpose of the Law in the first place? Micah 6:6-8 is a good summary as to Israel's state following the Law.

If Jesus didn't abolish the law, why don't Christians refrain from work on the sabbath?

[Lava89]

The Pharisees also accused Jesus of doing work in Mark chapter 3 right before he healed a man, and this is his reply.

Mark 3:4 "Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?â€￾ But they remained silent."

I think your definition of "work" might be a bit extreme. When I think of work in this case, I think of being employed at a job. If you go back to Mark 2, Jesus' disciples are accused of disobeying the commandment by picking grain from a field (in other words, feeding themselves). So how far does someone go with the definition of "work"?

If not working on the Sabbath simply means getting a day off from your occupation, then I would say lots of Christians observe the sabbath.

[RoboBlue]

[Lava89]

I was referring to Saturday when I said the thing about Christians getting a day off (since most people do technically get Saturday off).

Again it goes back to your own interpretation of work-- before God rested he was actively creating the world. As for Jesus healing? Everything had to be done by the will of the Father-- so if Jesus was breaking the Commandment, then healing people would not have worked.

As a side-note, I find it ironic that the Pharisees were accusing Jesus of working by doing good works, and yet they spent an awful lot of time trying to trap him on the same day, and they even started the plot to kill him on the Sabbath.

The original scripture that you posted said nothing against doing good deeds on the day, but Pharisees still tried to spin it that way. I think the burden of legality that the Pharisees put on people of that time was illustrated by a good verse, Matthew 23:4 "They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them."

So again, you can really run with the whole work thing to the nth degree. If people couldn't even pick grain to feed themselves, then I would call that extreme. Is walking considered work? Opening a door? Just because something is more strict or extreme, doesn't mean its automatically correct.

As for what the commandment actually requires? I found this scripture (Exodus 20:8-11), which is what I think you quoted, just without the first part of it.

“8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Again, when it says labor, that sounds like someone working at their job for 6 days a week and then getting a day off.

[RoboBlue]

[Pokota]

I have discovered this thread, and it is good.

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On working on the sabbath: I do not actively perform labors of wage-earning on Sunday. I still have to do housework, because if the housework is not done every day of the week, the house grinds to a halt as we scrounge for semi-clean towels and paper plates. I personally try to devote myself to the study of scripture and praying that I will understand the scriptures that I have read.

On Science versus Faith: What evidence do we have that the translation of Genesis that says "Six Days" is perfectly accurate? You have to remember, even the KJV had lost a lot simply due to it going through Ancient Hebrew > Hebrew > Greek > Latin > German > English (and it's probably the most faithful translation. I won't say most accurate, but it preserves subtle meanings better than some newer translations I've seen). For that matter, what evidence do we have that God did not use methods that we can observe through science?

On God Creating Imperfect Things: I posit that God creates Imperfect things because, in the long run, it's easier to create an Imperfect Thing that is capable of learning and self-improving than it is to create an already Perfect Thing. The whole point of Life is to learn and grow. A Perfect Thing has no need to learn and grow simply because it already knows everything it needs to know and makes no mistakes (therefore having no need to grow, either).

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And now for something completely different (and possibly offensive to everybody, myself included)

Christianity: You have a bull and a cow. Your cattle are superior because they followed the radical upstart from Nazareth. You occasionally try to murder all your neighbors.

Judaism: You have a bull and a cow. Your cattle are superior because their traditions are older. You are hated by pretty much everyone, but you don't seem to mind all that much (and you give as good as you get, anyway). The neighbor with the Mormon cows thinks you're a pretty cool guy.

Islam: You have two bulls with four cows each. Your cattle are superior because the prophet Mohammad restored the true faith that Abraham followed. You occasionally try to murder all your neighbors.

Mormonism: You have a bull and a cow. Your cattle are superior because they follow a living prophet, called of God. Everybody expects you to have a bull and seven cows.

Fundie Mormonism: You have an old bull and seven young cows. You try to hide six of them. You ignore the Prophet when he said back in the 1890s that we don't do that anymore.

[Levellass]

What evidence do we have that the translation of Genesis that says "Six Days" is perfectly accurate?

Youmight want The New World Translation, translated directly from the original languages. There's a lot of gunk about it being wrong, but most of this seems to be to be 'It does NOT say that! My KJV says different and MY bible is right!' I beleive there's even a movement to have the KJV as the only translation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement they don't like other translations.

I believe there is indeed a school of thought that 'days' can refer to an unknown amount of time and several branches of christianity accept the universe as being as old as science says. This solves a number of problems.

On God Creating Imperfect Things: I posit that God creates Imperfect things because, in the long run, it's easier to create an Imperfect Thing that is capable of learning and self-improving than it is to create an already Perfect Thing. The whole point of Life is to learn and grow. A Perfect Thing has no need to learn and grow simply because it already knows everything it needs to know and makes no mistakes (therefore having no need to grow, either).

I don't understand this at all. It seems you define perfect as 'not being able to change or it's not perfect anymore'; whereas I'd wonder why something perfect couldn't just turn into something else perfect. (A perfect caterpillar to the perfect butterfly say.) And besides, this is GOD here, why would He need to do things the easy way? He's GOD.

I stick to the traditional 'stuff started out perfect' but then got messed up' ideas. (I've put some thought into this and the 'then did God create evil' arguments and my conclusion is that anything with free will, truly free will can choose to be bad or disobedient or imperfect or what have you and so some bad decisions were made which ruined everything for the rest of us.

It's part of my 'take it or leave it' view, if there's a God who is what people say He is, then he can do anything and logically then, nothing is too difficult for Him.

[Pokota]

It's not so much that perfect things are incapable of changing, but that there is simply nothing left to improve.

As for translations of the bible... I would again argue that the KJV preserves some of the subtler things better than the New World Translation, but (a) it's already been said, and (b) I don't have any experience with the New World Translation anyway, so it really does just boil down to "I like mine better because TRADITION!"

As for God not doing things the easy way: If it is easier, simpler, and faster to do things one way over another, and there is no difference in quality, why not do it the easier way?

[Lava89]

Why wouldn't it have worked? If God can order a summary execution, isn't that a violation of "Thou shalt not kill"?

Actually, newer translations say "You shall not murder." (killing an innocent person) Jesus even backs this up in the KJV.

@Levellass: Isn't the New World Translation what Jehovah's Witnesses use?

[MOM4Evr]

@God doing things the "easier" way:
I tend to view it more of a robot-vs-human idea. If God created us with no free will, we'd all be literally forced to love Him, which wouldn't be true love. We'd just wander around all day chanting "We love you, God, You are great" without really being able to do anything BUT love Him. That's not true love.

@Literal interpretation of "days":
You know, the Bible is pretty specific here. "There was EVENING, then there was MORNING, the [x]th day." As far as I know, there are more than one evening and morning in a million years. And if we ditch a literal interpretation of the word "day" here, we might as well believe that Jonah was in the belly of the whale 3 million years, that the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the desert was really a few billion years, etc. Why would you believe in a literal interpretation everywhere else and not here, when it is quite more specific here? The Bible already contradicts macroevolution anyway, saying that the world was created by God (not a Big Bang), and He created all living creatures fully-grown. Who even NEEDS macroevolution in this scenario? So why try to add it in?
I personally have quite a big problem with people who try to fit their religion to science. If scientific evidence can't back up your religion as it is, hang it up.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you fail to see that God ordering the summary execution of an innocent man for the sole reason of "he didn't honor me" sends a very destructive, easily manipulated message.

Well, does it send an easily manipulated message? Who in history has used this passage as a reason to murder people?

[Pokota]

@Lava: On the NIV: Why should that make any difference?

@Mom4evr: On Days: I'll give you the Evening and the Morning bit, but who's to say that the days were as long or as short as we think they were? You should hear some of the short-earthers around here. "God created Earth in Six Days. A Day for God is a Thousand Years for Man. Therefore, God Created Earth in Six Thousand Years." Which, while logically sound, ignores one of the subtler things. (Annoyance point #1: I found a collection of different translations of Psalms 90:4, and they don't include the JST. Does that not count, or do the Fundies still have exclusive rights over it?) The only translation that I have here that fails to use Simile in this particular instance is Bible in Basic English. What the psalm is saying here is that, however long a day is for God, a man would die of old age long before he even realized time was flowing. Once we get out of the first of the two creation accounts, we start to have some reference point for just how much time is passing. I'm not saying that the Israelites weren't wandering around for 40 years (since the generation that left Egypt rebelled and therefore was not allowed to set foot inside the promised land, but that's no reason to punish the children of that generation), or that Jonah wasn't in the belly of the whale for three days (this was, I think, supposed to be reminiscent of Christ's death and resurrection).

Regarding Death Because Dishonor: Christians. Many times. The Crusades come to mind very readily.

If you want to argue a literal understanding of the Bible at me, explain Genesis 1:26.

EDIT: Upon further research, I found that 2 Peter 3:8 seems to have the same problem with the Thousand Years bit (namely, it uses Like and As, which means I cannot reasonably assume he meant this to be taken literally), and it's a perfect example of the subtle things I keep talking about. Half of the translations also have it going both ways at the same time (that a day to God is a thousand years but that a thousand years to God is but a day), and the other half only have it the way it is in Psalms. The part that's being dropped is, to me anyway, further reinforcing that we literally have no way of observing Time in relation to God. Hell, the main reason we were able to observe Time in the first place was the Sun and the Moon, which means our "years" were probably originally only four weeks long.

[MOM4Evr]

[Pokota]

Why would Genesis 1:24 use plural pronouns if (a) God was by himself at creation and (b) the bible is meant to be taken 100% literally?

Regarding Time: Time existed before the Sun and Moon. There is nothing, scientific, religious, or otherwise, to argue against that. I was merely pointing out that our observation of time was limited by the Sun and Moon. The Modern Year is 365 days long because we have observed that that is how long it takes the Earth to orbit around the Sun, give or take a handful of hours. Before that, a year was 13 Lunar Cycles long, which is still close to how long it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun. Our understanding of time changes based on what we have to reference it.

And do you really think Man would have understood what the Bible meant if it said "The first day was much longer than the second day, but the second day was no less a day than the first."? We may be an intelligent species, but God only knows what the limits of our understanding are.

As for the original argument... We presently define a day as being from Midnight to Midnight. We are asked not to work on the day that corresponds to the Sabbath, as a show of reverence to the rest that God took. Therefore, we do not work on the 24-hour period known as Sunday (Saturday if you follow Judaic customs).