maybe you're right, i admittedly don't know or understand much about faith. basically i just think that there's a difference between "i'm not going to have a gay marriage because it's against my religion" and "YOU'RE not going to have a gay marriage because it's against my religion".

Andyfest - belief is fine. Better than fine! And belief informing ones own actions is, indeed, the point of faith. The question isn't about faith, but about deciding for other people what's ok and what isn't. I have plenty of friends who are believers, and we have a great time together. But if a law was enacted tomorrow saying that my kids (imaginary kids) had to pray every morning in school, I'd hit the roof. See the difference?

Definitely see the difference. I'm a Christian but one who definitely believes the laws of this country should allow people to believe what they want to. I don't think our laws should force people to act the way a certain religion says they should or whatever. As far as politics go, I'm more in agreement with Libertarians than anyone else.

I was pretty sure Chase didn't mean faith shouldn't be used to justify any actions but it's sort of how his post read so I more wanted to clarify than argue.

Well-put.

If people feel better by believing in fairy tales every Sunday morning let them- I could care less. I could also care less about if a bunch of people in the middle east want to say their prayers every day and belive in their own brand of fairy tales.

My beef comes when these fairy tales start invading my life. The fact that jackass #1 beat out slightly less offensive jackass #2 by being more religious makes me think that the voting population are pretty fucking stupid. The Bible, Koran et al are collections of stories passed down throughout history via oral traditions (can't wait for the cutouts of that term), and then translated and printed by the ruling class for their own political gain.

That's still happening all over the world- not just here, so bash the USA all you want, but people are fucked in the head worldwide. This is why I choose to fill my time up with music, films, travel, wine etc. I can be a fanatic about things that do not hurt, oppress or fuck around with others.

Not only is it quite arrogant for you to state this as though it should be obvious to everyone, but I also doubt you could fill in the specifics (which ruling class? which translation? all of them? how do you eliminate other possible motives for this devious printing and translating?) that would make it a position worth considering. It is a fool's logic that begins with the premise that religion has been used to oppress and infers that religion exists for the purpose of oppression.

.... and this shows (sorry Jimmy) that intolerance goes both ways. Fair is fair. That's no different than the right side saying that the new laws need to be enacted for our own good, as though non-christians are simpletons who don't know any better. Live and let live.

You're right. None of those these have ever harmed anyone.

There are times when the need to argue exists, and times when it doesn't. It doesn't here. Minds are already made up. As far as the literal interpretation of the Bible that was mentioned on pg. 1 goes, yes, I believe the Bible to be complete truth, without error. Literal translation has nothing to do with application in American law. Biblical law is a standard that no man can achieve, so I certainly hope that it's not applied here.

well, that's true if we're trying to be persuasive, but there's also the chance that people actually WANT to understand other perspectives. although i haven't seen (or been party to) that much around here lately.

Not only is it quite arrogant for you to state this as though it should be obvious to everyone, but I also doubt you could fill in the specifics (which ruling class? which translation? all of them? how do you eliminate other possible motives for this devious printing and translating?) that would make it a position worth considering. It is a fool's logic that begins with the premise that religion has been used to oppress and infers that religion exists for the purpose of oppression.[/quote]

It started with the founding of the Orthodox church in Greece translating the new testament of the Bible into Greek in order to firmly set down rules such as Priests being in the image of Christ (men), so only men would have a say in the direction of the church. Greek was used so the convenient parts of the Torah could become the old testament to make sure that the prophecy of Christ would be wrapped in a neat little package.
The common language in that part of the world before was Aramaic- in fact that was the language that Christ spoke- that language was considered conveniently "dead" soon after. Still is.

Then, when the schism occurred which created the Catholic church and the Pope was set above other men- that prophecy was added in the brand new Latin translation of the Bible. Constantine chose Christianity pretty randomly as well- it was the religion he had easist access to. The Roman Empire horded printed copies of the Bible and only Priests and politicians were allowed to keep them in order to keep the unruly masses in line. The bloodiest example of this was the Spanish inquisition where soldiers went door to door with copies of a book people could not read or be familiar with and questioned them on their political loylaty based on articles of faith. If people answered wrong, well... not pretty. It just so happened that the people being questioned were political enemies of the ruling class, but maybe that was a technicality.

In our own fair language we got the King James version of the Bible, it wasn't called that by accident and the translatrion certainly wasn't commissioned by the people of merrie old England.

So my man Martin Luther starts taking it to the streets and "protests" against the church and the government by providnig printed copies of the Bible to average folks like you & me. The protestant church has begun and loose translations of folk tales originally told in Aramaic are now passed down through multiple languages and peopl can read it for themselves much like Grimm's Fairy Tales and other books courtesy of Mr. Gutenberg.

This creates a problem in Europe and we have even bloodier political battles going on in countries that now have people questioning what they have been taught because, as with most literature, this is open for interpretation.

Eventually some peeps come to the new world and a country is founded on religious freedom rather than Christian Theocracy- cool idea, but lots of natives are slaughtered because their fairy tales seem a bit more primitive than the nicely wrapped up Chrstian ones. Ever since, its been hard to be a muslim or jew or anything else here because- guess what the Ruling Class has an interpretation of the Bible and its taught every Sunday in church to people who can't understand it for themselves or simply don't want to.

Now, these fairy tales can be available to your country as well- missionaries travel the world "Teaching English" to those who can't speak it- using guess what text- my gosh its the Bible!

So- I wrote most of this off the top of my head, and I may be off on some chronology- but I think these are fair examples of what you asked for.

Dude- I'm not intolerant- I could give a shit if people wnat to spend time in church. I don't take the appraoch of religious fanatics who want to witness to me and get me to join their club. I think their beliefs are fucked, but I don't actively set out to change them.

My mom got really sick late in her life & turned to religion pretty strongly because it brought her some sense of comfort- do I think it was mystical or spiritual- absolutely not, psychological- definitely. I didn't say a word to her, nor do I say a word to my friends that attend church unless they press me on why I don't go.

You're right. None of those these have ever harmed anyone.

My point was my fanaticism about these things really doesn't affect others- I stated that poorly.

Not to get hung up on one of your points, but I don't think you would find many jews in America today that would say that it is hard for them because they are put down by this "ruling class" that you speak of. I could probably say the same for other religions, but I won't speak out of turn..

I think many jews would agree that this is about as good as it gets. In France there have been synagogue burnings and cemetary desecrations regularly for years. In Germany jews have been warned not to wear anything that may identify them as being jewish for fear of trouble.

Just a small point.

Steve

To condemn a majority Christians, religious believers and church goers due in part to the oppressive tendencies and atrocities of misguided and obviously un-godlike leaders is a bit much.

It's not unlike disregarding all of Thomas Jefferson's ideals of democracy and liberty because he not only owned slaves, but also failed to free them upon his death.

People are intrinsically stupid and selfish. Each and every one of us in our own way, for a number of foolish reasons. There are a great many people who find a comfort and wisdom in religious teachings that help them combat these natural boneheaded actions we take on each day.

Personally, I am not religious. I am often critical of religion and its practices. I also disagree, oftentimes heatedly, with certain people who take god's work upon themselves and judge people they view as faulty. But maybe it's because of a very welcoming Baptist background I am so lucky to see past the aims of a few, so that I may be able to accept them as people with similar flaws, dreams and fears.

I believe that there are many factual errors in your account. I'll give my version, and you or anyone can correct me.

There was nothing called the "Orthodox Church" until the schism in the 11th century, which occured when, after being largely cut off from the rest of the church for many years because of wars, the bishop of Rome claimed supremacy (there is much more to this, but I'll leave it at that). No one translated the New Testament into Greek - it was written in Greek, which was the lingua franca at the time that it was written (roughly between 40-300 AD?). It is true that across many times and cultures people had to rely on priests to tell them what it said, but this is at least partially attributable to the fact that education was not widespread and priests were among the educated class.

The Torah only consists of the first 5 books of the Old Testament. The "convenient parts" did not become the OT - the rest of the OT (here I may be mistaken) comes mostly from what is/was known as the Talmud, or oral tradition of the Jewish people. The translation of the Hebrew OT into Greek was hardly a conspiracy - since Greek was the trade language, and many Jews (and Christians) knew it better than Hebrew, a translation only made sense. This was first done in 200-300A.D. and was called the Septuagint. You insinuate that all of the translations diluted the texts, but this idea was mostly put to rest by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940's. The disuse of Aramaic is probably due to the spread of the Roman empire.

Again, the Latin translation made sense because the Roman church served the Latin-speaking world. I know of no evidence that the "Papal prophecy" was "added" to the Latin translation - the Pope's claim to primacy are based on a verse where Jesus tells Peter "on this rock I will build my church." The Catholic interpretation of this statement is dubious, but the statement itself, as far as I know, appears in the original Greek as well. You can certainly say that Constantine chose Christianity randomly, but I don't know why this explanation is any more believable than that he converted because he believed Christian claims.

The Catholic church indeed went through periods of intense corruption, a fact I do not argue.

Again with King James, even if his purposes for translating the Bible to English were nefarious, that says nothing of its worth. Current "Protestant translations" (at least more modern ones) are based as closely as modern scholarship allows upon the best known copies of scriptures, and are translated directly from their original language. They are not, as you suggest, several translations removed from the originals.

There were many justifications for robbing the Indians - some of them were "religious," all of them were wrong. None that I can think of had any logical foundation in Christian teachings.

Y'see, I do care. It's time for all that shit to stop. It's bad enough that the majority of people on this planet believe in an omniscient, all-powerful entity that cares about their miserable lives, but the fact that many of those same people believe such an entity has published his "thoughts" in book form is too ridiculous to contemplate.

So stop it. Right now.

Jeez, I wish I could have been the literary agent to get that deal.

Steve

(dunwoody, you're killing me with the avatars... I watched Night Tracks as a 14 year old without mtv!)

Haq- Again- it was off the top of my head, and you probably have valid holes to poke in my argument.

Here's the deal- I think we could have a cool discussion about this is we ever get together, and I think you have more patience with religion than I do.

Once upon a time, I felt even more strongly about this, but I hope you see that I wasn't just being an arrogant prick when I made my earlier statement, but that it is in fact rooted in something and I'm capable of backing up my feelings on it.

If not, then I can be an arrogant dumbass too...

I could be wrong but I believe there is a direct correlation between Night Tracks going off the air and MTV deciding that they could begin filling airtime with programming other than videos.

Night Tracks Ruled!

Steve

Once again, some awesome Kung Fu.