Solitary Man

Way to actually refute what Roger said and instead chime in with nothing to offer! That truly is intellectual freedom - the freedom to say nothing intellectual at all.

dog-on

What you should have said was, "In deference to what the ignorant and superstitious morons who continue to pervade our society may believe, one should limit one's own freedom of expression so as to not cause an undeserved, negative reaction from those whose opinion is likely to be irrelevant anyway."

Solitary Man

I hardly take the the opinion of someone who could give you a failing grade to be irrelevant.

I disagree with Roger, but unlike your attack, an undignified attack, I think that so long as the OP remains scholarly and neutral, he ought to incur no major wrath. I myself wrote a paper on power, fear, and control and used the Christian church as an illuminating example. The teacher, whom I found out later was a devout Christian, liked the paper, precisely because I didn't descend into attacks, but merely laid out the arguments in a rational manner. In fact, despite our distinct disagreements, we were able to share long hours together discussing matters of philosophy, religion, academia, and nonsense with each other. She still has my Bible Unearthed. I hope she took it well.

dog-on

While I do not disagree with your basic sentiment, I can no longer worry about being "politically-correct" regarding peoples superstitions. There are just too many of them to keep track of and I do not want to appear biased in my condemnation of their irrationality.

So...

If certain belief systems, indistinguishable from fiction, as is the case of theism, hinder the non-believer's right to freedom of expression, is it then incumbant upon the rational to show "respect" for such beliefs?

I think not, as that dog will no longer hunt.

Solitary Man

Therefore you make yourself indistinguishable from the fundy bible thumpers. Twin A, meet Twin B.

The world would be a lot better without either camp.

dog-on

Really? Do I hinder anyone's right to freedom of expression based on my personal beliefs?

Of course not.

So you see, there is a difference...

TomboyMom

Yes, those are very interesting and important ideas. I bet you could supply the OP with some relevant passages as well. If it was a long-ass paper, you could do a general theme of the ways that OT justice differs from modern conceptions of justice.

Mythra

I agree. Roger Pearse seems to insinuate that the bible should be off-limits, since some people hold it in reverence. I'm very glad that we have progressed past that point. Holy books (including the Q'uran) should be examined and discussed without fear of losing one's head (or lesser retributions.)

I was a fundamental christian for a really long time - and trust me - christians are just as able as anyone else to recognize injustice in the bible when they see it. (Joshua Chp. 7 and the account of Achan the Shoplifter and his family come to mind). But when all else failed, I relied on the "who can know the mind of God" rationale.

Malachi151

One of the reasons for this aspect of collective punishment in the OT is due to the perception of collective punishment in reality.

Wars, storms, plagues, flood, etc., all did collective damage, and the Jewish people viewed those things as acts of their God, thus it appeared to them that punishment was delivered collectively.

In other words, these writings reflected their experiences, and their experience was collective disaster, thus they believed that punishment was collective.

mrs. atticus

Thank you for all your suggestions and comments -- they're really helpful. This will make my research a lot easier. I'm actually taking notes when reading your posts so I will be able to remember and take everything into consideration.

I'm familiar with most of the generally well-known stories of the bible (especially the ones I heard as a child in bible lessons at school and at church camp). More recently I've also been reading some books criticizing the bible and have had a look at a few parts of the bible myself, but not nearly enough to know the details. So I'm glad you're helping me!

I've been thinking about this. I might not have enough time to do the kind of extensive research that this type of paper would require.

A general problem I can see is that I would be taking the bible texts literally, while a lot of (non-fundamentalist) Christians say that some of the contents should not be taken literally -- usually in reference to something that is considered unethical by today's standards. Well, but how would I know what to take literally and what to read figuratively? It seems to me that the common criteria are very arbitrary.


Thanks, that sounds very interesting -- I'll certainly have a look at it.

Malachi151, thanks for the link to your article. I'll make sure to read it. The idea of comparing the bible's concept of economic justice to Marxism/Leninism sounds very intriguing, though it might

TomboyMom and OneInFundieville, you pointed out really good themes which would make interesting starting points and narrow down the topic to a manageable size. The paper is only going to be about 30 pages, so if I choose something as huge as the bible I really need to focus on only one or a few very specific questions and extracts of the text.

Cheerful Charlie, thanks for your detailed post. I find it very helpful. I was actually wondering about the Gospels. Maybe the teachings of Jesus might be worth looking at with regard to justice (i.e. What is his take on justice? What sort of justice does he promote?).

Thanks again to all of you.