Jinto

Mt. 5:17-19 - "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

So the OT laws are still binding on Christians, at least until Jesus's second coming. Additionally, there's also the good old standby of Luke 19:27 - "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Also, on the issue of judgement in general:

John 7:24 - "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

1 Cor. 2:15 - "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man."

1. Cor. 6:2-3 - "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?"

Starboy

Faith, that is damn funny. If Christianity is anything it is about judgment. There would be no point to being a Christians if it wasn't.

Starboy

Faith

None of those verses tell Christians to kill those who believe differently than they do. Or to judge in God's place.

As to the I Corinthians verses, you probably know that Paul didn't always speak for Jesus.



Glad I could provide your day's amusement, Starboy. Christianity is not about judgment. It is about having faith in Jesus as your Redeemer and living a Christ-like existence.

miata

Folks this this the only civil site I have ever found. This tells me that there are others who wonder about religion.

A being so powerful that he can make billions of stars and create millions of life forms would care if we kill the fatted calf in his honor.

Think about Noah; how did he walk this entire earth to collect animals in the North and South Poles? How did he get all of them back with only on boat for transportation? When the water left the boat on dry land how did the animals cross land masses and oceans to return to their homes and proper habitat.
I can't see the logic in killing every person because some refused to agree with Noah's God. How is it fair to kill children who are innocent; yet Christians do not kill but what an example!!!

Thanks for feed back and thanks for not cursing at me for my questions.

Jinto

Ahem:

Luke 19:27 - "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

What part of that do you not interpret as killing those who believe differently?

John 7:24 - "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

Now this is a command to judge other people. And it's not from Paul, either.

No, he didn't always speak for Jesus, but he did do it sometimes.

Mageth

You said "He attacked the Pharisees for pretending to be so righteous" and "God's not a big fan of hypocrisy, y'know."

Through your words, you yourself were judging the Pharisees - and "hypocrites" in general, BTW.

Indeed, you earlier judged when you said:

"The simple answer is...true Christians shouldn't attack others for their beliefs. Please consider that the next time someone is hostile to you in the name of Christianity."

In so doing, you're pronouncing judgment that "Christians" that attack others for their beliefs are not true Christians.

The rest of the NT belies this claim, when Paul etc are several times recorded as judging, and attacking, the beliefs of others, including their fellow Christians.

Then perhaps you shouldn't judge Christians that "judge and attack", implying that they're not "true Christians". Christ's words, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone" come to mind.

BTW, the idea that Jesus taught not to be judgmental is often based on Matthew 7:1: Judge not, that ye be not judged.

But note what the next four verses say:

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Jesus was speaking to the hypocrites you say God doesn't like. So, in v. 5, Jesus doesn't prohibit judgment, but condones judgment if "done properly". Don't judge hypocritally.

And then there's John 7:24, where Jesus says: Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment. Again, not a prohibition against judgment.

There are many, many more verses in the NT where "proper" judgment is condoned or taught.

dado

Jesus was Torah-observant...

Kassiana

Mmm. I can only speak from my own experience in this matter. Back when I was a born-again obnoxious conservative Christian, I thought atheists were just deliberately ignoring all the wonderful evidence out there for God. It's what we were all told from all the Christian sources we read (of course we didn't read atheist sources! They're of the devil!).

Now that I know who and what atheists are and so on, and now that I'm a liberal Pagan, I can safely say I don't think atheists are just stupid self-deluded fools who refuse to let Jesus save them.

Jinto

Hey, we're all infidels here, we don't curse at anyone for asking questions.

Living a Christ-like existence? You mean we get to be beaten, whipped, spat on, and nailed to a cross?

dado

this reminds me of something i ran across the other day. i was in a mall - which is rare to begin with - and this mall had something called the "Bible Outlet Store". basically it was a discount store for x'ian articles of faith. so i took of my kippot and went in. what i found was - no surprise - millions of bibles. all kinds of versions. there must be dozens of variants. there were even "parallel" bibles where multiple versions were splattered across the pages in columns.

but what was pointedly missing was a bible - any bible - in the original language. not one version of the bibles had hebrew - not even with interlinear english - not one version had greek - not even with interlinear. this strikes me as very odd. if this is the most important book in all of human history, shouldn't believers make an effort to learn the original languages? to put it bluntly, putting faith in a translation smacks more than a little of idolatry.

i know there is a small minority of x'ians who do make the effort, does anybody have a logical explanation for why more x'ians don't?