PhilosopherJay

Hi sotto voce,

In the Congressional district next to mine, Ted Long has accused Alan Grayson of being "The Most Anti-Christian Congressman" in history. (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1730173.html)

Long said this:

Long is not having a religious or theological argument with Grayson. This is a political argument.

In the same way a story like this in Matthew 12 is not a theological debate:

It was never the policies of the Pharisees or anybody else that people could not be cured on the Sabbath. The debate has always been over payment on the Sabbath. From "Payment For Healing On The Sabbath" (http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/english/journal/rosner-1.htm) by Fred Rosner, M.D., F.A.C.P.

There is no Jewish text or hint of a custom that would prevent a physician from healing a person on a Sabbath. So this story is an absurd anti-priestly (leading pharisees were priests) caricature and a ridiculous political attack from beginning to end.

It is exactly the same as the political attack by the Republicans saying that President Obama could have saved the four American men in Bengazhi, but didn't because he is evil or stupid or cowardly or inept or something.

As far as ordering the healed to report to the priests, Jesus simply demanded that healed people who to the priests, so that the writers could claim that the priests knew about Jesus' magical powers and still condemned him. It was only done to make the Jewish priests look worse.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Iskander

Puerto Ricans and American Republicans have nothing to do with your bizarre post.

The NT is a religious statement .

Iskander

The OP highlights the unwanted political consequences of men and women becoming the “slaves of Allah” or the slave of the Pope or the slave of karma...


This example of what can go wrong when mankind submit to the’ representatives ‘of the imaginary is taken from Christianity.


“No Christian could hope for salvation who was not in all things an obedient son of the Church, and who was not ready to take up arms in its defence; and, in a time when faith was a determining factor of conduct, this belief created a spiritual despotism which placed all things within reach of him who could wield it.


Thus entrusted with responsibility for the fate of mankind, it was necessary that the Church should possess the powers and the machinery requisite for the due discharge of a trust so unspeakably important. For the internal regulation of the conscience it had erected the institution of auricular confession.


When this might fail to keep the believer in the path of righteousness, it could resort to the spiritual courts which had grown up around every Episcopal seat, with an undefined jurisdiction capable of almost unlimited extension. Besides supervision over matters of faith and discipline, of marriage, of inheritance, and of usury, which belonged to them by general consent, there were comparatively few questions between man and man which could not be made to include some case of conscience of every member of the flock.

It would be difficult to set bounds to the intrusion upon the concerns of every man which was thus rendered possible, or to the influence thence derivable
Not only did the humblest priest wield a supernatural power which marked him as one elevated above the common level of humanity, but his person and possessions were alike inviolable. No matter what crimes he might commit, secular justice could not take cognizance of them, and secular officials could not arrest him. He was amenable only to the tribunals of his own order...”


Charles Henry Lea
The Inquisition in the Middle Ages

Net2004

why would this same god allow the romans to hook him to a cross? the god of the ot destroys flesh and loves victory, but god of christianity praises defeat and says "blessed are those who get thier asses kicked "

how can you say "got from israel" when israel used ot to tell paul that his failed and crucified god was foolish?

sotto voce

What makes Orlando of interest? Are you taking the Mickey?

The USA is of relevance, actually. It's Christianity is as genuine as the religion of the Pharisees was actually Mosaic.

'These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'

So let's have no more honoring of trash, please.

Another red herring. Policies, pretentious poo. Just who did they think they were, these jumped up nobodies? Jewish Law, Talmud, tall mud, pile of dung. Rebellion. Clear? Let's have no more honouring of trash, please.

What counted, what counts in retrospect, is what was and is read in the Torah. Nothing more; nothing less. All else was mere opinion, worthy of the death penalty, if promoted as rule, as canon. "Do not add to what is written." This particular argument was actually nothing to do with sabbaths. It was to do with whether Jesus' miraculous healing was of God, or the devil. And the Pharisees did not dare not say which. People will play with fire. Fools rush in.

Just to allow yourself to be called a rabbi was potential blasphemy, and certainly what no loyal Jew would ever risk doing. So it mattered nothing what Pharisees thought. Pharisees were not priests. Pharisees had every bit as much authority as that blind beggar whom they walked past. Less, in fact, because they walked past him. Priests were the properly constituted authority in Israel, and they were the only such authority. Jesus recognised that, even though he knew that by his death and resurrection that authority would cease to exist, because the old, or rather, temporary, stop-gap dispensation was to be made redundant. The real priesthood of the Messiah, the Christ, was to be the only genuine priesthood. So Christianity was as anti-priest as diesel engines were anti-steam engines, which had to go into desuetude, 'overnight'. The thick curtain of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and sensible priests knew immediately that their honourable service was no longer necessary. And of course, within a single generation, it was made impossible.

Sadducees were often priests, Pharisees less so. But this is another red herring. Jesus did not censure these men because they were priests, but because they taught their own opinions as law, as Isaiah prophesied of them.

What a circular world.

sotto voce

What the OP illustrates, in fact its only feature of value, is the false status of those who invented a Christianity with human priests. Which was like inventing a motor car that needs to be pushed everywhere. Very much like it.

Not that the priesthood of Israel was like any other. Any other was a primarily a political phenomenon, a caste whose role was to buttress an economy that was based on exploitation. In Israel, there was no ruling class to utilise the priesthood, and there was legislation against exploitation. Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Rome, you name it, an empire had an elite supported by a priesthood. Except, to a degree, Greece, that had undoubtedly heard of the democracy of early Israel, and made the concept famous, after most of Israel had either apostatised or been scattered among the Gentiles.

But, just as Greek koine disappeared almost without trace, so did the democratic ideal, because the Roman imperium would have nothing to do with such a dangerous notion. After all, Caesars had been forced to have themselves declared deities! So Rome retained its caste of priests, but called them 'Christian'. And of course made short work of any who called themselves Christian but refused to become 'an obedient son of the Church'.

Even today, people who may like the idea of democracy, except for Christians, turn a blind eye to Protestantism, and restrict their definition of Christianity to that which would destroy it, given the chance.

outhouse

Sounds like more fiction then the mythology in the bible

Iskander

Most religions are very intolerant of other religions and very cruel to any non-believers: the extra ecclesiam nulla salus dogma is an example of this intolerance that condemns every human who lives outside the godly club to eternal hell-fire.


Salvation by faith is another example of the same insane cruelty

Religions thrive on conflict and actively seek confrontation, in the name of alien ancient writings, in order to impose on others archaic forms of living.

outhouse

not a major problem in countries with religious freedom.

other then that I would agree

sotto voce

There's no point in having a religion that is inessential, surely. You can't say that heaven is reached by eating six ice creams a day, but admit that you can get there by eating four pork pies instead. Religions have to be exclusive.

Even Baha'i!

How is that cruel?

Not that the Vatican necessarily says this any more. Depending on wind direction, it may say that any baptised persons are Christians.

Justification by faith, I suppose you mean. This states that mankind can be accounted righteous by faith in the perfect atonement of Christ. How is this cruelty?