Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

Dodge!

 

Dodge!

 

Dodge!

Splendid Splinter raised valid points. You are running from them.

 

Hillsong united in many ways:

https://pagesix.com/2020/12/17/hill...campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=pasteboard_app

 

Who knew Alma was Butch from the Little Rascals?

 

This? This is what pisses me off. This.

 

Historically the switch was done as a politically prudent move. In the early days of Christianity when the apostles were sharing the message, they saw themselves as Jewish and led by the Jewish law. That means keeping kosher and the other regulations of keeping your body pure. However, the great commission put the messengers in a weird spot: do the new converts they are commanded to get have to become Jewish? It was an argument between Peter and Paul (someone please correct me if it were different people) who were on opposite sides. Ultimately, they needed converts to keep their new faith going. They allowed the kosher laws and other strict Jewish law to be eliminated to make it more palatable for gentiles. Pork, shellfish, tattoos et al were allowed because "Jesus fulfilled the law" and a new covenant was established.

Now why is homosexuality not included in this? Because it wasn't seen as the same thing as these covenant exclusions, it was about keeping yourself sexually pure which was still a big deal and not something they needed to compromise about to get converts. Paul specifically condemns it in the epistles.

Now that is likely the why, but it doesn't make it right. We are commanded to love one another and to leave judgment to God. We shouldn't care who loves whom so long as the love is respected by everyone involved. Nor should we care how others choose to experience it. My biggest complaint is Christians expect to get people to come running toward them by telling them how evil their lives are but Christians excuse their own shortfalls. I'm a sinner trying my best and I come up short but it's ok. But you are a sinner who is an abomination because you don't go to church and you're going to hell.

 

Aaron Sorkin theology. I wouldn't turn to the clergy for screenwriting either.
I can't speak for Christians, but from a Jewish perspective, most of ritual law is commanded to Jews only, and much of that - in particular almost all of the purity/impurity laws - are suspended in post Temple/prophecy times, like the last 2000 years.

 

The Bartlet Inquisition may have led to more ill-gotten gotchas than Bill Maher et al. could have ever dreamed of.

 

From the "God" episode of Louie, one of my favorite scenes of the series and of anything relating to the subject.

Louie: "God"

 

Nah. Just rolling out of town on some of these. Hopefully over time you discern which folks want to have a dialogue and which people, in not so many words, are telling Christianity to go fuck itself. Or they just want to wind people up, like you try to do.

 

And?

And even if true, and even if not, I don't think you're able to discern between them.