The Faith & Religion mega Thread

We don't know First Cause 100%, therefore it must have been Divine Creator. yeah... that passes every test in Logic <sarc>

Originally Posted by business_kid I'm just here on something unrelated, but as I am, I'll answer this...Yes, women are allowed to speak. At 1 Timothy 2:11-12 the Bible prohibits wonen teaching or exercising authority over a man. So they don't address the audience from the platform...None of this is strictly policed or strictly punished, unlike other faiths.

Thank you: it is interesting to see how the various closed canon denominations or sects of Christianity handle the gender equality that is accepted socially and in the work places, when contrasted with some of the canonical scripture, such as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

The United Methodists Church began allowing women pastors in 1968.

The General Convention of Episcopal church that in 1976 ruled in favor of ordaining women to their priesthood.

Church of Christ was much earlier as well as Pentacostals. Presbyterians and Lutherans also ordain female pastors.

So these denominations revised their canon for the times, so I suppose they have an open canon, regardless of whether they want to admit it.

When @Hazel said:

And also in churches like the one Business Kid belongs to, there is a standard interpretation which everyone agrees to and which seems to the members indistinguishable from the text itself.

it made me wonder how JW approached the issue. Thanks for answering.

Originally Posted by enorbet We don't know First Cause 100%, therefore it must have been Divine Creator. yeah... that passes every test in Logic <sarc>

Logic reminds me of that poem by Shel Silverstein: Hungry Mungry

Originally Posted by slac-in-the-box Thank you: it is interesting to see how the various closed canon denominations or sects of Christianity handle the gender equality that is accepted socially and in the work places, when contrasted with some of the canonical scripture, such as 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: The United Methodists Church began allowing women pastors in 1968. The General Convention of Episcopal church that in 1976 ruled in favor of ordaining women to their priesthood. Church of Christ was much earlier as well as Pentacostals. Presbyterians and Lutherans also ordain female pastors. So these denominations revised their canon for the times, so I suppose they have an open canon, regardless of whether they want to admit it. When @Hazel said: it made me wonder how JW approached the issue. Thanks for answering.

We're not under Mosaic Law. We don't ordain anyone, as they didn't in the 1st century.

I believe that these blanket prohibitions against women were simply "invented out of whole cloth" by the Romans of those times.

These texts were supposedly written as letters. But at some future point some human beings decided that "they were scripture, they were canonical, they are the Word of God." Very nice if you can manage to do that, and they did, and many people simply believed them. But, did they actually think about it? About half the human population was literally to be struck out of society. Relegated, I suppose, to be "barefoot and pregnant."

Once you begin to say, "that's B.S.!!" about what you read in one of these "letters," it doesn't take very long for that feeling to spread throughout the entire text. When you finally begin to "think for yourself," perhaps you finally begin to see clearly that someone's trying to pull wool over your eyes. You start asking hard questions about where that Book in your hand actually came from, and who decided what was and was not to be included in it. Because, those were human decisions, made by ecumenical politicians. And we actually know where and when it happened.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs I believe that these blanket prohibitions against women were simply "invented out of whole cloth" by the Romans of those times. These texts were supposedly written as letters. But at some future point some human beings decided that "they were scripture, they were canonical, they are the Word of God." Very nice if you can manage to do that, and they did, and many people simply believed them. But, did they actually think about it? About half the human population was literally to be struck out of society. Relegated, I suppose, to be "barefoot and pregnant." Once you begin to say, "that's B.S.!!" about what you read in one of these "letters," it doesn't take very long for that feeling to spread throughout the entire text. When you finally begin to "think for yourself," perhaps you finally begin to see clearly that someone's trying to pull wool over your eyes. You start asking hard questions about where that Book in your hand actually came from, and who decided what was and was not to be included in it. Because, those were human decisions, made by ecumenical politicians. And we actually know where and when it happened.

Believe what you like, why, and be my guest. But you really need to bone up on your early Roman history.

There were regular Roman persecutions of Christians up into the 4th century (Diocletian) and it was only after Constantine's Edict of Milan [312] that Rome accepted Christians. The 3rd century influences on Christians came from far and wide, but the Bible Canon had been settled before the end of the 2nd century, where several independent sources listed books they accepted for teaching at Christian meetings. All the books we have today (and none other) were widely accepted for teaching at meetings, except John's Revelation. That's hardly surprising because it's fulfillment was yet in the future. It was undisputed that John wrote it, so that was recommendation enough in itself.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs You start asking hard questions about where that Book in your hand actually came from, and who decided what was and was not to be included in it. Because, those were human decisions, made by ecumenical politicians. And we actually know where and when it happened.

Once again, I find myself agreeing with sundialsvcs'--except for the last bit: I think there is still much debate about precisely when and where it happened; as Business_Kid points out, most of the books of the new testament were in use before Council of Nicaea--but there really isn't enough evidence to say exactly when and where that early church made it canon, if they did at all...

Around 40 years ago, my grandmother gave me a red-letter edition of King James version, in which all the words of Jesus are in red letters, so one can cut to the chase, and not read all of Saul/Paul's letters, etc. When I did this, I got somewhat of a feel for Jesus' teachings, and it seems to me he was opposed to doctrine enough to have opposed any canon.

Jesus was a rebel. He rebelled against Judaic doctrine: forgot to wash his hands before eating; healed someone on the Sabath, and so on. He clearly doesn't forgive pushing man made notions off as doctrine. Jesus was not a follower. He challenged the Judaic authority of pharisees and sadducees, and their doctrines.

Thus how can one follow someone who is not a follower? The authority of any canon must be challenged, not because that's what Jesus was doing, but because blind obedience to authority is a disease within our traditions that blocks the healing of even deeper diseases within our traditions such as racism, war, and neoscience. If everyone is blindly following diseases, we cannot cure them.

Challenging the authority of a canon is different than completely discarding all those spiritual gems and nuggets of wisdom. It merely seeks internal coherence within our belief systems and traditions. IMHO, there is too much internal discord to blindly accept them.

Faith is different from blind obedience. One can challenge the authority of a conon without losing faith. Faith stems from personal relationships with infinity... one's inner chi/ki... to borrow from yet another spiritual tradition, best learned from the blind guy who says "grasshopper"

"I don't personally see eye to eye" with certain of (say ...) @business_kid's pronouncements, because my own private studying of these matters leads me differently. We do not agree on these various points. But, I do not say that I am "right."

As "world religions" go, Christianity is certainly the new kid on the block – with a provenance like none other.

While it can be demonstrated their is actual value in respecting the opinions of others, it is by no means a blanket generality and is important to be careful as well as properly critical of "smoke and mirrors". For example it is certainly to the discredit of many, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that otherwise intelligent and educated people firmly believed and strongly supported the later proven hoax photos of fairies in 1917. Not only did it do no good to support the 2 children's hoax, it actually caused some harm beyond just to the reputations of some like Sir Arthur. Of course it can also be said that the hoax also resulted in some good in the form of identifying how people can be misled.

In short, the opinion that fairies do not exist is right and the opposing view is simply wrong and a progression of escalating deception - Tell one lie then be required to tell more or admit the first. Many, just double down. Continuing to respect such deception and ill-logic is a clear case of "Cruel to be kind".

Originally Posted by Lenny Bruce There is only what is and that's it. What should be is a dirty lie

Attached is a graphic representation of another hoax, a myth that despite any well-meant intent, is in fact in retrospect an actual hoax as clear as the Cottingley Fairy Photos

Originally Posted by enorbet Attached is a graphic representation of another hoax, a myth that despite any well-meant intent, is in fact in retrospect an actual hoax as clear as the Cottingley Fairy Photos

Would have been more believable if the big water bubble was over lake baikal: amazing lake holding 20% of all fresh h20 on the planet--it has waves, and the peasants call it the sea; it also has fresh water seals... but there was something there, but I can't find my photo of it now, on the wall of a cottage in a small village that I think was a hoax: it was a bunny with tusks.

Probably like a "jackalope," which is something that taxidermists like to create when they get bored.

Originally Posted by slac-in-the-box Would have been more believable if the big water bubble was over lake baikal:

??? believable? I don't understand. The bubbles are ALL Earth's water, the bigger one is salt and the smaller ones fresh iirc, but together the sum total on or in the Earth including the moisture in our atmosphere. If you find that difficult to believe allow me to suggest you update your frame of reference of the dimensions of our Planet. All of us need reminders because the first person frame of reference of our 5 senses doesn't exist unless one has walked the full circumference of the Equator which would take nearly four years assuming a flat sidewalk with convenient supply stations strategically located and every day walking 12 hours and eating, sleeping, eliminating the other 12. Absent that experience, the only way to attempt a frame of reference is abstraction. It's not intuitive.

The point is that there is nowhere near enough water to cover the Earth even a millimeter deep let alone over the peaks of the Himalayas and all other mounatain ranges. Much more to the mythical point, the sky isn't firmament held up by a very large tree or crystal spherers and Space isn't a sea that can leak in for 40 days and 40 nights, nor is there a drainage system to dump the quantities required to remove that incredible amount of water if it were so.

It does reflect however the frame of reference of the people that wrote scripture rather nicely.

"It does reflect however the frame of reference of the people that wrote scripture rather nicely."

And yet, "let us all now ride forward to defend them!" They didn't know. How could they know? Like any and every human being, they wrote in terms of what they (thought they ...) knew.

And yet, their words survived for generations, when plenty of other people's words didn't survive their last breath.

Ahem ...

"And now, looking forward a couple of future generations," I suppose that I sometimes wonder what they will think of any of us?

('Scuse me ... this is getting a bit too serious ... I think it's time to have a nice cup of tea.)

True, sundialsvcs, nobody can blame them for not knowing Nature deeply. However they are responsible for some blame either as crafty snake oil salesmen or delusional autocrats. I lean toward salesmen for at least the major movers and shakers since it seems ancient men were certainly no less intelligent than we. They weren't stupid. They managed to do a great deal with very little. If we extend that it would seem that at least some contributors knew full well what could make their lack of knowledge regarding Nature irrelevant for millennia. They built on what they did know well, human nature and the value of strong leaders and Average Joe's dependence on them so they crafted one outside of our reality that could remain above reproach at the very least to many generations thus maintaining the narrative.

In fact it is quite a feat. Though a far greater work than most Christian Scripture reminds me of the very wisest authors and playwrights that can create a narrative that appeals to the ignorant AND the wise whether viewed as literal or metaphor and it could even withstand some tweaking along the way without losing much of it's root appeal. Most importantly it worked. For a very long time it has been a powerful civilizing influence even if it did that by teaching passive acceptance of rigid authority in return for "pie in the sky" only collectible after we die. Helluva feat I'd say.

It would be interesting to know if it can adapt and survive like the reed or break like the oak.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs "I don't personally see eye to eye" with certain of (say ...) @business_kid's pronouncements, because my own private studying of these matters leads me differently. We do not agree on these various points. But, I do not say that I am "right." As "world religions" go, Christianity is certainly the new kid on the block – with a provenance like none other.

I meant to come back to this: you are welcome to your views, which I know are different.

Most of Roman history has been rewritten to support the Established Church --> Catholic Church version of events. Things like Popes and Bishops (as titles), the Apostle Peter being 25 years in Rome, wars against heresies, etc. etc. They are written into history wjhen they shouldn't be there. It's the majority written opinion, but it's wrong. If you look at the two sides of the Reformation/Inquisition, you get a better picture of the real events. It's easier to find documentary evidence for the Reformation.

My sources are:

1. Contemporaneous (or as near as you can get) biographies of the Roman Emperors (with Caveats).
2. Accepted historians of each period (With more Caveats).
3. The many (prediminantly Greek) documents about ordinary matters which touch on Christianity. These are letters, business documents, dispatches. A well known example is letters between Pliny the Younger and Emperor Trajan where Pliny outlined his procedure for any accused of being Christians. Trajan approved of it.

Here's the link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_..._on_Christians
Wikipedia is never a great source but the others I came accross seemed worse, if anything.

Over some decades, I have made a study of these things, settled most issues of concern to me and remembered the outcome of what matters to me. That's why I pronounce, because I'm not going to repeat that work to establish some point which nobody here will accept anyhow. If you take the mainstream view on 1st/2nd century Christianity, you will be deceived.