Biblical Christianity vs Gospel Christianity...

Is there a difference?

If there is, which is more powerful politically? Does it deserve to be?

of those two terms is defined.

"The Bible" to me is a collection of writings by various authors at various times over the last several thousand years. It defies a clinical assessment. It is at once wondrously enlightening and a hell of a mess.

which is based on the OT but we don't hear much about the actual sayings or actions of Jesus as described in the NT...so I sort of came up with the term "Gospel Christianity" to describe that.

Christianity.

I wonder how many of the people preaching it, though, have ever read the Bible.

The Republican Party let these Bible-thumpers inside the castle walls. And now they are kind of trashing the joint and they won't leave.

President Obama very likely knows the Bible better than most of the loud-mothed televangelists. They are going to have to hone their game and clean up their act to stay in the action.

It was a huge problem in the very first churches; those who wanted to enforce OT laws vs. those preaching a gospel of love and freedom.

We hear "Biblical Christians" all the time spouting forth against gay marriage (for instance) citing the Bible.

But I've never heard a "Biblical Christian" quote the Beatitudes or the Golden Rule.

This is called Red-Letter Christianity and is usually much more liberal than other forms Evangelical Christianity, but they usually don't call themselves liberal or conservative in order to be more inclusive.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2006/02/Whats-A-Red-Letter-Christian.aspx">Link to an article concerning Red-Letter Christianity on Beliefnet.com.

That's the kind of thing I was thinking of.

I wish there was more of this to counteract the RW fundies.

They call themselves "Biblical Christians" but I've rarely heard one of them quote any ethics from the part of the Bible about Christ - you know, the Gospels.

For instance "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" kind of suggests to me that you shouldn't torture suspects but "Biblical Christians" mostly support torture.

(somewhat convincingly, I might add) that you and liberal Christians are selectively using the Bible. You all ignore parts of the bible, you just don't agree on which parts to ignore.

As the well-known "letter to Dr. Laura" points out, no one (not even Orthodox Jews) still follows everything in Leviticus, which is where the fundies get their anti-gay ideology.

The Bible is extraordinarily contradictory. Heck, even the Gospels are contradictory; Jesus declares that the entirety of the old Mosaic law should be followed, but advocates breaking the law in specific plenty of times. Jesus preaches a message of universal love unrestricted by nationality, but likens a foreign woman who approaches him to a dog begging for scraps. And, of course, Jesus preaches forgiveness, but takes a perverse glee in the thought of eternal torment for everyone who mocks him, argues with him, disagrees with him, or even simply fails to believe him (indeed, the Jesus of the Gospels spends far more time talking about Hell than about Heaven).

Besides, the ethics of Jesus are impossible for people to follow entirely while maintaining a non-monastic life. "Sell literally everything you have, keep nothing for yourself, and give it all to the poor" is an admirable sentiment, but it is not one that is realistic for most to follow. Even Jesus didn't follow it himself; he was quite happy to have a prostitute anoint him with 300 denarii worth of oil (an entire year's wages for a laborer). When his disciples complained that was an egregious waste of money, Jesus replied, "you will always have the destitute with you and can help them whenever you want, but you will not always have me." (Mark 14: 7)

When even Jesus didn't follow the specific commands of Jesus, it's hardly unforgivable for his followers to pick-and-choose as well.

the Jesus of the Gospels spends far more time talking about Hell than about Heaven).


"The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment"
1. Though Gehenna occurs twelve times, the Savior actually used it only on four or five different occasions, the rest being only repetitions. If this is the word, and the revelation of this terrible doctrine is in it, how is it possible that Christ, in a ministry of three years, should use it only four times? Was He faithful to the souls committed to His charge?

2. The Savior and James are the only persons in all the New Testament who use the word. John Baptist, who preached to the most wicked of men, did not use it once. Paul wrote fourteen epistles, and yet never once mentions it. Peter does not name it, nor Jude; and John, who wrote the gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelations, never employs it in a single instance. Now if Gehenna or hell really reveals the terrible fact of endless woe, how can we account for this strange silence? How is it possible, if they knew its meaning, and believed it a part of Christ's teaching, that they should not have used it a hundred or a thousand times, instead of never using it at all; especially when we consider the infinite interests involved?

3. The Book of Acts contains the record of the apostolic preaching, and the history of the first planting of the Church among the Jews and Gentiles, and embraces a period of thirty years from the ascension of Christ. In all this history, in all this preaching of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, there is no mention of Gehenna. In thirty years of missionary effort, these men of God, addressing people of all characters and nations, never, under any circumstances, threaten them with the torments of Gehenna, or allude to it in the most distant manner! In the face of such a fact as this, can any man believe that Gehenna signifies endless punishment, and that this is a part of divine revelation, a part of the Gospel message to the world?

http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/tbhell.html

the arguments advancing the viewpoint that every Christian mention of Hell was simply an error of translation, or a misunderstanding of a metaphor, all relying on the particulars coming out of the mouth of Jesus. It begins to stretch the bounds of plausibility that so many like errors were made. I don't even think it's particularly relevant. We don't have evidence for a single word Jesus actually said; the gospels were the end result of a centuries-long game of Telephone. It's not possible to reconstruct Jesus as a man--or to reconstruct actual practice or words--with any degree of certainty; we can only construct Jesus as a myth (in the non-pejorative sense) and as the center of a doctrine. What matters in the conversation at hand is the Bible as we read and understand it, and not the Bible as parts of it may have once been intended hundreds of years before it was written.

But let's leave that aside and accept purely for argument's sake that Jesus did not actually propose eternal punishment more than a handful of times, but was simply using rather poetic metaphors for death. He is still repeatedly taking obvious pleasure in the thought of the death of those who have crossed him, with not a thought of forgiveness. He still does propose eternal torment (and "well only Jesus said it" is not a very good argument against the fact that Jesus said it). And the other inconsistencies of Jesus still stand.

blow off whatever you want. But, I will give the evidence to dispute the eternal torment angle. If it amounts to a complete destruction of all things not aligned with God, as in "perish", what's your problem? Don't atheists believe they have no afterlife anyway? There happen to be two lines of teaching on the finality. Some teach universal eternal life, others a complete destruction. The eternal torment does not hold up in light of study.

I don't have time right now to consider your other arguments. The one I address is the most widespread misconception.

"blowing off" (though I do) but rather of believing that the argument, even if completely true, is unrelated to the discussion at hand. First, the original intent is irrelevant; all that matters in a discussion of common adherence to the Bible is common understanding of the Bible. Secondly, even under your reading, my claims about Jesus are exactly the same and stand for exactly the same reasons they do under my reading.

What atheists believe doesn't particularly matter in this conversation, either. The discussion is about the inconsistencies in the beliefs of modern Christianity. The OP suggests resolving those inconsistencies by focusing entirely on the Gospels. I propose that the Gospels are inconsistent as well, and that even the character of Jesus is inconsistent. As part of my claim, I say that the obvious relish and frequency of his claims that those who disagree with him are going to perish/burn is not consistent with his claim that all should forgive unconditionally and unilaterally all wrongs done. He himself does not forgive those who argue with him; he claims that they will all die for failing to beseech him for forgiveness. That is hypocritical, and it leads to much confusion. Some Christians focus on Jesus's claims, saying that we ought forgive all. Others emulate Jesus's personal behavior, and come to the conclusion that gays/atheists/foreigners/whatever are all sinners deserving of divine punishment.

Also, as an aside, there are far more than "two lines of teaching" on the afterlife. That's silly. There are dozens of lines of teaching within all the denominations of Christianity, and hundreds more beyond that.

and such power struggles have some tendency to be mystified as theological disputes. There being standard texts, the disputes can then be recast as arguments over who has the correct interpretation of the text: we understand the Bible correctly and they don't has appeared again and again as a standard claim in such arguments. So I doubt if the question you ask makes sense without more context

At present, the claim We follow Biblical Christianity usually (but not always) signals to me that the speaker is a conservative authoritarian: it probably does not mean, for example, that the speaker follows the Old Testament dietary laws (although among some smaller sects it might signify that). I do not recall ever hearing anyone say We follow Gospel Christianity -- but if I heard the claim, my first guess would be that the speaker intended to distinguish the "Old Testament" from the "New Testament"

that was my intent, I thought "Gospel Christian" might be a useful term for liberal Christians to use when confronted with "Biblical Christians" and their holier-than-thou attitude.

"I'm a Gospel Christian and I believe in the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule" might be a useful sound-byte in that situation...

distinction could be regarded as insulting to Judaism: Christianity arose as a Judaic splinter group, and from a historical point of view, I suspect that much of what I like about the early Christian church was already well-represented by some Jewish thought of the time. It's clear that the Old Testament sometimes reflects a punitive and authoritarian theology -- but it doesn't always. There's a strong social justice message in some of the Hebrew prophets: perhaps one shouldn't ignore that when attempting to understand early efforts to justify Christianity by appealing to the prophets. Moreover, Judaism has a long tradition of dispute and interpretation, sometimes quite liberal, much of which was lost from the Christian tradition. There's no doubt that first century Judaea had its full share of rigid self-righteous authoritarians, but the culture had also been influenced by some graceful humanitarians, such as Hillel

Beyond that, I guess I've little interest in theology as polemic or a debate. If someone tells me that s/he is a "Biblical Christian," what s/he probably means is that s/he wants to take a literalist stance, which presumes not only an absolutely definitive text, uncontaminated by any merely human element, but also an completely definitive method for understanding the text. The first seems unlikely to me for philological reasons since, after all, these are ancient texts, written in archaic languages and often recopied; the second is contrary to my modernist worldviews; and the third is an authoritarian claim, which offends me as being egoistic and lacking humility. In my experience, discussion of such issues is at best difficult, because a discussion, which merely seeks to win by scoring points, is in some sense a pointless intellectual exercise

obviously never read it. The later prophets are all about justice and mercy.

This was only a small part of the Bible verses I found that are all about God being a total badass psychotic mass murderer:

ISAIAH:

# "And ... instead of a sweet smell there shall be stink," with people suffering from baldness and burnings, and the men killed with swords. 3:24-25

# After God "washed away the filth" from the women and killed the men, he set up "a cloud and smoke by day" and a "flaming fire by night." 4:4-5

# God will kill those who despise his word and fail to follow his laws. Their carcasses will be "torn in the midst of the streets." 5:24-25

# If you associate or gird yourself, God will break you in pieces. 8:9

# God will have no mercy on the widows and children of hypocrites. 9:17

# God will make every man kill his brother and then force him to eat "the flesh of his own arm." 9:19-20

# God will "smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked." 11:4

# "I have commanded my sanctified ones ... to destroy the whole land." God has his holy ones do his dirty work for him. 13:3-5

# On God's day he will kill sinners with great anger, wrath, and cruelty. Those who die will have their faces consumed by flames. 13:6-9

# If God can find you, he will "thrust you through," smash your children "to pieces" before your eyes, and rape your wife. He will have no mercy, but will even kill your little children. 13:15-18

# God will slaughter children "for the iniquity of their fathers." 14:21

# After God destroys Moab, the rivers will be red with blood. He will send lions to eat any survivors. 15:9

# The God of Peace will set brother against brother and kingdom against kingdom. Then he'll make the survivors heed the counsel of "wizards," and subject them to a "cruel lord." 19:2-4

# The Apocalypse of Isaiah: God will destroy the earth, burning everyone and every living thing alive (except maybe a few men). 24:1-6

# "And the people shall ... be burned in the fire." 33:12

# God is furious at everyone and is ready to kill them all. Or as Isaiah so delicately puts it: "Their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood." 34:2-3
===================
JEREMIAH:
# God tries to "correct" people by killing their children. 2:30

# Circumcise the foreskin of your heart or God will burn you to death. 4:4

# God will bring evil to entire cities, destroying them and wipe out all of their inhabitants. 4:6-7

# What was once fruitful is now barren. Birds have fled, people are gone, towns are in ruins. All "by his (God's) fierce anger." 4:25-26

# God sends plagues and violence to correct people. 5:3

# God will send lions and leopards to tear people into little bitty pieces. 5:6

# God will kill those who believe and preach the wrong doctrines. 5:12-13

# God again talks of bringing a foreign nation to destroy his chosen ones and their lands. 5:15-17

# "I am full of the fury of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in." He's anxious to "pour it out" on children, young men, husbands, wives, and old people. 6:11-12

# God threatens to punish the men by taking away all of their property, including their wives, and giving them to others. 6:12

# God plans to kill pretty much everyone: fathers and sons, family, friends, and neighbors. God plans to kill them all after laying a stumbling block before them. 6:21

# God will send soldiers from the north that will kill everyone and have no mercy. 6:22-23

# God will pour out his anger on both man and beast. Not even the trees will be spared from his wrath. And the ground itself will burn forever. 7:20

# God will feed the people to the birds and the beasts, "and none shall fray them away." 7:33

# God will cover the earth with dead bodies that will not be buried. "They shall be for dung upon the face of the earth." 8:2

# People will choose to kill themselves, rather than be killed by their vicious God. 8:3

# God will give the people bad food and water, and then kill them with a sword. 9:15-16

# God will kill children and young men, and the dead bodies "shall fall as dung .... and none shall gather them." 9:21-22

# "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised." I guess that'd include just about everyone -- well, all the men anyway. 9:25-26

# Jeremiah prays for the destruction of people and families that don't call on God's name. 10:25

# God "will bring evil upon" people from which they will not be able to escape. And if they cry out to him for help, he will not help them. 11:11

# God forbids others from praying for his victims. Such prayers would go unanswered anyway, he says, because he "will not hear them in their time of trouble." 11:14

# God will punish the people by killing their young men in war and starving their children to death. 11:22

# Jeremiah asks God to drag away his enemies like "sheep for the slaughter." 12:3

# God delivered his people "into the hand of her enemies." He "hates" his "dearly beloved" people and plans to feed them to the birds. 12:7-9

# God's sword will "devour" everyone until "no flesh shall have peace." 12:12

# If any nation does not listen to God, he "will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation." 12:17

# God plans to make everyone in the kingdom drunk and then "dash the fathers and the sons together." The merciful God of Peace vows to "not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them." 13:13-14

# God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people. God has decided to kill them all and he doesn't want to be talked out of it. 14:11

# God will ignore the peoples' prayers, and kill them all with war, starvation, and disease. 14:12

# God will destroy by famine and sword those who are misled by the prophets, as well as the prophets themselves. 14:15-16

# God tells Jeremiah not to bother praying for the people. Even if Moses and Samuel (and Jesus?) were to ask him to reconsider, he wouldn't. He's going to kill everybody and nobody can stop him! 15:1

# God plans to do four things to his people: 1) kill them with swords, 2) tear their flesh with dogs, 3) have the birds, and 4) the beasts eat their bodies. Why will he do these terrible things? Because of something some former king did. 15:2-4

# God again threatens Jerusalem with mass destruction. Here are some of the highlights: He will kill children, make more widows than there are grains of sand, terrorize cities, and then kill the survivors. 15:7-9

# God will have you enslaved and, if you make him mad enough, he will burn you to death. 15:14

# God tells Jeremiah not to get married or have children, because he's going to kill everyone (mothers and daughters, fathers and sons). They all "shall die of grievous deaths," and that shall neither "be lamented" nor buried, but "shall be as dung upon the face of the earth." For he has removed peace, "lovingkindness," and mercy from the people. 16:1-7

# God will kill children if their parents worship other gods. 16:10-11

# If you don't honor the Sabbath, God will burn you to death unquenchable fire. 17:27

# God admits that he does evil things to people. 18:11

# Jeremiah asks God to kill the young men in war and the children by starvation. 18:21

# God will do so much evil to the people that whoever hears of it will have their ears tingle. 19:3

# God will make parents eat their own children, "and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend." 19:7-9

# God will break those who worship other gods as though they were made of clay, killing so many that there will not be enough room to bury them all. 19:11-13

# "For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it." 20:4

# God himself will fight and kill everyone in fury "with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm." 21:5

# "I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence." 21:6

# God will deliver Zedekiah and those that survive the famine, disease, and war into Nebuchadrezzar's hand, and "he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy. 21:7

# God tells the Judeans to either surrender to the Babylonians and become their slaves or die. "Behold, I am against thee." No kidding. 21:9-13

# God will have Jeconiah's enemies kill him and his mother and then ensure that he die without leaving any sons. 22:25-30

# God promises to kill everyone by war, starvation, and disease. 24:10

# God will force "all the kingdoms of the world" to drink "and be drunken". Then he'll kill "all the inhabitants of the earth" with a sword. 25:26-29

# God will kill so many people that the entire earth will be covered with their dead bodies. No one is to mourn them or even bury them; "they shall be dung upon the ground." 25:31-33

# God will destroy "the peaceable habitations" and make the land desolate "because of his fierce anger." 25:37-38

# Anyone who disobeys King Nebuchadnezzar will be punished "with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand." 27:8

# God kills Hananiah for prophesying falsely. 28:15-17

# God will send his usual blessings upon his people: "the sword, the famine, and the pestilence." He "will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil." 29:17-18

# God will kill those who refuse listen to his prophets. 29:19

# God will deliver Ahab and Zedekiah into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar "and he shall slay them before your eyes" and Ahab will be "roasted in the fire." 29:21-22

# God will punish the children of Shemaiah for their father's false prophecy. 29:32

# God litters the ground "with the dead bodies of men" that he has killed in his anger and fury. 33:5

# God threatens again to send his people the sword, pestilence, and famine, saying he'll feed their dead bodies to the fowls and beasts of the earth. 34:17-20

# All those who move to Egypt will die by the sword, famine, or pestilence. None "shall escape from the evil" that comes directly from God. 42:15-18, 22

# When God pours forth his fury and his anger, entire cities are destroyed. 44:6

# God's not finished with Judah. He will bring more evil upon them. Even those Jews that flee to Egypt will not be spared. God will hunt them down and kill them all with war, famine, and disease. 44:11-13

# "I will watch over them for evil, and not for good." 44:27

# God says he will bring evil upon all flesh. 45:5

# The day of the Lord will be "a day of vengeance." On that day God's sword will become drunk with blood. 46:10

# God plans to drown the Philistines in a flood, and "all the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl." 47:2

# God plans to kill just about everybody. "No city shall escape." 48:8

# "Cursed by he that keepeth back his sword from blood." 48:10

# God will destroy everyone in Moab. Fire will burn their heads, and their sons and daughters will be taken captive. 48:42-47

# God will cause the daughters of Rabbah to be burned with fire. 49:2

# God will send such marvelous plagues on Edom that everyone will hiss in astonishment. 49:17

# God plans to "bring evil upon" the people of Elam. He says he'll kill them all with a sword. 49:37

# God says to do the usual thing to the inhabitants of "the land of Merathaim": kill them all. 50:21

# God commands that all Babylonian bullocks be slaughtered, that archers shoot all Babylonians, and that all their men be killed in war. 50:27-30

# God, the pyromaniac, will personally set the fires that will burn to death the inhabitants of entire cities. 50:32

# God plans to kill all the Babylonian horses, and to make the Babylonian men "become like women." (A fate worse than death to a misogynous god.). 50:37

# God wants us to be his "battle axe and weapons of war" to "break in pieces the nations" and "destroy kingdoms." 51:20

# God will "break in pieces" nations and kingdoms, horse and rider, man and woman, old and young, young man and maid, the shepherd and his flock, husbandman and his yoke of oxen, captain and kings. It seems that God intends to break us all into pieces. 51:21-23

# God will get the Babylonians drunk and then kill them all, leading them "like lambs to the slaughter." 51:39-40

=================================
LAMENTATIONS:

# God tramples "as in a winepress" mighty men, young men, and virgins. 1:15-16

# "The Lord Was an enemy." 2:4-8

# God mercilessly kills everyone, young and old. He even causes women to eat their children. 2:20-22

# God is like a bear or a lion who secretly pursues you and then tears you apart. 3:10-11

# "Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. Persecute and destroy them in anger." 3:63-64

# God punishes the Israelites by starving their children to death. 4:4-9

# God "accomplishes his fury" by making women eat their children. 4:10-11




EZEKIEL:
# If a good person does something wrong after God "lays a stumbling block before him," then God will kill him. "He shall die in his sin" and whatever good he has done will be forgotten. 3:20

# God will cause the fathers to eat their sons and the sons to eat their fathers. 5:10

# God will slaughter everyone by killing one third with plagues, one third with famines, and one third with wars. If any somehow survive, he'll send "evil beasts" to devour them. Finally, after he's done killing, he "will be comforted." 5:11-17

# God will decorate the land with the bones and dead bodies of those who worship a different god. 6:4-5

# God makes his presence known by killing people with famine, disease, and war. 6:7-14

# God will pour out his fury on everyone, with pity toward none. By so doing he says that "ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth." Indeed, who would else would behave so viciously? 7:3-9

# God's is mad at everyone and no one will escape his wrath. He'll kill them all with war, disease, and starvation. "Horror shall cover them" and "they shall know that I am the Lord." 7:14-28

# God promises again to slaughter everyone. He says that he will ignore them when they plead with him for mercy. 8:18

# God sends a "man clothed with linen" to mark the foreheads of the men who will be saved. Apparently only men are considered good enough to keep, the others (unmarked men, "maids", little children, and women) are to be slaughtered. God says he'll "fill the courts with the slain" and will have pity on no one. 9:4-10


DANIEL:
# Nebuchadnezzar, after first trying to burn to death the three Hebrews, now decrees that everyone who says anything against the Hebrew god "shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill." 3:29

# King Darius, after trying to feed Daniel to the lions, orders those who accused Daniel (and their wives and children) to be cast into the lion den. "And the lions ... brake all their bones in pieces." 6:24
===============
HOSEA:
# God (or Hosea?) tells his children that their mother is a whore who is not his wife. He asks them to tell their mother to "put away her whoredoms" and "her adulteries from between her breasts" or he'll "strip her naked ... and slay her with thirst." 2:2-3

# God will tear up Ephraim like a lion so that "in their affliction they will seek me." 5:14

# "Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them!" 7:13

# For ignoring God "their princes shall fall by the sword." 7:16

# "I will send a fire upon his cities." 8:14

# God will induce miscarriages and kill the children of Ephraim. 9:11-12

# "O Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts." 9:14

# "I will slay even the beloved fruit of their womb." 9:16

# God will punish Israel by "dashing" together mothers and their children. 10:14

# The blame for Ephraim's bloody destruction falls on Ephraim, not on God. Even though God is the one who brings it about. 12:14

# God will rip humans apart and then eat them like a lion.13:7-8

# Because the Samaritans chose to worship another deity, God will dash their infants to pieces and their "women with child shall be ripped up." 13:16

===============================
JOEL:

# "A fire devoureth before them ... nothing shall escape."
On "the day of the Lord", everything and everyone will be burned to death. 2:3

# "Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears." 3:10

=============================
AMOS:
# The divine pyromaniac threatens to "send fire unto" Hazael, Gaza, Tyrus, Teman, Rabbah, Moab, and Judah. 1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; 2:2, 5

# God will "slay all the princes" of Moab.2:3

# God destroyed the Amorites who were a race of giants as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks. 2:9

# God afflicts the Israelites with "cleanness of teeth" (famine) and drought. And then he wonders why they don't turn to him. 4:6-9

# God sends the pestilence, kills young men with the sword, and makes the "stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils." 4:10

# "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."
God promises to kill all the Israelites. 4:12

# God tells the Israelites to seek him or he'll kill 90% of them. 5:3-4

# Seek God or he'll burn you to death. 5:6
==================
MICAH:

# God will destroy Samaria with stones. 1:6

# Plucking off skin, flesh from bones, eating human flesh, flaying off skin, breaking bones, chopping bodies in pieces, making human stew. All this and more will happen to God's favorite people. But when they "cry unto the Lord, he will not hear them." 3:2-4

# God will strengthen the Israelites so they can "beat in pieces many peoples" and give the booty to God. 4:13

# "They shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword." 5:6

# Like a young lion "the remnant of Jacob" will tear the Gentiles to pieces. 5:8

# "Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off." 5:9


======================
ZECHARIAH:
# "For I set all men every one against his neighbor." 8:10

# God will cast out Tyrus and devour it with fire. 9:4

# God will mercilessly "feed the flock of slaughter" by making every one kill his neighbor. 11:6

# "Let the rest eat every one the flesh of another." 11:9

# "Woe to the idle shepherd." He will be mutilated and blinded. 11:17

# God will open his eyes and smite "every rider with madness ... and every horse ... with blindness." 12:4

# A prophet must be killed by his own parents by "thrusting him through when he prophesieth." 13:3

# God will make "all nations" fight against Jerusalem. The women will be "ravished" and half its people enslaved. 14:1-2

# God will smite the people with plagues that will cause their flesh, eyes, and tongues to rot away. 14:12

# God will make everyone fight and kill his neighbor. 14:13

MALACHAI:
# God continues to demand animal sacrifices. And not just any animals will do. He is insulted when blind, lame, or sick animals are killed for him. 1:8, 13-14

# God will burn "the wicked" and the "righteous" will walk around on their ashes. 4:1-3

# The Old Testament ends fittingly with these words: "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." 4:6
=================
JESUS: THE BOOK OF MATTHEW:

# Those who bear bad fruit will be cut down and burned "with unquenchable fire." 3:10, 12

# Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament. 5:17

# Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes. This advice is given immediately after he says that anyone who looks with lust at any women commits adultery. 5:29-30

# Jesus says that most people will go to hell. 7:13-14

# Those who fail to bear "good fruit" will be "hewn down, and cast into the fire." 7:19

# "The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 8:12

# Jesus tells a man who had just lost his father: "Let the dead bury the dead." 8:21

# Jesus sends some devils into a herd of pigs, causing them to run off a cliff and drown in the waters below. 8:32

# Cities that neither "receive" the disciples nor "hear" their words will be destroyed by God. It will be worse for them than for Sodom and Gomorrah. And you know what God supposedly did to those poor folks (see Gen.19:24). 10:14-15

# Families will be torn apart because of Jesus (this is one of the few "prophecies" in the Bible that has actually come true). "Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." 10:21

# Jesus says that we should fear God who is willing and "able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 10:28

# Jesus says that he has come to destroy families by making family members hate each other. He has "come not to send peace, but a sword." 10:34-36

MARK:
# Jesus explains why he speaks in parables: to confuse people so they will go to hell. 4:11-12

# Jesus sends devils into 2000 pigs, causing them to jump off a cliff and be drowned in the sea. When the people hear about it, they beg Jesus to leave. 5:12-13

# Any city that doesn't "receive" the followers of Jesus will be destroyed in a manner even more savage than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. 6:11

# Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children as required by Old Testament law. (See Ex.21:15, Lev.20:9, Dt.21:18-21) 7:9-10

# If you're ashamed of Jesus, he'll be ashamed of you. (And you'll go straight to hell.) 8:38

# Jesus tells us to cut off our hands and feet, and pluck out our eyes to avoid going to hell. 9:43-49

# Jesus says that those that believe and are baptized will be saved, while those who don't will be damned. 16:16
==============
LUKE:

# God strikes Zacharias dumb for doubting the angel Gabriel's words. 1:20

# Those who fail to bear "good fruit" will be "hewn down, and cast into the fire." 3:9

# John the Baptist says that Christ will burn the damned "with fire unquenchable." 3:17

# Jesus heals a naked man who was possessed by many devils by sending the devils into a herd of pigs, causing them to run off a cliff and drown in the sea. This messy, cruel, and expensive (for the owners of the pigs) treatment did not favorably impress the local residents, and Jesus was asked to leave. 8:27-37

# Jesus says that entire cities will be violently destroyed and the inhabitants "thrust down to hell" for not "receiving" his disciples. 10:10-15

# Jesus says that we should fear God since he has the power to kill us and then torture us forever in hell. 12:5

# Jesus says that God is like a slave-owner who beats his slaves "with many stripes." 12:46-47

# "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 13:3, 5

# According to Jesus, only a few will be saved; the vast majority will suffer eternally in hell where "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 13:23-30

# In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man goes to hell, because as Abraham explains, he had a good life on earth and so now he will be tormented. Whereas Lazarus, who was miserable on earth, is now in heaven. This seems fair to Jesus. 16:19-31

# Jesus believed the story of Noah's ark. He thought it really happened and had no problem with the idea of God drowning everything and everybody. 17:26-27

# Jesus also believes the story about Sodom's destruction. He says, "even thus shall it be in the day the son of man is revealed ... Remember Lot's wife." This tells us about Jesus' knowledge of science and history, and his sense of justice. 17:29-32

# In the parable of the talents, Jesus says that God takes what is not rightly his, and reaps what he didn't sow. The parable ends with the words: "bring them hither, and slay them before me." 19:22-27

========================
JOHN:

# As an example to parents everywhere and to save the world (from himself), God had his own son tortured and killed. 3:16

# People are damned or saved depending only on what they believe. 3:18, 36

# The "wrath of God" is on all unbelievers. 3:36

# Jesus believes people are crippled by God as a punishment for sin. He tells a crippled man, after healing him, to "sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." 5:14

# Those who do not believe in Jesus will be cast into a fire to be burned. 15:6

# Jesus says we must eat his flesh and drink his blood if we want to have eternal life. This idea was just too gross for "many of his disciples" and "walked no more with him." 6:53-66


========================
ACTS:
# Peter claims that Deuteronomy 18:18-19 refers to Jesus, saying that those who refuse to follow him (all non-Christians) must be killed. 3:23

# Peter and God scare Ananias and his wife to death for not forking over all of the money that they made when selling their land. 5:1-10

# Peter has a dream in which God show him "wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls." The voice (God's?) says, "Rise, Peter: kill and eat." 10:10-13

# Peter describes the vision that he had in the last chapter (10:10-13). All kinds of beasts, creeping things, and fowls drop down from the sky in a big sheet, and a voice (God's, Satan's?) tells him to "Arise, Peter; slay and eat." 11:5-6

# The "angel of the Lord" killed Herod by having him "eaten of worms" because "he gave not God the glory." 12:23

# David was "a man after own heart." 13:22

# The author of Acts talks about the "sure mercies of David." But David was anything but merciful. For an example of his behavior see 2 Sam.12:31 and 1 Chr.20:3, where he saws, hacks, and burns to death the inhabitants of several cities. 13:34

# Paul and the Holy Ghost conspire together to make Elymas (the sorcerer) blind. 13:8-11


****&*&*&*%$^%&^%&^%$^%$^%$^%$^%$$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$#@$*&^*&^*&^*&^*&^^$%^#@%$%#%@%!++++

Yeah, I love it when Christians try to tell me how their religion is NOTHING but sweetness, light and positivity and love!!! Oh, and how Christianity really is NOT about Big Daddy Psychotic Punisher and oppressing women and children!!!

They are delusional if they think their religion is all about sweetness and light. They are fooling themselves and they do not fool the rest of us.

:wtf: :grr: :banghead: :wtf: :banghead: :rolleyes: :grr: :wtf: :wtf: :grr: :banghead:

You must have a lot of time on your hands.

Read again. You obviously have the time. Unfortunately, I don't have all day to pick through the OT. I honestly don't. I have work to do, and I'm behind because I had two minor medical matters to deal with.

And the harsh language is mostly aimed at the unrighteousness of the israelites and the piety of the priests. Social justice vs. religious rites seemed to be their main theme against the unrighteous people and the religious status quo.

These prophets did speak of social justice.

"How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her-- but now murderers! Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow's cause does not come before them. . . . I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. . . . Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness." -- Isaiah 1:21-27


"Thus says the LORD: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place" -- Jeremiah 22:3

"Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages... Are you a king because you compete in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the LORD. But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence" -- Jeremiah 22:13-17

About the Israelites being the "light to the nations":

"Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail." -- Isaiah 58:8-11


"Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." -- Isaiah 1:16-17




These are ancient texts and it is easy to pick all the nastiness in context with our 21st century standards. But I do not understand the charges of nitpicking that you are using. I mean, no one here is advocating for these texts as if they were not written by humans or that they are infallible. I think people here are well aware of the passages that fall short of their own moral expectations.

Judaism has built up its own holy books and interpretation of ethics over 1000s of years.

But Christians supposedly follow Christ - they should be discussing what Jesus did and said, not borrowing someone else's holy books.

On edit: I guess it isn't that easy because sometimes Jesus refers back to the OT...but my idea was just a kind of easy sound-byte for liberal Christians.

a homeless Jewish vagrant in Roman-occupied territory

And it is not "biblical Judaism".

Orthodox Jews don't look in the Hebrew Bible for answers. They use the Shulchan Aruch.

Conservative Jews look in the Talmud.

And Reform Jews follow the social justice message of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible (as you pointed out).

But yes, sometimes I get the feeling that the "Old Testament" versus "New Testament" distinction sometimes is used as a way to insult Judaism. And that is based mostly on ignorance of now knowing the Jewish distinction of Torah She Bal Peh (the oral Law) and Torah she-bi-che-tav (the written law) and how the former is what defines Jewish Law and the religion.

an insult to the one that went before?

Christians came along and added to the Jewish OT, then Islam came along and claimed to supercede both religions, then Sikhism came along and mixed Islam and Hinduism together, then Bahai, Mormons etc. etc. came along and claimed to have better ideas.

I fail to see why Christianity would be an insult to Judaism. Judaism is the religion of a specific group of people who follow it. I would see it as insulting if one tried to say that his/her Christianity is Judaism. Which many do with bad intentions or because of ignorance. But Christinianity itself is not insulting.

Christianity is a total different beast with different concepts that serves the purpose for those who believe in it and wish to follow it.

And like Christianity, Judaism as we know it today is a spinoff from the Biblical group. Biblical Judaism died with the fall of the Temple and Rabinnic Judaism enabled it to survive.

Judaism does not require anyone to convert or to follow it. If other people have better ideas for themselves then they should follow those ideas.

a Baptist minister. When I was in high school and asked him to explain 'what we believed', he said we were a "New Testament" church. Of course I'm not a Baptist any more. My mother and I went to Red Lobster on Good Friday, and I mentioned it was ironic we were eating shrimp on GF. She didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Her dad was a Baptist minister too! Even NT Christians can get into legalism over things like baptism, acceptable attire, DANCING and exclusionary tactics.

I recently read that early 'Christians' referred to themselves as "followers of the Way" (ie Jesus Christ). I kind of like that description. It avoids all the baggage that current usage terms carry.

I read once how it's a useful exercise sometimes to look at other cultures' holy books and change one word...so God or Allah becomes "The Way"...or "The Tao" becomes "God"...it's amazing how similar some of the ethics seem after that.

The Bible is a terrible guide to morality.

If you want a consistent philosophy, try Buddhism or Secular Humanism.

I don't.

What you're calling a philosophy that has to be cherry-picked, and what you seem to dislike, I call a living document, open to individual discernment as well as traditional learning.

I don't want anything monolithic, thanks. I trust my own way through scripture, and the brain I was given.

Nothing wrong with either option you mention, but I don't find myself "cherry-picking", I find myself looking well beyond the literal interpretation put forward by many fundamentalists, to the layers of meaning to be found when the childish take on scriptures is left behind.

If their philosophy is derived from the bible and it works for them as a guide to being good people then what would be the problem? It is better to stick with what works for you, wouldn't you think? The same goes for anyone who chooses Buddhism, Secular Humanism, or nothing.

And the morality of a bunch of nomadic goatherders several thousand years ago does not make any sense. I see no reason to wade through the reading of all that ancient history and nonsensical and illogical stories to find rules to live by.

Figuring out what is right and wrong for yourself should not be all that difficult.

Churches spend all their time disagreeing about the rules and throwing people out who don't conform to their arbitrary standards. Or shaming and blaming the congregation for merely being born (original sin) but the preachers enjoy the power trip they get from threatening the people with hellfire and brimstone.

You think I'm kidding? I'm not. I had to leave all Christian churches behind because I wanted to crawl underground and hope I died so I would stop suffering from the accusations the minister hurled at EVERYONE every Sunday. It was my mistake to take their ignorant and destructive rantings seriously.
All authority figures take your autonomy from you, if you let them.

Positive and life affirming? Hell no. Not even the stuff in the NT. Contradictory in a zillion ways, as you would expect from a book assembled by a committee seeking political power.

And they obsess about Jesus all the time. They think that if they pray enough, and sing about Jesus enough, somehow they will either be holy or they will convert all the heathens in the neighborhood.
There's no independent evidence that Jesus actually existed; he has all the same characteristics as Mithra and Apollo.

If Christians wanted a guide to morality without all the Hebrew and Roman cultural overlay they could boil it down to something very simple: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and As you did it to the least of them, so also you did it unto me.

I graduated from an excellent Presbyterian college and took difficult and interesting religion courses.

Other systems of morality generally don't have people explaining away inconsistencies in their canonical books, because they don't have any contradictions in them.

The "Mithra" and "Apollo" links are extraordinarily tenuous, and claims of strong similarity are based largely on a long-discredited, long-obsolete line of scholarship that consisted of little more than foraging for coincidences, often across multiple myths, sects, countries, and even entire religions without regard to context or source, and sometimes to the extent of simply inventing features of non-Christian gods so as to make a better fit.

Let's take Mithra. There are several gods by that name across history, related only by a shared linguistic ancestor. One would be the Mithras of the famed Greek/Roman cult; virtually nothing is known about him. The cult did not leave much in the way of written testimony, and practice died out completely, so all we have is iconography and a few wildly divergent second- and third-hand contemporary references. Still, it was popular at the same time Christianity was developing, and so imaginations ran wild*. Next, there is the Zoroastrian divinity Mithra, who was created by the god Ahura Mazda as a divine lawgiver, administrator, and guardian, but who otherwise lacks anything Jesus-like. Also, there is the Manichean angel Mithra, loosely based on the Zoroastrian Mithra, who was indeed a savior figure, but who saved their Adam figure from philosophical darkness--and who is not attested until hundreds of years after Jesus. As an aside, links between the Manichean Mithra and the Zoroastrian Mithra are more deliberately and conceptually metaphorical than anything else. Manicheans were gnostics and spoke heavily in metaphor; their Mithra, like everything else in their religion, was not to be seen as a real being, but rather as a metaphor for a greater truth.

Anyway, that's all pretty complex, and so it's not really surprising that they all got combined by careless post-Enlightenment fringe scholars looking for links to Jesus, and so we ended up with the popular and enduring myth that there was an Eastern Jesus named Mithra.

As for a lack of contradictions? All systems are contradictory. Even all systems of rigorous mathematical logic are contradictory, as Godel famously proved. You mentioned Buddhism as a system of morality that lacks contradiction in a different post. Mahayana Buddhism is probably one of the most delightfully contradictory faiths on Earth. There is no set canon as such; there are rather an endless array of sutras written over hundreds of years as sects rose and fell and competed and merged. Canonicity is not a binary matter, but one of degree. There are of course contradictions in the particulars between and even within sutras, but that is hardly problematic to Buddhists. Heck, Zen Buddhism famously deliberately presents contradictions to students as a way of teaching that explanations of concepts are not the same as the concepts themselves. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself, and what seems to one person to be pointing directly at the moon may well seem to another standing next to him to be pointing just a bit off to the side. The finger isn't what's important. The moon is.

Buddhism is a religion that deals with contradiction much better than most. It accepts contradiction as a necessary part of explanation; concepts are imperfect and artificial approximations of the real world, and it is natural that they would contradict themselves. That doesn't mean it doesn't have contradictions, though. It simply deals with them in an intellectually mature manner.



*A big part of the reason Mithras gets so much attention is that a few early Christian artists, having no Judaic iconography to draw upon, simply copied Mitharic icons and altered them to fit Christianity. There's no evidence this was anything but artistic laziness.

However the intro religion course was quite broad as far as covering basic concepts like myth, ritual, symbols, signs, what the psychological functions of religion are, what is considered holy, the collective unconscious, archetypes and such. I could have taken such courses had I wanted to take them as electives.

I spent decades discussing and analysing Christianity simply b/c it's the majority religion in the U.S.

I think it's wasted effort. People who want to busy themselves with ruminating on narrow questions of theology can do that.

We can't comprehend what "God" is anyway; the word would not begin to encompass such a concept. Our brains can't grasp it in its entirety.

I would side with Einstein and Spinoza, that studying the natural laws of the universe leads to a reverence for the universe but not to an actual God.

"All I know is that if God loves me half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell."

--- Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living, 1936.

proven to be contradiction-free, using methods that can be coded up in the systems themselves, so consistency proofs for interesting theories always require something more than you actually ever have at hand.

But others have other choices and some who do have to deal with the bullshit choose to go to a different church where they don't have to deal with the bullshit.

Now, just because one day you thought those books had some merit it does not mean that all Christians see the bible in the way you saw it. From what I understand there is study in the Christian circles about the contradictions, the politics behind putting scripture together, and how everything evolved to what they have today as a religion/denomination.

This is a helluva lot simpler.

www.uua.org


There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote:

* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Unitarian Universalism (UU) draws from many sources:

* Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
* Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
* Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
* Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
* Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
* Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

These principles and sources of faith are the backbone of our religious community.

=======================
Secular Humanism:

Secular Humanism is a way of thinking and living that aims to bring out the best in people so that all people can have the best in life. Secular humanists reject supernatural and authoritarian beliefs. They affirm that we must take responsibility for our own lives and the communities and world in which we live. Secular humanism emphasizes reason and scientific inquiry, individual freedom and responsibility, human values and compassion, and the need for tolerance and cooperation.

To each his own. :shrug:

I went for 12 years and earned 3 degrees.

Now I'm a little more selective in what I use mental energy on.