Neon Genesis

It's this passage here

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, if a man has had intercourse with her but it is hidden from her husband, so that she is undetected though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her since she was not caught in the act; if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself; or if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself; then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. And he shall bring the offering required for her, one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, for it is a grain-offering of jealousy, a grain-offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

Then the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord; the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. The priest shall set the woman before the Lord, dishevel the woman’s hair, and place in her hands the grain-offering of remembrance, which is the grain-offering of jealousy. In his own hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ‘If no man has lain with you, if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while under your husband’s authority, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had intercourse with you’— let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse and say to the woman—‘the Lord make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge; now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen. Amen.’

Then the priest shall put these curses in writing, and wash them off into the water of bitterness. He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter her and cause bitter pain. The priest shall take the grain-offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall elevate the grain-offering before the Lord and bring it to the altar; and the priest shall take a handful of the grain-offering, as its memorial portion, and turn it into smoke on the altar, and afterwards shall make the woman drink the water. When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be immune and be able to conceive children.

This is the law in cases of jealousy, when a wife, while under her husband’s authority, goes astray and defiles herself, or when a spirit of jealousy comes on a man and he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall apply this entire law to her. The man shall be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity.

Exodus 21:22-25 addresses a miscarriage rather than abortion per se. Here, if a miscarriage is unlawfully caused, the remedy is compensation to the parents. This seems to view the fetus more like property (such slaves, animals, etc.) than a protected life.

 

 

Why do all those pro-life Christians think the bile condemns abortion? I've read the entire bible myself and I couldn't find a single verse in it that said abortion was a sin. There is a condemnation of abortion in the Didache but it's not considered an official part of the biblical canon and fundamentalist Christians don't consider it divinely inspired. Pro-life Christians justify their view by saying the fetus has a soul beginning from conception but as far as I'm aware, the bible never says at what point the soul enters a fetus. Pro-life Christians point to that verse that says God knew us before he formed us in the womb but that verse only says God is omniscient at best and still says nothing about a fetus. Jesus says in the NT that anyone who harms a child should throw themselves in the ocean but Jesus still never says anything about fetuses. If you read the OT, God seems to have no problem with killing babies outside of the womb and pro-life Christians will go to great lengths to justify God's immoral actions yet will condemn a woman who has aborts a fetus that hasn't even developed the ability to feel pain yet. So even taking a literal reading of the bible, on what basis is there to condemn abortion as murder?

You might want to check out Constanine's Sword by James Carroll.

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I know your point George and I agree that a virtual friend really can't replace a friend in the flesh, but I think the internet is being used more and more to 'connect' these people whom then go off in their various communties.

 

Also, in this age of the Internet, Wi-Fi cell phone connections, and Facebook and Twitter, young people have more alternative options of connecting towards other people and forming communities of their own outside of traditional institutions like the church. Considering though that atheists still remain the most hated minority group in the U.S., even more than gays and Muslims, I suspect many non-religious people who identify as "spiritual but not religious" may be doing so to avoid anti-atheist bigotry and the number of people who don't believe in God may be higher when you take the prevalence of anti-atheist bigotry into account.

It says God breathed life into humans out of his nostrils. First, God has nostrils? Second, how can creationists find the idea of evolving from monkeys absurd yet accept that they came out of God's nostrils?

From Genesis chapter two:

then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,^* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Creationists believe God created light before creating the sun, they believe God created humans from his own boogers, and they believe that snakes can talk, and that the Earth is significantly younger than what all of mainstream science has theorized. How is that different from the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

I didn't say it was respectful. You accused the Flying Spaghetti Monster parody of being misleading and I asked what was misleading about it. Being disrespectful is not the same thing as being misleading.

That's not what the goal of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is:

In January 2005,^[11] Bobby Henderson, then a 24-year-old^[12] Oregon State University physics graduate, sent an open letter regarding the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the Kansas State Board of Education.^[8][13][14] The letter was sent prior to the Kansas evolution hearings as an argument against the teaching of intelligent design in biology classes.^[8] Henderson, describing himself as a "concerned citizen" representing more than ten million others, argued that intelligent design and his belief "the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster" were equally valid.^[8] In his letter, he noted,

I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; one third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

—Bobby Henderson

^[7]

According to Henderson, since the intelligent design movement uses ambiguous references to a designer, any conceivable entity may fulfill that role, including a Flying Spaghetti Monster.^[5] Henderson explained, "I don't have a problem with religion. What I have a problem with is religion posing as science. If there is a god and he's intelligent, then I would guess he has a sense of humor."

How is it being misleading about what creationists believe?

Kay, this is, IMO, a derisive and disrespectful characterization of even fundamentalists.

 

I can understand why young earth creationists reject evolution. What I don't understand are those Christians who accept the old age of the Earth and they accept that the six days in Genesis is allegorical but for some unknown reason, they can't accept evolution is true and they can't accept that the rest of the Genesis myth is an allegory.

Ayn Rand also railed against the evils of religions yet her Objectivist philosophy was little more than a cult of personality and many former members of her cult came forward during that time to testify about Ayn Rand's dogmatic methods and how she wouldn't allow any diversity of opinion. When you think about it, Ayn Rand's "philosophy" was little more than just a secularized version of the Puritan work ethics. It was the Puritans centuries before Ayn Rand who believed that success was a sign of salvation and that you were blessed by God and deserved all the riches that you got and that if you were poor and didn't have a lot of material wealth, this was somehow a sign you were a sinner and deserved punishment from God. While Ms. Rand claimed to be against religion, all she really did was take this predestination mentality of the Puritan work ethic and baptized it in secular anti-religious terms.

I've read some of Ayn Rand's Altas Shrugged and I find it ironic that Ayn Rand rails against the evils of government regulations and hand outs and helping other people out yet Ayn Rand herself received social security and Medicare benefits in her retirement years.

I like book discussions but I feel like I always get burned out when I try to participate in it.

One should also consider that there's been a long tradition of religious conservatives accusing liberals of being "intolerant" of their beliefs just because liberals don't believe in permitting religious-based bigotry.

I recommend the books The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels.

There was a lot of concern about whether President Kennedy would have towed the Catholic line and followed the authority of the Pope when he ran for president. The whole reason Kennedy gave his famous speech on the separation of church and state was to reassure American voters that he would respect religious freedom. Kerry was always open that he wouldn't let the Catholic church dictate his politics and vocally stood in opposition to the Catholic church's stance on abortion rights. To the best of my knowledge, Mitt Romney has not made the same sort of statements about his own religious faith and what role the Mormon church will play in his presidency and Mitt Romney seems to think his own beliefs about the separation of church and state are somehow above any sort of criticism.

I have no problem with Romney giving money to his church unless the church is doing something unseemly or malevolent with it. And, I have no reason to think that is the case.

 

I do have a problem with a multi-millionaire paying tax rates lower than many middle-class citizens and then supporting policies that would lower his rate even more.

 

George

For those who support hate speech laws, do you think Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy should be banned under hate speech laws? In the His Dark Materials series, Philip Pullman portrays God as an evil dictator, the Catholic church is portrayed as a power-hungry organization out for world conquest that would abuse children to further their goals, and all Christians in the series are portrayed as violent fanatics. One could argue that Philip Pullman's children's book series is denigrating Christianity and many Christians tried to censor The Golden Compass film when it came out. So should the His Dark Materials series be banned then for its offensiveness towards Christianity?

Neon,

 

Jesus didn't say we should jail paedophiles or rapists either. I simply can't imagine jesus standling idly by whilst somebody is raped or beaten and repeating the mantra "forgive them God for they don't know what they do". I find it hard to imagine that such aJesus would just stand by. I don't want to get into a debate about whether the bible argues for or against Freedom of Speech (like most bible interpretations, I think boths cases could be made), but I do think you would agree that theBible is filled with examples of how standing against the oppressors is a righteous, holy and godly thing to do.

And that's the distinction I want to be clear on. I'm not arguing concerning 'hurt feelings', I'm arguing against speech that causes harm to people, either physically, mentally, or financially. Just where the line is drawn as to what constitutes harm may be difficult, but that's no reason not to try and confront it.

How much we value the right of free speech is put to its severest test when the speaker is someone we disagree with most. Speech that deeply offends our morality or is hostile to our way of life warrants the same constitutional protection as other speech because the right of free speech is indivisible: When one of us is denied this right, all of us are denied. Since its founding in 1920, the ACLU has fought for the free expression of all ideas, popular or unpopular. That's the constitutional mandate.

Where racist, sexist and homophobic speech is concerned, the ACLU believes that more speech -- not less -- is the best revenge. This is particularly true at universities, whose mission is to facilitate learning through open debate and study, and to enlighten. Speech codes are not the way to go on campuses, where all views are entitled to be heard, explored, supported or refuted. Besides, when hate is out in the open, people can see the problem. Then they can organize effectively to counter bad attitudes, possibly change them, and forge solidarity against the forces of intolerance.

And my point is that these are all individual choices we make for ourselves but the government should have no role in making our decisions for us as to what speech we should approve of and not approve of. When Christ was hanging on the cross and all the people were throwing obscenities at him and persecuting him, he didn't order his apostles to forcefully silence his enemies even though he could have told them to fight back if he wanted to. Instead Jesus prayed to God to forgive them because they didn't know what they were doing and Jesus told his apostles to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, not to demand the Romans to intervene and silence anyone that bad mouthed them. If Jesus didn't silence his enemies by force, surely people of faith could do the same. As the classic hymn goes, he could have called ten thousand angels but he died for us instead.