Today's Bible Verse

Talmud is actually not a religious text per se like the bible or koran. Other than that, I tend to agree.

 

Thanks, Bill.
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Overinterpretation can be a terrible thing. Coupled with irony deficiency, it can get kind of cranky, sort of like a child being read to from Hegel* when all the kid wants is a cooky.

* The servile, brutish, idolatrous lackey of Prussian despotism, that is, not the Japanese "university" "accredited" by WAUC.

 

I wasn't defending Unk. I don't think that he needs defending.

 

Strictly hermeneutical thanks, Bill.

 

Janko is making a threat against those who do not worship HIS God in the way HE deems proper.

The Islamic terrorist make the same threat -- believe like they do, or you are screwed.

 

Certainly Tio Janko wanted "something" to be inferred, else why bother to post and leave it sitting there like a bald derriere in the wind? If it has all been "overinterpreted", then fine. I think we can all "interpret" the start of this thread as a joke, and not to be taken seriously by anyone. That's the way it should be. Now we can all go home and read Hegel or worry about being eaten by worms.

Of course if it was all so simple as a cookie, then I wonder why Janko didn't tell Mr Engineer that instead of accusing him of hatred and bigotry? Hmm, like God, I guess it will remain one of life's great mysteries.

On another note, it seems clear from the Bible passages included here that the writers must have been "nipple" men.

 

I think that people fight one another for any number of reasons.

They lust after wealth, the seek security, they defend their ethnic homies, they try to remake the future as they wish it to be, they try to escape others telling them what to do, they seek the power to tell others what to do, they defend abstractions like 'democracy' and 'justice'. And they fight for religion.

One recurring pattern is that people will try to dress up their various causes, however sordid their nature, in terms of their culture's highest principles. In our secular world, they cite those wonderful philosophical abstractions. But historically, and in many parts of the world today, people's highest principles are religious.

But just because people piously claim to fight in the name of their faith, doesn't mean that strife would suddenly stop if everyone could somehow be made to lose their faith. All that would happen is that the rationalizations would change. The Marxists are examples of that.

Is the problem really the fact that human beings almost universally have transcendent ideals? Or do our problems arise from how people choose to put their ideals to work?

 

I think Uncle Janko was just expressing his God-given right to his opinion, using a format he is familiar with - his deep religious faith. That's something I can respect, if not agree with.

Oh and by the way, as to the other Biblical references.... While I consider myself a very modern man, my wife likes it a whole lot when I take "control" so to speak.....

 

I confess: I fed live worms to Yasser Arafat! They et him, too!

Oh, dear, oh dear.

I thought I was making a comment about the sordid death of a murderous thug via a literary allusion to a Biblical verse about the death of another murderous thug.

If you really think that's a threat from me, you are very sad indeed. If you are merely trying to defame me, suit yourself. I don't make threats. I don't need to. But if I did make a threat, it would 1) violate the TOS and 2) be unmistakable, even to the irony-deficient and literarily graceless among us. Ain't gonna happen. Doesn't need to.

You kids would dearly love for me to make the kind of hellfire denunciations about you which would vindicate your own prejudices. Ain't gonna happen. IIRC, I did make hellfire threats a while back against "Rev." Fred Phelps, the "God hates f*gs" psycho. But that doesn't fuel your anger.

 

Well, Uncle, I certainly feel threatened!

 

Re: I confess: I fed live worms to Yasser Arafat! They et him, too!

In the small town where I grew up, Wednesday was "fag bashing" night. Why Wednesday? Because the Baptists had church services on Wednesday. The minister very often talked abut the evils of homosexuality. And apparently it was done in terms that would really rile up the high school boys. After church, they would go out and "do the Lord's work" -- beat anyone who they suspected of being a homosexual.

Of course, the preacher condemned this. But he still kept preaching the same message. Everyone knew his true intentions, especially the kids doing the "bashing."

And yes, this "wink and a nod" type of condemnation does indeed fuel my anger.

 

Re: I confess: I fed live worms to Yasser Arafat! They et him, too!

Actually, you made no comment at all, so how would anyone know what you "thought" you were doing? If you have something to say, then say it. But don't post provocative Bible references and then claim foul when people object (and accuse them of "bigotry" and "hate speech" in the process.)

As others have said, you are just expressing your God-given right to express your beliefs (or be vague, yet provocative?) In the same way, others have done the exact same. So where's the problem?

And yes, "irony deficient", that's funny, ha ha. We get it. You might want to point out the posts that were ironic for the anemic among us. And "literarily graceless", funny too, I suppose. Again, the literary examples would help enormously in this regard. I'm afraid I'm more of a Fitzgerald, Bellow, Roth, Updike kind of guy, rather than a Peter or Paul kind of guy. Yes we are all "kids" who take issue with you. I understand that it makes you feel better to do that too.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Yea, really.

 

Horrors! Another Bible phrase quoted!

Wow. All I can do when someone comes to private confession is hear their words, not peer into their hearts--as almost 500 years of our casuistry has warned consistently.

But you "know" that I was only kidding when I condemned that Phelps fellow and said he'd go to hell if he didn't repent. How do you "know" that? If you think that clergy in my tradition are "just kidding" when we warn someone of hellfire, you don't know much about us. If you think we think kindly of the sort of church and preacher you cite in your post, you know nothing about us.

Which is OK, what with your supernatural powers "to fathom all mysteries."

 

And we'll know they are christians by their love, by their love... and we'll knooooooooooooooooow they are christians by their looooooove.

 

You know, folks, throwing rocks at each other really doesn't do anybody any good. Every Christian has an obligation to witness to the truth as he understands it through his acts, words, and life. Whether he does so well or poorly is a reflection on HIM, not on the religion as a whole.

I am gratified that no real attempt has ever been made on this forum to convert ME to Christianity. That shows a level of respect toward me as a Jew that I would like to see extended to everyone else who posts here.

 

Re: Horrors! Another Bible phrase quoted!

Admittedly, I don't know. I'm simply saying that I've seen it all before -- preach hatred and be (or act) aghast when your preaching is put into practice.

I fathom no mysteries. In the big picture, I understand nothing, and I don't pretend to. I do not know the mind of God.

You, on the other hand, understand everything. You know that those who argree with what you say are going to heaven, and those who disagree are going to hell.

 

Stop lying about me.

I do not care two shits if you disagree with me, but stop lying.

You said, "You know that those who argree with what you say are going to heaven, and those who disagree are going to hell."

You, sir or madam, know no such thing. You continue to insinuate that I preach hatred and then feign horror at hateful acts triggered by that preaching. The insinuation is a lie in both its parts.

My church and I teach that those who have faith in Jesus Christ as the One who justifies will go to heaven. Whether they agree with what I say or not is irrelevant.

For the sake of other posters who might actually be interested in fact, I would add that we specifically reject the notion that one's denominational affiliation is a ticket to heaven. The sounder the doctrine, the more helpful a given church is in supporting the saving faith of its adherents, but that's as far as it goes.

For the sake of the forum in general, I remind you of what the rest of you know, that I have at times been at pains to clarify what my church teaches or what my own views are when off-topic theological discussion has taken place. The rest of you know that I have never "proselytized". I have no problem whatever with Bill Dayson's secularism, John Bear's Buddhism, Bill Grover's Fundamentalism, Nosborne's Judaism, Jimmy's Restorationism, or Mahmood's Islam, just to cite a few but by no means non-exhaustive examples. (And Levicoff may well have the spirit of prophecy.) I have fought, over and over again, the very great evil of anti-Semitism--and, I will claim, more than some so-called tolerant diversitarians--though certainly not all of them.

The poster which has busied itself (one gets weary of he/she'ing but wouldn't dream of outing someone's gender) with defaming me and my preaching and teaching will have to find something else with which to amuse itself.

This board is not the place for theological fights. That is not what I came here to do. So, I conclude with a few points:

1) Good riddance to the evil murderous bastard Arafat (is that plain enough for our literati?).
2) Go fight with the fundies who enjoy such things.
3) Go have philosophical orgasms over the notion that somebody else might believe in a hell hereafter, while you believe in hate here and now.
4) Like certain fundies, certain secularists have so cross-bred (can I say cross?) politics with religion or anti-religion, as the case may be, that they suffer from the delusion that the late election was the cardo mundi. I think not. Such a confusion does not, if posts on this board are any indication, engender (can I say engender?) truthtelling or civility or motherwit or wit.
5) As we say in my old neighbourhood, "knock yourself out." As for me, I'm taking my business to Kinsel's.

A revedere,

Janko Preotul

 

[Removed by moderator]

 

<<I have no problem whatever with Bill Dayson's secularism, John Bear's Buddhism, Bill Grover's Fundamentalism, Nosborne's Judaism, Jimmy's Restorationism, or Mahmood's Islam, just to cite a few...>>

Hmmm....so what does one have to do to be included in this rag tag bunch? Is it an issue of longevity, or is it an issue of being outspoken?

Pug