And Jesus said "Love thy neighbor, unless your neighbor is black, or gay, or a Democrat": Conservapedia works on ConservaBible
By Nicole Belle Tuesday Oct 06, 2009 7:00am
Apparently not happy with just creating their own facts, the brain trust that brought us Conservapedia is now launching a new project: rewriting the Bible without that annoying liberal bias:
The eager young men at Conservapedia are p.o.'d that the Bible might be seen as too liberal. So they've come up with the Wiki-style Conservative Bible Project, to make sure the Lord doesn't go all wobbly on us. Excerpt:
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[1]
- Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
- Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
- Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[2]
- Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[3] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle"
- Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[4] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
- Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
- Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
- Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
- Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
- Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities
[..]
"The liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio"? Hoo-wee! Elitists like to use words, and lots of 'em! "Unnecessary ambiguities"? But how are you going to abide by the conservative mandate to avoid "dumbing down" Holy Writ while at the same time avoiding big words liberals use? More seriously, the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology.
The Bible without all that liberal bias? I thought the Bible was the inviolate Word of God? Wouldn't taking out any liberal teachings violate the inviolate? How much of Jesus's teachings will actually make it into the book? How will these boneheads re-write these statements (courtesy of Jesus is a Liberal)?:
- Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Matthew 5:9]
- Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39]
- I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
- If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
- Do not judge, lest you too be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
- Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Matthew 5:7]
- But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:15]
- Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.] Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
- You cannot serve both God and Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
- Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. [Matthew 22:21]
- Love your neighbor as yourself. .[Matthew 22:39]
- So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. [Matthew 7:12.]
- If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. [Matthew 19:21]
- But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [Luke 14:13&14.]
Oh yeah, this is gonna be a HUGE success in publishing.
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praise be to all pedophiles and adulterers. use my name to bear false witness and make as much money as you can. squash the poor and the sick. get what you can while you can and fuck the other guy.
amen.
and call it the Newt Testament.
may that go viral in enough time to sink Newtie's political aspirations.
2nd that!
for they shall receive tax breaks.
Blessed are the peacemakers who bomb the living shit outta those who are un-Amurkkkan.
oy
this is what they do all time anyway...now they're trying to make it official.
Do unto to others before they can do unto you.
Are they going to leave in that part they always use to try to prove that gay people are bad? I betcha they do.
Isn't this kind of what the boys on K Street did? Didn't they take a different tack on Jesus' teachings.
I have been to a few conservative churches the last couple of years and a few student groups. One thing i notice is they avoid the gospels( supposedly the actual teachings of Christ in his own words) like the plague. They rather cling to the old testament and the writings of Paul, which are more in keeping with their nutwing philosophy...
of course they like to quote from John... " i am the way the truth and the light no one comes to the father except through me" etc... etc... because of course if people of all faiths could go to heaven it would ruin all the fun wouldn't it.
But you never hear the beautitudes... " blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor..." etc....
They think that the modern Bible is written on the 7th grade reading level? Well, that's about 2 grade levels above their target audience. No wonder they want to "revise" it. Their new meaning for NIV will be "new improved version".
When I was in seminary years and years ago our NT greek professor would illustrate the difference in style between he NT and he OT by holding up the works of Shakespeare (OT) and the New York Post (NT)
That said -- there is not enough ridicule in the world for these clowns-- in another day we would have called them idolators-- for substituting and idol
(conservative politics)and calling it Jesus, for Jesus himself.
Ya, so I'm thinking, shouldn't they be aiming lower so their target audience can understand it? Cause, they're dumb, right? I'm thinking I'm being all clever and snarky, you know saying to myself: "Heh, heh, if you make it harder to read, fewer people can understand it."
And then I realized what an "epiphany" felt like.
............what we call the Bible is nothing more than a text-book for misogynist non-culture. It is supposed to provide a man with a fool-proof way to control his wife, and family. It has been screwed around with for over 2000 yrs. so, pretty full of crap.
Correct me if I'm wrong,but the Old Testament is the book for the Jews, the New Testament is the book for the Christians....If these Christians prefer the old Testament to the New Testament- why don't they convert to Judaism?
Then again, there is a shocking number of ignorant Christians in America who think Jesus was a Christian..
I believe the Talmud is the holy book of Judaism.
The TaNaKh (first 5 books) are Holy. @Tom Servo: Even then, they have a problem: The dietary laws, the obligations to the poor - the women who were Judges, Warriors/Leaders, Sages. 613 "Mitzvot" and, none can be "overlooked" no picking/choosing. No blended fabrics.. Lots of problems there
These "Conservatians" are like the men of Sodom & Gomorrah: Unkind. and, too drunk to understand their sin of unkindness.
were kicked out of the garden for not practicing abstinance.
I think they were kicked out because Eve was practicing socialism when she shared the apple with Adam.
That made me chuckle, thank you
"These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology."
Exactly right. If ever there was an act that proved it, this is it. They're very literally putting their political ideology ahead of their religion here.
Was this referring to when Jesus went to the marketplace and gave all the merchants there a tax cut?
There ought to be a word for when you genuinely can't tell whether you're reading an Onion-style "news article" or actual news. If Conservapedia is engaging in an elaborate practical joke, than bravo to them. If they're serious... well, that's even funnier.
may be the word you seek.
I wish I could say that re-writing a described holy text to match the ludicrous views of one misguided cult of personality would never succeed. Unfortunately, there's Utah staring at us, in all its "cultyness."
> I wish I could say that re-writing a described holy text to match > the ludicrous views of one misguided cult of personality would
> never succeed.
I'll go one better. Between 5 and 10 years ago, I ordered a book that purported to discuss Rush Limbaugh's statements in the light of the Bible. I -- stupidly!! -- expected the book to compare Limbaugh to the Bible. What it did in reality was bend the Bible to conform to Limbaugh's thoughts. Of course, that book was written by a Fundie preacher!
that the right wing isn't all Christian fundie bible literalists. Matthew 25 will be a real challenge.
Especially v. 42 through the end.
................is where they ask Jesús how to tell the fake from the real. Jesús was talking about the future, and how imitators would follow after Him, try to say that He empowered them, and teach total crap..................a lot like now. Me thinks.
Jesus is German made, right?
> I am strangely relieved that the right wing isn't all Christia0n
> fundie bible literalists. Matthew 25 will be a real challenge.
Evangelicals do not acknowledge the last part of that chapter, the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. Whenever I write in regards to that parable, I always call it "The Mainline Parable," because in the entirety of my life, the ONLY places I have heard that parable addressed is in the Mainline Churches -- NEVER in the Evangelical church.
Revelations says there is not enough time left to re-write the bible.
The world will have to end with the liberal version.
Will it be rewritten in English?
OR???
"an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" was an extremely progressive concept. Prior to that, if you lost an eye, you got your whole clan together and went on a killing spree to wipe out their whole clan.
"Vengeance is mine," sayeth the Lord? Nah, way too "liberal." Better get out your blue pencil and start making corrections ...
I thought Vengeance is Mine was sayeth by Mickey Spillane.
•Blessed are the warmakers: for they shall see culled the children of Dodd. [Matthew 5:9]
•Resist not evil: but profit from it. [Matthew 5:39]
•I say unto you, Love your enemas, blast them that curse you, do good to them that sate you, and play for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
•If any one of you is with sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
•Judge, before you too be judged. For if you do not judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
•Blessed are the merciless: for they shall obtain pussy [Matthew 5:7]
•But though ye forgive men their trespasses, never will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:15]
•Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of thieves; a man's life does not consist in the absence of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.] Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a black man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
•You cannot serve God without Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
•Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's; but keep unto thyself the things which are thine own. [Matthew 22:21]
•Love your neighbor as yourself, unless he's a Democrat. .[Matthew 22:39]
•So in everything, do to others as you would. [Matthew 7:12.]
•If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess for the maximum profit. [Matthew 19:21]
•But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, for someone needs to clean up. You will be repaid by the funds of the trust. [Luke 14:13&14.]
That is amazingly wonderful. Good on you for it.
I'm gonna start honing my merciless chops immediately.
You just might want to sign up. ;)
On the 9th day god created the walmart chain and said, Let there be shopping.
So what happened on the 8th, He created King Kong?
On the 8th day he created McDonald's and said, Let there be munching.
And on the ninth day reefers.
Keep goin. Eventually you will have covered the entire 4000 years the Universe has existed. It might take a couple years, but that'll be just about right, since it will all end in 2012 anyway.
did he create amusement parks with dinosaur rides?
a Tuesday...
You think that the Universe has only existed for 4,000yrs???? Do you really believe that???? If so, PUKIELAND for you.
your are treading on mighty shaky firmament.
In the new, conservative Bible firmament will be replaced by "solid impervious cover."
"and on the ninth day ...Reefers".........Whoa Dude, check out those lights....where'd they come from.
These dumbasses decide that they have the authority to rewrite what is supposedly the word of god and still believe that the rewrite of a rewrite that they grew up with is the unaltered word of god. There's one born every minute and they're usually stupid.
cast Jesus out of The Temple...
Are better than the Palin book so . . .
(jk)
It must be nice knowing you're going to like/hate a book without ever having to actually read it.
That probably applies to me too. Just based on my own biases instead of theirs.
I'm sure they will throw in a story of Jesus shrinking camels so that they can pass through needles' eyes with ease.
3 points:
1. It was hard to believe at first that this wasn't an Onion-type joke. The depths to which right-wing authoritarian hypertribalist assholes will sink never ceases to dismay me.
2. Let's put the 10 Commandments up in grade-school classrooms. But let's not have Sex Ed for them. This way, when they ask what "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" means, we can simply smack them and tell them that their private parts are evil.
3. Maybe this is just what we need to turn people *off* of Christianity. The rest of the industrial world laughs at our knuckleheaded bible-beating religious nuts, and rightfully so. I'd laugh myself if I weren't surrounded by them.
> 2. Let's put the 10 Commandments up in grade-school classrooms. But > let's not have Sex Ed for them.
I have heard it said that in the 16th century there actually was an edition of the Bible called "The Sinning Bible". It got that title because the commandment about adultery was translated "Thou shalt commit adultery".
> This way, when they ask what "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" means, > we can simply smack them and tell them that their private parts are > evil.
Shoot, just send the kids to Billy Graham and let him TRY to explain it to them. During one of his so-called "crusades" back in the 60s, he was speaking about adultery, and he quoted the commandment as "Thou shalt not commit immorality". So Old Billy is probably just as clueless as the rest of his cohorts.
http://www.cynical-c.com/archives/bloggraphic...
Are they going to take on the Constitution next?
Remember? It's just a "god damned piece of paper."
Read something you didn't like? Change it!
"Since this project translates from the King James Version, it is that format for the books of the Bible which is followed here."
I don't understand. They're "translating" a translation? What? Wouldn't that just be "editing" or "censoring" or "ruining" or some such?
Surely they intend to go back to the Greek and Hebrew, right?
They're translating English to Newspeak.
Before King James version there were two other English versions, the Wycliffe and the Tyndale.
Wycliffe was burned alive for the blasphemy, and once the King James Version was printed, and it was an offense to own Tyndale.
Catholics responded with the Douay Bible (the Vulgate Bible of St Jerome was for clergy use only).
There has been innumberable versions since then.
Each Christian believer I've met has their own, personalized version of the bible in their head.
"Whose morals?" Pirsig, early 1970's
Tom Bodett version you can get when the Gideon's restock your nearby Motel 6.
He fathered 71 sons through many wives plus a mistress in Shechem. --So much for monogamy and fidelity. Is this how the hotel-bible Gideon Society expects us to demonstrate family values?
"And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten: for he had many wives. And his concubine that was in Shechem, she also bare him a son, whose name he called Abimelech." (Judges 8:30-31)
Did Gideon not have any daughters? Perhaps daughters were just too insignificant to mention.
Which version is found in hotels & motels?
Just remembered, It is the giddyone right?
Rocky Racoon liked.
which probably meant a massive stroke. Anyway, he died while giving a sermon at church.
The Poop declared him a heretic; his remains were exhumed and were burned at the stake. The ashes were scattered and he has no grave, adding to the problem of homelessness.
That'll teach him!
You're right, I was thinking of Jan Hus.
innumerable translations before it found its way to Rome.
Just two versions?
Check out this website:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/versions.html
Actually, NONE of the "translators" speak Greek or Aramaic.
That's not a joke.
Discuss.
Introducing relevant facts into the discourse, are you? Why, I oughtta......
SHOCKED I say!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FigprdcBGA
Matthew 25:40 - "as you do unto the least of these, so have you done unto me."
But I'm betting there will be no mention of greed, lust, etc.
Golly conservaputz, I bet this is the first time ideologues have tortured bible translation to fit an agenda, how'd ya think of it?
These idiots are so full of themselves, this should be entertaining, so go for it, keep the unintentional hilarity coming.
I just read an excellent book: Jesus, Interrupted Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is an ex-minister and a biblical scholar. He discusses the historical truths about the new testament. How the gospels were written decades after Jesus death, how they were not in fact written by the apostles but in the name of the apostles, and how they were written by people with different, often contradictory agendas. For example, the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlaham. Some authors wanted to show fulfillment of old testament prophesies, others wanted to show how he was like ancient demigods from other belief systems, etc. As a result they came up with fundamentally contradictory versions. This is just one example, there are many others.
Well there were like four different versions of the Old Testament alone:
Yahwist, Elohist,Deuteronomist and Priestly (Not Jason's).
And at one point there was around 200 different scriptures, as each new church wrote their own, and it was boiled down by committee to what we have today, with variances between Catholic and Protestant version
And there were the Fragements that don't seem to match-up the Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Alexandrinus, the Codex Vaticanus, and the Chester Beatty Papyrus.
It was the equivalent of a scrum, with more than 400 men all clamoring for what would be considered canon and what wouldn't be.
They made sure that women were portrayed to have a lesser role inside the church and thus the community. That the Church was one of the major key elements that was required for salvation. Everything else is just a variation upon those two themes.
From there, the early writers borrowed and ripped off other religious faiths (especially the pagans) to make their stories their own.
For example, It's no accident that it was a serpent that tempted Eve first. There were many religions that had some form or sort of worship of a serpent. Thus, placing the first sin upon the shoulders of Eve, it portrays her as being weaker.
Well there was Eurynome for one, Babylonian myths of the Divine Parents, the argument that the Dearly Beloved Jesus kept referring to was Mary (not his mother), making her of equal or greater importance than the apostles, Ishtar/Inanna made life from clay as did Prometheus's brother Epimethus, as well as the Egyptian Ptah and Khepera. Jesus seems derived from the Egyptian Horus, the Roman Mithra, and the Caananite Attis. Then there were the floods of Utnapishtim, Atarkhasis, Deucalion as well as others descriptions of winged creatures like angels can be found in Babylonian art, as can the sacred tree at the Axis Mundi. Even Isis was supposed to have brought forth water from rocks, and walk dryshod over a river, and Dictyna as well Hammurabi got "divine" laws, and I could go on but I'm boring myself.
..and you haven't even scratched the surface. But, the findies I've talked to don't want to hear any of that. It's too messy for them.
Good examples,y
that went into the NT text that we know today-- mainly the Nestle/Aland NTG 29th edition.
but the HEBREW will be the same no matter what Torah you look at. whether a Sephardic synagogue in Mexico or an Ashkenaz synagogue here. or a shul in Europe. there will be not a letter out of place. the English? yes it will be different JPS will differ from the Masoretic.
> I just read an excellent book: Jesus, Interrupted Revealing the > Hidden Contradictions in the Bible by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is an > ex-minister and a biblical scholar.
I am currently reading a different book that is written along the very same lines. It is "Forgery in Christianity" by Joe Wheless, and it uses entries from the "Catholic Encyclopedia" to show that much of the bible is fake and was not written by anyone who was an eyewitness to the life of Jesus. Wheless has a second book, "Is It God's Word?" that is also along the same lines. "Word" was published in 1928 and "Forgery" in 1930, as I recall. I think that Ehrman's book is worth looking into. Thanks for the mention.
Instead of the Last Supper, Jesus will host the first national prayer breakfast.
.
How sad he must be to see how his followers are defiled his teachings and work.
A great quote from Ghandi: "I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
In this version, Jesus beats the shit out of the lepers, kills the sick by denying them care, makes a handsome cut from the money laundering operation at the Temple, power lunches with the rich, hires all the tax collectors as his own personal muscle, casts the first stone, worships a golden bull, gives the Lecture on the Mount and shows how you can dectuple your money with privatization scams, where Jesus teaches that accursed are the poor and the peace-makers, and accursed are the meek, where He shakes hands with Satan in a really sweet deal in which Satan gives Jesus dominion over the world in exchange for Jesus merely bowing down and worshipping Satan and where Jesus' crowning achievement is crucifiying the the poor and those who yearn for justice on crosses of 24 carat gold.
Some of that good old time religion.
It was good enough for grandma and with a few changes, it'll be good enough for me.
fuck the bible
read The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/th...
And here's a link to some quotes of Paine regarding the bible.
http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_...
Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.
- Deuteronomy 4:2
I guess these people actually think they can win an argument with God.
Good luck with that, fellas. The God in my Bible gets very snippy about that sort of thing. I hope you're fond of boils.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If any one of you adds anything to them, God will add to you the plagues described in this scroll.
And if any one of you takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from you your share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.
-Revelation 22:18-19
In other words, it's really gonna suck to be Conservapedia.
Just sayin'.
Sounds like somebody is about to do some serious holy smiting.
. . . somewhere, eating their own dung and drinking their own piss.
I'll definitely buy this, but just for sh1ts and giggles.
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ConservativeB...
Check it out, it's a hoot. I've been pumping out as many of them as I can.
For instance:
don't suffer the poor or the children - fuck 'em.
don't feed the hungry and homeless and less fortunate - take their money and turn them away.
don't wait until someone strikes you to turn the other cheek - preemptively strike them.
love the money-changers - take from the poor and enrich them.
And the republican't war on reality marches on.
They have officially crossed the Rubicon....again!
This would make perfect foddor on fundies say the darndest things, havent been by that site in a while.
I guess the KJV wasn't crazy enough for them.
about receiving 72 virgins in heaven....
that will be fishy.
Give them time, some more then others √
Thanks Nicole
Maybe these biblical revisionists can put it in their new bible that smoking is gay.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall invade other scary countries before they can do unto us.
Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also, so that thou might prepare a counter attack on the sly.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain Mercy, and her sister Grace, provided they have not been previously stoned to death.
Love your neighbor as yourself, and love up his wife and his daughter and his son and his maidservant and his manservant.
Blessed are the meek...
"That's what the problem is... it's all those meek people."
That'll be changed to blessed are the mink (coats)
after they'd been gussied up by the Deuteronomists.
Damn you for mentioning the "crockett" name. Now it's gonna rain 40 days and 40 nights on all my freakin' comments.
That's nice, because they're having a hell of a time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDmMBIyfsU
Jesus upsetting tables of the money changers... never happened.
New Beatitude: Blessed are the rich for they shall inherit the keys of the heavenly Rolls.
Acts 2:44-45:
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need.
Friggin' commies....that kind of thing will never fly in the New, New Testament.
--FRANK SCHAEFFER (Part 1 Childhood - Chap. 18 pp. 114-115)
I think what drove my parents was their reaction to the theological battles in which their early faith was forged. Both Mom and Dad were traditional Protestants trying to come to terms with the theological liberalism that was sweeping through the seminaries and mainline denominations starting in the early 1900s. There had been doctrinal differences between Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians; but prior to this time, the denominations shared an orthodoxy that today would be called fundamentalism. All Protestants had believed in a literal Bible and the divinity of Christ, not to mention the virgin birth and Christ's resurrection. But Darwin's theory of evolution challenged the Bible, and the academic discipline of "higher criticism" claimed mere human authorship for scripture.
Traditional Protestants such as my mother's missionary parents, or my newly born-again father, inherited the enthusiasms --and the paranoia --of the counterattack by fundamentalists against the so-called modernists. By the 1920s, the modernists were taking over the seminaries and the bureaucracies of the big denominations. New York's most prominent Baptist minister, Harry Emerson Fosdick, converted to a new kind of orthodoxy --the belief in a liberal progressive vision of mankind. And he began to preach that the Bible was not literally true, but that God would save the world through human progress. (After the horrors of the World Wars, his ideas about utopian progress fell out of fashion, but the liberal deconstruction of the scriptures continued.)
J. Gresham Machen, a theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary, opposed Fosdick. Machen published a book called Christianity and Liberalism and argued that any theology that denied Christ's divinity or doubted the Bible was not Christianity. But Machen lost the battle. Princeton Theological Seminary was taken over by the liberals. And Machen was fired for being too conservative, a last hold out for the old literalist view, of the Bible.
Machen was my father's hero, mentor, and friend. Dad kept a big black-and-white picture of him taped inside his bedroom cupboard. When I was very young, I heard Machen's name a lot. As I got older, Dad talked about him less.
I think my father lived with a tremendous tension that pitted his growing interest in art, culture, music, and history against stunted theology frozen in the modernist-fundamentalist battles of his youthful Christian experience. Dad took Machen's firing from Princeton personally. My father's theology was formed in a particularly bitter moment and never evolved along with the rest of his thinking. The theological battles of the 1920s and 1930s shaped Dad in the same way that political battles would shape the Vietnam generation in the 1960s. Passions forged in those battles became part of a personal identity that was difficult for people who did not share the passionate and polarizing experiences to understand.
I mean, collecting bread and fishes from the crowd and then distributing it to all is clearly socialist.
The bit about, 'forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us' - gone. (I literally had a 'Christian' fly into an apoplectic rage when I cited that, even though I intended it as a reminder to myself not to be an ass. "How DARE you quote Scripture to ME?!?!?!??!" was the response.)
And forget about 'when thou prayest, go to thy room and pray in secret.' It's gonna be, 'when thou prayest, thou shalt build large, ostentatious edifices of glass and steel, to proclaim the glory of Him who is Our Lord God and Creator.'
Comedy gold.
But wouldn't it be considered an act of heresy or sacrilege at the very least?
... is an act of ego.
"Heresy is the name given by the strong to the doctrines of the weak."
Which is ironic in a way since Nietzsche considered most religions in existence to be slave religions imposed by the strong on the weak.
of rationalization. If any of these folks took an honest look, they would know that their politics, their idea of the American Dream, and the values behind the ways that they actually live their lives, are things and values that were largely condemned by Jesus. Jesus made little attempt to hide the contempt he had for hypocrits. These people are trying to give themselves free admission tickets through the Pearly Gates; they want to feel sanctified and spiritually favored, but refuse to turn aside from the the things that guaruntee that they will remain degraded. They refuse to meet a minimum standard, so instead, they change the standard. They are attempting to turn virtue into a sin, and sin into a virtue. A willing and self-righteous work of self-serving self-deception.
homersexshul or what?
Augustin certainly was, he had a hate on for women.
Why are these nutcases wasting their time?
Oh, wait ... they're nutcases. Hitting themselves with a hammer over and over and wondering why their heads hurt.
BID
Titus 1:10-11 (New International Version)
[10] For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group.
[11]They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
Blessed are the insurers: for they shall ensure great profits
Maybe they could get a jump start on it by just finding all the pages that Thomas Jefferson ripped out, and making their bible solely out of the pages he deemed not worthy.
They could just make it one page long, with the web address to the GOP website.
--In the King James version of the bible, "liberal" is a good word. The word "conservative" appears nowhere in the bible.
"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." (Proverbs 11:25) "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." (Isaiah 32:5) "But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand." (Isaiah 32:8) "Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men . . . Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift." (II Corinthians 9:13-15)
Maybe they just want the religious liberty to eat at a Red Lobster® :D
Shellfish. --"And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you . . . ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination." (Leviticus 11:10-11)
They're not suppose to eat of pigs or anything that cloven hoofs.
Pork. --"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you." (Leviticus 11:7)
And
Rabbit. --"And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the hare . . . he is unclean unto you." (Leviticus 11:5-6) Notice that the biblical writers erroneously thought rabbits chew the cud.
.
"Trix", interesting choice of words. ;)
And Moses went to Pharoah and said, "Good job on keeping the Jews in slavery there. That'll really cut down on labor costs and make Egyptian industry competitive"
My favorite oxymoron in these guidelines?
"the intellectual force and logic of Christianity"
LULZ
Runner up: "Logic of Hell"
Rigth wingers will have to rewrite quite a bit,since most of the 'the sermon on the mount' was pure liberalism...
I wonder if they will change the story of how Jesus threw the merchants out of the temple, by writing he INVITED merchants into the temple?
But isn't there a rule against modifying the word of the bible?
you do not get to amend.
and therein lies the rub for so many avaricious, greedy republican(t) ba$tards!!!
These efftards really don't get it do they?! The Bible is eschewed as the word of God and here they are wanting to change it... they don't even get the hypocrisy or irony of their desire to rewrite the "holy" word. Unfrickin'believable!!
[rightard] Uh... well, you don't 'serve' money, you fight and cheat and steal and... um... work hard for money to the exclusion of all else. But you don't serve it! Dumbass! [/rightard]
...I thought money was our god.
Thomas Jefferson was a Diest-bordering on an athiest; but he did see Jesus not as a god, but as a great philosopher....
He made his own verson of the Bible not by fabricating new passages, but rather but cutting out the superstitious nonsense and claims of divinity- What he left behind were positive human teachings, such the sermon on the mount. Want to be a good Christian? Be a good person.Help those in need. Work for peace, have compassion for others...you know,all the things right wingers hate.
I'm down with Jesus-
But The Christian cult is repellant to me-In particular the corperate greed of American Protestantism, and their belief in 'salvation through faith alone'(which is how they justify not helping others)
The whole point of the cult to 'worship Jesus or burn in Hell', Period....
Not a very appealing religion...
I have a brother who is a far right Christian- and when he discusses his faith, rather than be filled with peace of mind and traquility, he is overcomewith feelings of rage and hatred, and focuses on his negative feelings for gays, liberals, Jews, muslims,Latinos,etc.
Christianity is a death cult that preaches hatred-
But Jesus as a human philosper, stripped away from the cult is fine..
I was raised in a right-wing Christian fundamentalist family and am now a liberal borderline socialist agnostic. However, I still live my life by some of Jesus' teachings because they are good philosophical guides for life, especially the Golden Rule and the Beatitudes.
"updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle""
How have any of those 3 words changed in meaning?
word = directive
peace = incarceration
miracle = profit opportunity
But I'm guessing:
Word (capitalized) - as in, "God said it, I believe it." This will underscore the Word as infallible and inerrant.
Peace - some of the evangelicals I've run into like to put qualifiers on 'turn the other cheek' - insisting that God didn't mean 'be a doormat.' So I expect peace to be 'except where one stands in defense of the Word.' (What they're missing, IMHO, is Christ's real message - turn the other cheek not so you get another pop in the jaw, but to divorce Christ's teachings from your ego.)
Miracle - Not just an act which we cannot explain, but truly one which is possible only through divine power and which reasoned out or explained through 'science' or liberal 'philosophy.' This will affirm the miraculous nature of Biblical Creation, the Young Earth, the Christmas Star, the Resurrection, and the Shroud of Turin, among others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FigprdcBGA
Find YSB
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't there SOMETHING about the whole 'ye who adds to this text is fubared, as ye who takes away from this text' (i.e. adding and removing/modifying shit in the Bible).
Revelations or something?
I'm not much of a practicing Christian (was raised Methodist, but gravitate more towards Buddhism today if anything), but how does the level of cognitive dissonance work with these guys?
Re-writing the Bible to fit a current 'cultural war' ideology? Really?
The level of stupid here. It BURNS.
Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin
post if I had'nt thrown the damn thing away at Chimayo when I could walk again.
Santa Cruz'in...for a bruise'in :P
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