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Jesus The Former or Jesus the Latter

Religious liberals like to say that the condemnation of gays in the Bible is limited to the Old Testament, but Matthew Richardson of the Minnesota Atheists has a great article to illustrate that unless Christians discard John 1:1, then they are stuck with the fact that Jesus was part of God when God wrote the Old Testament, too. Jesus the Former's Divinity was established in John (for political reasons,) and Jesus the Latter, the one who only became divine at the Ascension or at some other point in the Nice Testament, can't be the same person.

Oh, and the Nice Testament is not so nice to gays, either.

Tags: bible, homosexuality, jesus

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Permalink Reply by Howard S. Dunn on December 21, 2009 at 4:19pm

I was looking at a Target ad the other day and the kid asks his Mom if Santa shops there. She says: No, his toys are made by elves. (or something like that.) Then the kid imagines a rather slipshod version of a Santa's Workshop with elves trying to make modern toys by hand. It hit me (I make ads myself, BTW - print and web) that this was a kind of brilliant observation (despite the innuendo that Target was better than Santa.)

I guess, what I'm trying to illustrate is that the customary view of Santa has to change with the times - what with iPods and Playstation 3 and no chimneys, etc. And it can - because Santa is a malleable myth, since the adults know it is only a fun story. Yet Santa can still stand for generosity and fun and wonder and whatnot - even in the minds of the adults who tweak the story.

Meanwhile, because of the staunch and literal nature of Abrahamic religion, the cognitive dissonance is almost palpable. I was in first grade when the idea of my friends who weren't Catholic burning in hell seemed wrong to me. Yet, I stayed pretty frikkin' Catholic until I was around fifteen or so. Then it started to fall apart. I just couldn't figure out how to condemn someone who wasn't harming anyone. Nor could I figure out how to applaud a stance that justified condemnation of the same, harmless people or activity. I guess I latched on to the 'forgiveness' thing a little too much. I realized I couldn't be Catholic AND believe that Jesus was loving. It didn't match up.

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Permalink Reply by Goz on January 14, 2010 at 5:26pm

I came to a similar conclusion wnile sitting in church and the preacher was giving his usual boring rant about hell...I looked around and saw al these old women and wondered what could they all have done to deserve to burn in hell forever..I decided nothing...I then decided it was all bullshit.

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Permalink Reply by Matt VDB on January 25, 2010 at 2:51pm

Yup. Funny how Jesus never seems to say anything about Christians having to drop the law. In fact, in the book of Acts, Paul depicts a pretty strong argument between Early Christians about whether or not they should follow the Law to the letter, and he says Jesus had to come down from the sky again and, very conveniently, settles the dispute in Paul's favor.

Apparently he forgot mentioning it the first time...

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Permalink Reply by Matt VDB on January 25, 2010 at 3:59pm

The octopus and hummingbird might have been the factors that stopped Gentiles ('the God-Fearers' as they were called) from entering early Christianity. Personally I think it had more to do with them having to cut off part of their penis though! :D