Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Citizen Roe on September 15, 2010 at 5:34pm

Alternate title for Mohler's news article: "How Religion Transformed a Progressive Thinker into a Regressive, Misogynistic Dolt Overnight!"

What a tool, he should be embarrassed of the patriarchal, authoritarian dominance within his religion.

Frog effortlessly presents alternate, plausible interpretations that these so-called "Biblical scholars" have failed to produce, er, ignored? (Of course, I don't know, Frog may be a Biblical scholar for all I know, but he is considerably more knowledgeable than the Baptists seem to be.)

This phenomena is probably the single most revolting aspect of religion to me - the church forces its followers to stop thinking and substitute its dogma, hatred, and repression for their own intellectual integrity & judgment.

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on September 15, 2010 at 5:50pm

I'm not a biblical scholar. I just have a few translation websites and a really nice Strong's Exhausting Concordance.

The whole Phoebe thing rubs me the wrong way. It's one of the few things in the Bible I've put a lot of time into researching.

I love to ask the Baptists where their bishops are. The New Testament only mentions three levels of church hierarchy: Elders (presbýteros), ministers, ministrants or servants (diakonos) and bishops or overseers (episkopoi). Whereas the Catholics have made up a bunch of new ones (cardinals, archbishops, popes) most Southern Baptists fail to read their Bibles and have dropped both the Elders and the Bishops, and have split the minister(diakonos) into two positions, one clergy and one lay clergy.

Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on September 16, 2010 at 10:15am

I didn't know that, I was a Methodist for over 30 years. I had no idea the organization of the church was bible based. It just seemed logical. Learn something new everyday. Thanks!

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on September 16, 2010 at 10:28am

Heh, yeah. Who do you think wrote the New Testament? Even if you make claims about Paul (the misogynistic turncoat) writing the important later bits, the final editorial process was done by people 300 years after him. The final editing is the most influential component, where they ripped out most of the writings and changed around a lot. It was essentially the early incarnation of the Catholic church which did that. They built their own existent dogma into their book, at least in its primordial form.

That's why fundies who say that Catholics aren't Christian make me laugh so hard. The Catholics are the original Christians. No matter what sort of purity the fundigelicals think they're going back to, if they stay with the Bible, they're being corrupted by what they think they're rebelling against ... never mind if they stick with the perverse translation of the King James version.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on September 15, 2010 at 5:50pm

This phenomena is probably the single most revolting aspect of religion to me - the church forces its followers to stop thinking and substitute its dogma, hatred, and repression for their own intellectual integrity & judgment.

You're describing the basic function of religion, and then you're getting outraged about it. I don't understand.

"I'm am Jack's total lack of surprise."

Permalink Reply by Citizen Roe on September 15, 2010 at 7:19pm

What's not to understand? Do you have a question?

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on September 15, 2010 at 7:38pm

No, it's just that you're getting upset because something is performing the function for which it was created. :-D

Permalink Reply by The Big Blue Frog on September 16, 2010 at 9:28am

In programming, it's called "operating as designed." Even if it's wrong, if it's operating as designed, it's not broken. It's just wrong.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on September 16, 2010 at 9:50am

Where as I usually deal with pebkac errors.