Bible talk

[Ziggy Stardust]

Christianity is based on the Bible.
The Bible has a talking snake.
Snakes don't talk.
Checkmate Christians.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

 

[Gori the Grey]

Chad is the Christian and wojak is the atheist? Are those two memes generally paired? I thought Chad had soy boy as his foil. (Though I do learn on Google that there's soy boy and wojak are sometimes overlapping). I'm not sure I've ever really understood a wojak meme. I guess they work like they do here. The meme maker is throwing down some truth and he imagines his imagined opponent being really emotionally overwhelmed by that truth.

The funny thing to me about the video is the guiding premise that, if an atheist held his atheism based on one sentence, he come over to Christianity based on one sentence in return. I'll go grab an example.

So I'll take the third one in. Wojak-atheist says to Christian-Chad, "If you were born somewhere else, you wouldn't be a Christian." And Christian-Chad says back, "If you were born somewhere else you wouldn't be an atheist." So, let's say there is some RL atheist whose atheism is grounded on the idea that Christians are only Christians because they were raised as such. Would that person be at all moved toward Christianity by Christain-Chad's reply? Or let's grant that; let's say he's overwhelmed by Chad's logic. Wojak can't go back and be born in a Christian land, to be raised as a Christian. Chad's answer doesn't provide an avenue for wojak to adopt Chad's views. What does the video think it's achieving, relative to RL atheists?

On retrospect, I guess the video is not addressed to atheists. The opening is talking about atheists, not to them: they don't know that their objections have already been addressed over the centuries. So I guess the video is intended for Christians to enjoy Christian-Chad giving atheist-wojak a take-down.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Christianity is based on the Bible.
The Bible has a talking snake.
Snakes don't talk.
Checkmate Christians.

Do you not watch C-Span? Of course snakes talk. o_O

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Do you not watch C-Span? Of course snakes talk. o_O

 

[Samson]

I have been thinking a bit about the parable of the good Samaritan, and would appreciate any input from any sides.

The parable of the good Samaritan is in answer to the question "who is my neighbour?" The word “neighbour” in the Greek means “someone who is near,” and in the Hebrew it means “someone that you have an association with.” I think the parable can be summarised as "That should include Samaritans" with perhaps but not certainly a proviso of "if they are nice"..

I was sort of aware of the Kings story of the origin of the Samaritans, desribed by wiki as people forcibly displaced by the Assyrians from Babylon, Kutha, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and converted to Judaism to avoid being eaten by lions, but they got it wrong about the location of the temple, or something. Under this interpretation it would seem to be directly relevant to immigration, in that an almost exact annaalouge of the samaritans would be Mediterranean migrants., in Europe anyway.

However, it seems that modern genetic studies have pretty much disproven this, with this quote from wiki:

The Israeli biblical scholar Shemaryahu Talmon has supported the Samaritan tradition that they are mainly descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh who remained in Israel after the Assyrian conquest. He states that the description of them at 2 Kings 17:24 as foreigners is tendentious and intended to ostracize the Samaritans from those Israelites who returned from the Babylonian exile in 520 BCE. He further states that 2 Chronicles 30:1 could be interpreted as confirming that a large fraction of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (i.e., Samaritans) remained in Israel after the Assyrian exile.​

From a quick skim of a 20 year old paper reference there it sure seems credible [3]. If you accept the idea that Jesus was all knowing God this kind of changes the interpretation, but I am not quite sure how. I wonder how the modern church addresses this issue?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Theism is logically superior to atheism. In order to be logically consistent a proposition must be proved to be true or false and Theism will be resolved through patient observation. Atheism is however a logical beggar that can't be proved true as a negative can't be proved, worse still, atheism can't be proved false without Theism being proved true. Left without a leg to stand on, the atheist is therefore neither patient nor an observer but simply a spewer of bald assertions. Likewise, as the scientific method requires patient observation, the atheist is absent whilst the theist is pencil in hand. The atheist therefore serves only one purpose, to display in contrast.

Of course theism is correct! The Sufis, Hindus and Buddhists all understand the true nature of god and creation.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

The parable of the good Samaritan is in answer to the question "who is my neighbour?" The word “neighbour” in the Greek means “someone who is near,” and in the Hebrew it means “someone that you have an association with.” I think the parable can be summarised as "That should include Samaritans" with perhaps but not certainly a proviso of "if they are nice"..

I agree up to where you mention the proviso "if they are nice". I also agree with the definition of the word "neighbour" from both the Greek and Hebrew translations.

I believe the intent behind Jesus's instructions were to love everyone "if they are nice or not". The whole love your enemies as you love your friends. Elsewhere in the bible Jesus tells us that even the wicked love those who are nice to them so what good are we if we limit our love to those who treat us nicely?

Since God loves all, even the most wretched sinners, we are instructed to do the same. God does not want anyone to perish and came to redeem the sinner, not condemn him. So if God can still love even the most wretched sinner how can we who believe in God not do the same?

I will argue that spiritually it is easy to love everyone once we understand that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against all things spiritual. The hard part is to love (in a temporal way) those who have done us wrong. Hence, and this is just my opinion, I think it's ok to dislike evil things that others have done to us as long as we remember that the person itself should not be hated but loved and prayed for because God views all of us as precious. All of us.

I may have misunderstood what you are asking but I hope my thoughts are useful.

 

[Samson]

I believe the intent behind Jesus's instructions were to love everyone

So the way he is defining "everyone" here is us, the Jews as in group, and them, represented by the Samaritan. In the Kings model the other is a foreigner who came to this land under force and is unrelated to the in group. They make sense as the other there.

If instead Jesus knew that the Samaritans were the remnants of the Jews that remained in the area after the Babylonian exile and the othering was an exercise in political exclusion then the choice of a Samaritan as the other seems somewhat different. As it seems even the Orthodox Jewish authorities have accepted that the Samaritans are actually Jewish I wonder what the conventional view on the matter among those who believe that Jesus was God.

He could have chosen a Roman, right? They would have hated them enough to represent "everyone" in your interpretation?

 

[Core Imposter]

Isn't the standard understanding that Samaritans were a people of mixed race who had rejected Jewish orthodoxy?

 

[Samson]

Isn't the standard understanding that Samaritans were a people of mixed race who had rejected Jewish orthodoxy?

That is not my understanding of wiki or that one paper I linked. They are of Jewish ancestry and only differ on the location of the real temple. It seems to have changed in the last 20 years.

 

[Core Imposter]

That is not my understanding of wiki or that one paper I linked. They are of Jewish ancestry and only differ on the location of the real temple. It seems to have changed in the last 20 years.

Well, yes, history is constantly being rewritten so that is possible.

 

[Core Imposter]

One way to look at the parable in modern terms would be to consider the Jews as Democrats and the Samaritans as Republicans. Or vice versa. That would work, wouldn't it?

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

To the audience at the time, the reference to the Samaritan is something they would have understood immediately and with clarity. Today does it matter what the Samaritan was other than someone that the Jews hated at the time?

For the purposes of today, we need only know that Samaritan equates to anyone we personally have issues with, yes even hate, that we must deal with.

So the meaning is not lost on modern day audiences.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Since God loves all, even the most wretched sinners, we are instructed to do the same. God does not want anyone to perish and came to redeem the sinner, not condemn him. So if God can still love even the most wretched sinner how can we who believe in God not do the same?

Condemning billions of people to eternal damnation in the past and billions more in the future is not love in any way shape or form. It is especially heinous since so many have/had no or no significant, knowledge of Christianity.

 

[Angst]

Theism is logically superior to atheism. In order to be logically consistent a proposition must be proved to be true or false and Theism will be resolved through patient observation. Atheism is however a logical beggar that can't be proved true as a negative can't be proved, worse still, atheism can't be proved false without Theism being proved true. Left without a leg to stand on, the atheist is therefore neither patient nor an observer but simply a spewer of bald assertions. Likewise, as the scientific method requires patient observation, the atheist is absent whilst the theist is pencil in hand. The atheist therefore serves only one purpose, to display in contrast.

uhm... this is not logic? like, you aren't describing how logic works (i don't know what you're describing, but it's not logic), and within your own structure, whatever "patient observation" means is not a logical proposition. it's all really weird.

it's also not thread relevant. i wish that THE CHRISTIANS PRESENT IN THE THREAD would stop sidetracking bible club with all this nonsense.

***

on that note of topicality, i've been rereading the book of job. it's pretty interesting ofc, i quite like most of it (the ending is boring as it cancels out what makes the book interesting), and i realized when reading it that two of my favorite things, søren kierkegaard and silver mt zion, had either cited book of job phrases for their seminal works or paraphrased it, fear and trembling (i think it was) and born into trouble as sparks fly upward. i never read kierkegaard's fear and trembling and in retrospect, it's pretty clear that kierkegaard's considerations are quite "jobian". he's probably discussed the book in length in that part of his work.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I have been thinking a bit about the parable of the good Samaritan, and would appreciate any input from any sides.

The only "side" I can answer from is just my own individual interpretation. I looked again at the parable, under the lens of what interests you, and I found its meaning really open up to me in a fresh way (though to deliver essentially the message that Moss has already given you).

I think the story does somewhat have to do with in-groups and out-groups. And I think my interpretation might even speak to your interest in the genetics of characters Jesus chooses for his story. And so speak to an era that sizes things up in that way.

My interpretation is hyper-subtle, though. And the best way for me to convey what I think Jesus is up to here would be for me to ask you a series of questions. Socratic method. Would you be up for that? A few of them might be "trick" questions, I'll warn you in advance. And several others of them might seem like they're trick questions because they seem so obvious. And it might take a pretty extensive back-and-forth to get there, multiple days, possibly, depending on the extent to which we are on site at the same times.

But I think it would be fun to try. Are you game?

Or @Angst, you can be my interlocutor. It would at least be Bible talk. I can promise that much.

 

[Samson]

The only "side" I can answer from is just my own individual interpretation. I looked again at the parable, under the lens of what interests you, and I found its meaning really open up to me in a fresh way (though to deliver essentially the message that Moss has already given you).

I think the story does somewhat have to do with in-groups and out-groups. And I think my interpretation might even speak to your interest in the genetics of characters Jesus chooses for his story. And so speak to an era that sizes things up in that way.

My interpretation is hyper-subtle, though. And the best way for me to convey what I think Jesus is up to here would be for me to ask you a series of questions. Socratic method. Would you be up for that? A few of them might be "trick" questions, I'll warn you in advance. And several others of them might seem like they're trick questions because they seem so obvious. And it might take a pretty extensive back-and-forth to get there, multiple days, possibly, depending on the extent to which we are on site at the same times.

But I think it would be fun to try. Are you game?

Or @Angst, you can be my interlocutor. It would at least be Bible talk. I can promise that much.

I am always game for answering your questions.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ok. I'll start by saying that that commentary you cited gives a pretty solid interpretation, so I'll assume you've read that and have it fresh in mind. My interpretation will start from that and draw on it a lot. But I think Jesus might be being even cleverer than that commentator acknowledges.

An expert in Jewish law asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus puts the question back to him. He gives an answer that (as the commentary notes, but not emphatically enough to my mind) is actually really impressive because it's the exact same nutshelling of the Jewish law that Jesus himself gives in the other gospels: Love God and love your neighbor.

Many moderns have reservations about the Love God part, but the "love your neighbor" part, at least, is a beautiful sentiment, and lovely moral ideal from Christianity, no?

(So that "no" is a question. The answer I hope for is: "Yes, that's a beautiful sentiment and lovely moral ideal that we associate particularly with Christianity and this passage from Luke's gospel." But you are never required to give the answer I hope for; you should just answer as your really want to. But if you don't object to my proposed answer, you can give it. In other words, I'm being Plato here and engineering both the questions and the answers in this Socratic dialogue. But I'm also being Gori just asking Samson what he thinks).

 

[Samson]

Many moderns have reservations about the Love God part, but the "love your neighbor" part, at least, is a beautiful sentiment, and lovely moral ideal from Christianity, no?

Yes, that's a beautiful sentiment and lovely moral ideal that we of a Christian tradition associate particularly with Christianity and this passage from Luke's gospel. It is one of the common strands between belief systems.