From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: An open question...
Date: 23 Aug 92 01:00:58 GMT
	<1992Aug21.165457.8237@oclc.org> 
	<Aug.22.03.27.33.1992.10735@athos.rutgers.edu>
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In article <Aug.22.03.27.33.1992.10735@athos.rutgers.edu> 
hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:
>There seems to be some view that as soon as we acknowledge that the
>Biblical authors are normal, the whole Bible becomes useless.  This
>isn't true anywhere else.  We understand that all of the people around
>us are imperfect observers.  But we still make decisions based on
>their reports.  Just because we acknowledge that a certain amount of
>legendary accretion took place doesn't mean that everything is a
>legend.

Exactly, this idea, (that an English translation of documents written in
Greek by people who claim to have heard Jesus speak in Aramaic), is the
exact word of God is really a bit silly. I can't understand how anyone
who uses their mind can fall for this gimick. The scriptures stand on
their own without any need for the idea of devine inspiration to sugar
coat them. After all, one could just as well believe in a rock if the
requirement is only to find something that one thinks is the exact word
of God. There is no need for this kind of cheap sales gimick to sell the
scriptures. They stand on their own merit. Any use of cheap gimicks like
the claim of devine inspiration is an insult to the inherint value.

>First, the OT isn't an unambiguous source of rules for any Christian.

Exactly.

>The fundamentalists are the ones
>with the real cafeteria, because they want to claim that a few chosen
>rules from Leviticus are still Law while ignoring the rest.

Exactly, they claim all word of scripture is the direct word of God and yet
they miss the obvious lesson of Luke 14:26. Learn from dogma but please
do not be dogmatic. To become dogmatic is to insult the creation of the
creator. Insult the creation and you insult the creator. Human beings
were given a brain for a purpose.

>Even in the NT, you have to ask whether Jesus and Paul intended any of
>their teaching to be turned into the kinds of eternal law that the
>fundamentalists take them to be.  I claim that this flies in the face
>of what both Jesus and Paul said.  They both taught in no uncertain
>terms about the importance of moral behavior.  But neither of them was
>into rules.

That's right. The bottom line is that the Lord delivered us FROM
slavery. And yet there are those who wish to return to the good old days
of slavery, in service to an all knowing master. The problem is that
this all knowing master usually turns out to be none other than the
Christian Devil. When one looks for a slave master, one can always be
found, but that is not the way of light. The Lord delivered us FROM
slavery, that is the way of light.

>... that God intended to provide a good deal of autonomy for people.

Of course. That is the true living and loving God. The true forgiver. So
who is this false God who demands absolute obedience? That is of course
the Christian Devil, the hate monger himself. Hate and intolerance is
not the way of light.

---
Overall your post was of very high quality. It shows you have been using
your brain as the creator intended. You are a credit to Christianity, it
is to bad so many Christians end up doing the work of the Devil in the
name of Jesus. Too many Christians take the word of Luke 14:26 literally.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc