I was gonna conclude my great debate with Earl about hypocrisy, by comparing deontology with virtue ethics.
In the first example, there are considered to be hard-and-fast rules against certain things that can’t be altered or minimized. I think Earl prefers this view of things. Thou shalt not divorce and remarry is closer to F=ma than it is to advice your granddaddy gave. It’s something one can’t get away from.
I prefer the position of Aristotle, who held out the hope of redemption by casting ethical rules as contextual and based in the situation. Don’t lie may be a good general rule to live by, but if ever there comes a time when Earl is hiding in my basement, and his incipient murderer is asking where he can be found, I’ll probably shrug my shoulders, and suggest the killer try the next block.
When you are talking the difference between divorce and remarriage…versus lying to save someone’s life from a murder…yes context matters. However that’s apples and oranges.
For a similar example…it probably wouldn’t save someone’s life if I divorced my wife and then lied to the next gal I got married to by stating I was never married before.
That dilemma of both cases was addressed in the Gospel when the Jews got mad at Christ for healing on the Sabbath because they took it as to no work whatsoever.
We are talking about ethical rules. Both don’t lie and don’t divorce both fall into those categories, and we both agree that they are good rules.
I will cop to the fact that I don’t know Mrs. Scott’s story, but I do know a few details about Scott’s. I know he reads here, so he’ll correct me if I’m wrong. My understanding is that he was married at least once before, and the marriage was bungled by both he and his ex-wife. (I honestly don’t remember/know if physical cheating was involved). He noted that neither of them were really supported by family or community, and divorce is promoted pretty heavily, so, they took advantage of these soul-eating laws on the books.
Yes, he did something wrong. And, yes, he was a playa. And eventually he got bored banging a bunch of skank-ho wimminz and found a single woman to settle down with. He married her and gave her own kid a stable life, and had several more kids, and now they’re successful. To me, the good they’ve done makes up for earlier time-wasting.
I don’t think Scott lied to Mrs. Scott. Pretty sure they both knew each other’s histories by the time they said their vows.
Aristotle would be on my side when I concede that it’s wrong to divorce your wife and start banging random wimminz. That’s a promise one makes to the community and one shouldn’t break his commitments, but it’s a lot better to clean himself up after the fact, than not to do so.
Honestly (lol) – if I adopted your rigid legalism, then I’d never take a shower again, for the rest of my life. Why take a shower? I was dirty once, and if I take a shower I’ll just get dirty again, thus I may as well just be dirty forever, and stop trying…
Having read both of their stories .. Good on THEM .. I pray it continues to work-out for’em both / all.
BREAK
As for this lil crew-fruf-ill yenz are enjoying .. you are both approaching this from different angles .. Earl from scripture and Boxer from the great writers of philosophy. You will never agree on style. But the essence of the convo is entertaining.
Frankly .. as men .. if we value our culture we marry.
If we value ourselves we don’t.
You know where I fall in these two choices.
The wind can and does change directions. It rarely is calm for long. And with that .. there are many paths to the same location. You both have made choices about marriage. All we can do is appreciate the nature of having to choose.
In summary .. you two make me laugh (in a good way) .. play on if you must .. jus’ remember .. no choice is still a choice .. and th wimminz haven’t changed since we figured’em out.
Please…I’m talking about sin, not personal hygiene. Take a shower.
But I’ll let this be the explanation…which addresses legality of marriage and how marriage was always meant to be.
That would be an important piece of information.
Of very little import, actually. At this point, it’d just be a bit of trivia.
The target of this narrative is a believing Christian, who goes to mass and such. Your god (same guy he prays to) seems to have zero problem with his marriage. With that in mind, I don’t really understand your condemnation of him, and by extension, men in his position.
I suspect you’d be cooler if he were a Kennedy, who purchased his indulgence from a canon lawyer, but maybe I’m being too harsh.
There’s a difference between annulment and divorce. But I suppose that does highlight how a lot of marriages are invalid (although putative…meaning the children that come from it are legitimate). Then you get into even more murky details if the church views it as invalid yet the state thinks it’s lawful….or the church still views the marriage is valid but the state allows a divorce.
Now you’re just playing games with words. What is a divorce, but a marriage which the state has invalidated? Bingo and presto, divorce is cool! Just pay the church a few thousand bucks and they will bless your remarriage…
No.
‘There are two ways to legally end a marriage.annulment and divorce. An annulment is a legal procedure which cancels a marriage. Annulling a marriage is as though it is completely erased, legally, and it declares that the marriage never technically existed and was never valid.
A divorce, or legal dissolution of a marriage, is the ending of a valid marriage, returning both parties to single status with the ability to remarry. While each individual state has its own laws regarding grounds for marriage annulment or divorce, certain requirements apply nationwide.’
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/whats-the-legal-difference-between-annulment-and-divorce
I note with amusement that Earl now has to quote from the black robed faggots in the American divorce courts, in order to explain the rules about Catholic “annulments”.
In fairness to Earl, I should note that, like Catholics, Mormons also hate marriage, fathers, and intact families, and we also celebrate divorces with our own religious rituals. The difference being that we don’t play word games to lie to ourselves about how “it’s not really a divorce,” and we don’t charge the victims (who have already been fleeced in the secular courts) thousands of dollars in order to cynically keep them in our god’s good graces.
https://www.learnreligions.com/cancellation-of-temple-marriage-2159556
I’m merely pointing out annulment and divorce are two different things. Not the same thing with a different name.
Where did Jesus (or Rabbi Saul of Tarsus) talk about the permissibility of “annulment” in the New Testament?
Serious question.
They even hated marriage back in Moses’s time with their certificate of divorce…which is what Christ was pointing out.
‘Where did Jesus (or Rabbi Saul of Tarsus) talk about the permissibility of .annulment. in the New Testament?’
1 Corinthians 7:12-15
Annulments in the “religious / church” sense are for people who want to get married again, or divorced but the bible (which they claim rules their lives) says you can’t do that……so they “made up new rules” to keep their conscious intact while they get what they want. “No, no…its not a divorce, its an anullment…..totally different.”
Like the different circles of hell or levels christains have quoted to me (where in the bible does jesus talk about the different levels of the place of gnashing teeth and maggotts? nowhere). Like the word purgaory…its just a made up term for the believers to grieve their dead friends and family who didn’t accept jesus, take confession daily that “we don’t know their heart on their actual moment of death, so we’ll create a man-made place for them to be in to make everyone happy.” nowhere in the bible does the word purgatory appear.
thinking I am defending protestants? get your popcorn. Good god. The amount of time WASTED debating “pre trib / mid trib / post trib” and “what jesus really meant when he said ___________” and I was taught by these fools that christianity was a simple faith to understand if you “just read the bible” with all this time wasted on this stupid topic one million in service hours could have been mustered in a week to clean up every street, keep every hungry belly filled for a week and for them to actually live this walk which would probably would have brought more people into their churches in the first place to see this “daynamic faith in action”
I looked that up, expecting Earl to be vindicated with something like:
Behold, I say unto you, that if you want to get a divorce, I shall surely pardon thee, provided you pay the pope several thousand dollars for a writ of annulment
After all, that’s what the good Catholic brother Ted Kennedy did, when his first wife caught him fucking a bunch of other skank-ho wimminz on the side. He first divorced her in the secular courts, and then he paid the pope off to bless his divorce and let him marry some other poor lady.
His first marriage, to former model Virginia Joan Bennett, ended in divorce in 1982, with the marriage annulled by the Roman Rota more than a decade later. First wife Joan later said that Kennedy requested the annulment, which she did not oppose, on grounds that his marriage vow to be faithful had not been honestly made…
https://www.answers.com/Q/Did_Ted_Kennedy_get_an_annulment
Here’s what the bible verses actually say… Is this supposed to sanctify Catholics who get the Catholic divorces? I can’t really see the connection.
12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
13 And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
15 But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
Of course this is true.
And, of course, it’d be totally irrelevant, if we decided tomorrow to institute some sane secular laws. We could start by appointing some serious judges to the divorce courts, who had the balls to say:
“No, bitch, you don’t get to divorce your husband.”
This would be especially helpful if there were young kids in the home. Then, if either party kept acting up, a few weeks in a work camp might settle our squabblers down, and convince them to keep their promises.
Of course it’d be even better if we abolished the divorce courts altogether.
“Divorce? What is that? No such thing. Now get back to work.”
Of course all this presupposes that there is some man, somewhere, who simultaneously holds political power and the balls to say “no” to the ho’.
As far as determining whether a marriage was valid or not in regards to church law (and hence never existed as God didn’t join them together) is above my pay grade. But since Boxer brought up Ted Kennedy…that was his particular situation.
And I wouldn’t doubt the Kennedys might have greased some wheels….there was another one who went that route but his wife fought back by going all the way to the Vatican and got the annulment reversed.
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/06/21/vatican_reverses_kennedy_ruling/
You asked where Saul talked about it. It’s called the Petrine privilege.
devout christian ronald reagan when he was the governor of california kicked open the door to this in 1970 with no-fault divorce. sure, people did get divorced before then, but it was very expensive……and just frowned upon unless there was demonstratable abuse……we just shifted the cards, because divorce still is very expnsive, for most working class men. men who now had thier children stripped from them. had to alimony, and child support…cover the divorce costs, lost their home IF they had one and then were looked down upon by men like reagan with “well, why don’t you just get a better job” attitude.
you’re really well off? sure……brad pitt and that bezos guy will lose a ton of money……but they have the means to at least not be thrown in jail, be forced to move back home with their parents into their teenage bedroom broke, frustarted and angry.
church folks will say that “jesus loves them” and “christianity is suffering” to assuage their own flimsy belief; while the man-o-sphere will tell them they are betas, cucks, and not ‘real men’ because they didn’t stand up to the courts / femimism the police or the tax man……and his stick throws men like this in jail. easy to do when they married the unicorn or had the means to get a scond chance. most working class scholbs….of any color…..don’t get that chance. one mess up, and its over for them.
It’s funny hearing Earl argue for legalism re: divorce and then try to get around it with annulments. (Some of) the Anabaptists of my youth would kick you out of church if you broke up your marriage. Perhaps it’s based on legalistic doctrine, I don’t know, but we always took marriage and family as seriously as we could, and that meant no tolerance for breaking up families. It’s a real shame that there are so few of them left, since everyone else has been handing out divorces like candy.
This is the kind of thing that makes me angry. A follower of Jesus should know better. There really is no excuse for it.
It’s not in the new testament. The closest thing is the stance as argued by Artisanal Toad. He argued that Deuteronomy 22 and Numbers 30 allow a father to invalidate a marriage that he never approved of. Toad didn’t call it an annulment, but it’s the same thing. Presumably Jesus and Saul would have agreed with this part of the Law by default without need to explicitly state it.
Well if Boxer really wants to know which institution hates marriage, fathers, and intact families the most…look no further than Communist Russia which brought about no-fault divorce.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-communist-roots-of-no-fault-divorce/
‘A primary goal of the Bolsheviks was, as Elizabeth Brainerd explains, to .break down the traditional .bourgeois. structure of the family in order to equalize the status of men and women.. They did this by implementing a number of changes to the Family Code: allowing civil marriages (whereas before only religious marriage was allowed), granting equal rights to illegitimate and legitimate children, making abortion legal (and free if done in a hospital), and instituting no-fault divorce.
By 1926, to get a divorce a spouse needed only to register with the local bureau of statistics and the other spouse would be notified three days later. The results were what we would expect: .Divorce became much more common,. says Brainerd, .and for men, re-marriage emerged as a new and widespread marital institution in the wake of divorce. Women were much more likely to remain divorced..
In July of 1926, The Atlantic Monthly published an illuminating from this period of .postcard divorce.. In .The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage. a .woman resident in Russia. provides a fascinating glimpse into what happens when thousands of years of marriage is replaced almost overnight with a looser moral standard. ‘
I knew it reagan was a communist!!!! (sarc)
Thought diarrhea, accuracy through volume:
~ Marriage is a covenant between 1 man, 1 woman, 1 God.
~ Marriage is not for happiness or for free sex for life. Marriage is for obedience, and through obedience, will grant times of happiness and sex throughout life.
~ 1 Co 7:12-15 does not speak to annulment, it speaks to the act of desertion. That’s ‘reading into’ the passage. Nowhere in the Bible is there affirmed to be the concept of annulment.
~ The arguments that speak to the difference between government v church ‘marriage’ and the legality behind them is moot. The government cannot marry: it is an institution of man. Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman and God. It is He who joins together. Why anyone gets married in the courts of man is beyond me. (Maybe, maaaaaybe, getting married under Covenant Marriage in the states that have it.)
~ Marriage is not a ceremony, it is a state of being. Father brings daughter to man, man takes ownership/dominion/leadership over her, goes into her… before God they are married. Having a ceremony, with an officiating male of the church, with bride and groom, is nice- to make public before man- but not necessary and not a requirement of marriage.
~ Divorce is real. God divorced Israel, and man is permitted divorce. Both examples (God v Israel, husband v wife) provide the two components necessary that make divorce possible: desertion from leadership, and whoring.
~ A woman cannot divorce a man. Biblically, the instructions are a man putting away a woman. (Yet another way the world perverts the Order of God with its own rituals whereby the wimminz initiate 80% of legal divorces in the courts of man.) Divorce comes from a place of authority, as inherent to the act is the making of a decision. The servant cannot do anything other than serve the master. It is the master who hires and fires.
~ The examples of divorce include post-divorce commandments: to return, to reconcile. The cause of divorce always being the same (disobedience via desertion and whoring), the solution is submission to, and chastity outside of, the husband. Legit chance of heart, actions etc. No concept of Capt Save-A-Whore here.
~ Sex is a requirement for, and in, marriage. If either husband or wife refrains from giving up their juicy-juices, they are in disobedience before the Creator of the institution: God. She should be slathering his knob such that it never gets dry, and he should be pumping her such that she is always leaking. Hydrate accordingly.
~ God hates, loathes, despises, abhors divorce.
~ It is not the church that can marry. Only God. The SBC, or RCC, or (insert church affiliation here) is not the sanctifying entity that makes a marriage legitimate. Christ is the groom, the church is His bride. The church, being the female-entity, cannot be in a position of authority. Viewing the ‘church’ as the authority of marriage is heresy.
The Hebrews mastered it two millennia ago. See Matthew 19:3.
Jason criticizes Christians for discussing the minutia of doctrinal details. Sure they do that at times. But Matthew is the first book of the NT. If anyone actually read the NT, they would quickly see Jesus explicitly condemn, with his own words, the practice of no-fault divorce. It’s not minutia. It’s not unclear. It’s not complicated even slightly. The Pharisees promoted no-fault divorce and Jesus rejected it.
I don’t understand how any denomination of Christians could tolerate or support no-fault divorce. I struggle to be upset that pro-divorce modern Christianity is dying. Why would I want such an abomination to survive? When it’s all said and done, there may not be all that many of us left, those of us who actually take the words of Jesus seriously.
Isn’t “LOVE” grand?
https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/A-young-Indian-couple-married-for-love-Then-the-14357641.php
If you marry out of “castle” and you’re the man who “married-up” .. beware .. Her FAMILY” may have ideas of an arranged
marriage.. death. And, isn’t that really better than divorce? /SIf we just had arranged marriages none of this would be necessary (re: Divorce). [tongue in cheek]
earl @ 2019-08-19 at 20:32:
.Where did Jesus (or Rabbi Saul of Tarsus) talk about the permissibility of .annulment. in the New Testament?.
“1 Corinthians 7:12-15”
Verse 15 is authorization for divorce, not annulment, on grounds that unbelievers shouldn’t be expected to act like believers. Nowhere in Scripture is a marriage agreed to, declared, witnessed and then oopsie’d out of existence.
That’s actually a very interesting story.
I follow a couple of E. Indian bros (links in sidebar) who write antifeminist theory. It’s amazing the parallels between Christian/Mormon/Jewish fathers, who see their daughters as “my little princess who is too good for everyone” and the pseudonoble feminist Brahman, who also worships at the altar of his daughter’s twat. The result is the same: bastard kids and single mothers.
the dads of daughters in the christian man-o-sphere could be in danger in falling into this; but they should be very well aware that:
Is real, alpha christian dad going to tell his daughter who wants to go to college no, you’re going to marry a 24-27 year old with a college degree in the STEM field? will dad fall into the “no man in the local church is good enough for my daughter? / the men here just have not manned up? / I’m going to confront the 32 year-old-beta in my church, I don’t care if he has a heart-for-jesus and he is upright and has a decent job…..*I* don’t like him (meaning I won’t be able to bully him), my 20 year old daughter deserves a real man her own age, the way he looks at her makes me know he has bad intentions. (meaning again, he’s not alpha enough for dad).
When I was a college boy with a nice head of blonde hair, my best friend back then was *banging* a 17 year old. We both were twenty. The girls father confronted him, and my best friend gave the arrogant thing of “I can’t help if your daughter likes me / you should let her make her own decisions / I don’t have to listen to you” he would brag on how he ‘stood up’ to this girls father. He banged her good for six months, and dumped her.
Funny now that my best friend is a dad of three late teen daughters suddenly all his tough talk to that one dad he did decades ago doesn’t count and was “different”. I joked with him on the phone when he was explaining that two of his daughters have “bad boys” always pawing them, taking them out…..sneaking them out of the house to be with them. The daughters also actively disobey him. I said playfully “Oh Rob…come on, you need to let your daughter(s) make her own decisions / those boys don’t need to listen to you / hey…its not their fault that your daughters like them.”
He didn’t find this funny.
Good parents have hopes, dreams for their children….not that they shouldn’t…….with that said, many of the plans they have don’t pan out they way they would like them. I was sent to private boys school, private college, was given an experience overseas as an exchange student. I can speak a foreign language fluently (a dead one mind you, but I can speak it). My parents groomed me for a solid career in teaching / administration or even publishing……..
who became the drug addict? who threw it away? who made bad choices? who just wasn’t given a gift of better than average genetics? who wasn’t raised with an ego the size of god?
I’ve seen plenty of christian tough guys with their daughter suddenly “spin on a dime” when they become of age “Oh well, yeah…she should get married but…she needs a good career to support herself in the meantime / my daughter is as smart as any of the boys….smarter actually, she needs to put these gifts god gave her to use / she’s as tough as any of the guys in her school, and can throw a baseball harder than all the soy boys combined, she deserves better than just a guy in my church”
expectations versus reality……and when it’s your “own” suddenly……things change
” A primary goal of the Bolsheviks was ”
I find labels very interesting. ‘Communist Russia’ was the Bolsheviks, sure, when viewed under the lens of a national identity. However, did the Bolsheviks have shared cultural, religious, ethnic identity with the common Russian?
Your god (same guy he [Scott] prays to) seems to have zero problem with his marriage.
I didn’t get that memo. I would not assume that a pleasant outcome in this life equates to God’s approval.
Hugh Heffner seems to have gotten divorced and then lived a life filled with money, fame, and a constantly refreshed harem of hot whores until he passed away peacefully at a ripe old age, but that doesn’t mean God approved of his actions. Nor was Job smitten for being bad. Our Judgement is not in this life, where we can see it happening to others. Otherwise all would fear God and obey Him. Just as Adam and Eve would have never eaten the forbidden fruit if they had foreseen the outcome. They needed to believe God not to eat it by faith in what God commanded them, being for their best. Just as we need to have faith to believe that there is a just God who will reward all according to their deeds, when the wicked prosper and the servants of God are persecuted and repeatedly tried in the fires of adversity. Circumstantially, there is no way with any validity to show that God may not have a problem with Scott’s marriage.
The discussion is more fruitful when we recognized that there is a State marriage and a Biblical marriage. The term “annulment” in the context of this discussion pertains to a Biblical marriage.
The meme that folks point to – what God hath joined together, let not man put assunder – is always referring to a Biblical marriage, not a State marriage.
Re. Biblical marriage: no marriage has occurred unless and until God joins together. Much of the joking and confusion surrounding the idea of annulment disappears when one understands what is behind that fact.
We have before us a question that the Bible does not answer in any explicit way: what creates a relationship of which God says: what I (God) have joined together, let not man put assunder. We are left with some really strong hints in the Bible that such a realtionship cannot exists unless there is at least a minimum of the two vowing to each other and both vowing to God – to create a triune bonding. Other things might also be required. But if there is a defect in the vowing to each other and to God, no Biblical marriage can be created, regardless of whether the other required things are present.
If that vowing to each other and both vowing to God is part of what creates a Biblical marriage, consider a situation where one or both of the parties to the “marriage” rejects God’s claim on their life outright. That person may vow to the other, but will most certainly not vow to God. And in that reality we see that there is not possibility for a Biblical marriage to be created in this situation. Why would God join together someone who rejects his authority over their life, when one of the requirements for a Biblical marriage is a vow between that person and God?
What if the authority (priest; other religious authority) performing the marriage does not know about this attitude in one or both parties at the time the ceremony is performed? The authority, at this point, is meaning to create a Biblical marriage. With a few more rituals, a State marriage can also be created – but the religious authority is mainly interested in creating a Biblical marriage. And none is created when one or both of the parties reject outright God’s claim over their life. But the religious authority does not know this at the time of the ceremony. When it later comes to light that one or both of the parties rejects God’s claim on their life, and was of that opinion at the time of the “marriage”, it is understandable that the religious authority will quickly conclude that no Biblical marriage was created. Given that the Biblical marriage never came into being, an annulment is an announcement of, a recognition of, this fact. If the rituals that create a State marriage were performed at the same time as the religious rituals were performed, the State marriage will persist – even in the absence of a Biblical marriage.
In the final analysis, the subject of annulment takes a back seat to the foundational question what creates a relationship of which God says “what I (God) have joined together …? Does God really join together in Biblical marriage those who reject his claims on their lives? That is the question to be answered, and I think that the answer is that he does not. Therefore, how can there be a divorce of any kind if no joining together by God ever took place, if no Biblical marriage was created in the first place?
That last paragraph is the territory where all of the questions about Scott and his new wife will be answered. It is in those unions of which God says what I have joined together, let not man put assunder that divorce and remarriage become a spiritual issue. And I think that those who care to think carefully can make a case from the Bible that God only joins together those who are fully surrendered to him (God). And it is to those unions only that the admonishment to not divorce and remarry matter at the spiritual level.
Otherwise, God doesn’t care what sin you commit. Divorce / fornicate / be gluttonous all you want. God only cares about whether you accept the Holy Spirit’s call to repentance. It is not for nothing that the Bible talks about us becoming new creatures when we are in Christ. The old passes away. All things become new. What we have been discussing here re. “joined together” is a practical application of that old/new concept. And there are other practical applications of that concept in real life. It is not just idle talk to take up space in the Bible
I personally don’t care if people remarry or not…..divorce or not……get an ‘annulment’ or not……..people out there who “burn with passion” will find a church, a priest, a pastor or reverend to “marry” them or grant their divorce as ‘legitimate’ in gods eyes…be it through annulment……”abuse” or “infidelity” (he always talked down to me…..this is abuse / she didn’t want sex after we were married….I am being abused)
People will find reasons why “their” remarriage is ‘holy and righteous’ in gods eyes…..through misquoted scripture, what a book says, what they think (personal Egos) and what other people were “allowed” to do in that church.
yes, yes…over and over again “God hates divorce”
Well, he also hates, pride, arrogance, liars, blasphemy, swindlers, thiefs, sex outta wedlock, touching a woman while she is menstruating, shellfish, pork, murderers, and a multitude of other bad behaviors that humans just “do” because ‘god forgives sin’
My take? “What god has joined together” is a joke…..because according to the christian man-o-sphere……god doesn’t have anything to do with “bringing you a wife with a low n-count who is between the ages of 18-22”. Everything falls on the man to attract her, date her, be un / anti chivalous with her (lol not one of these tough real men never did something polite for their future wife), create attraction, a spark, have frame….have game, say the right things at critical moments within three seconds of meeting said woman………being a leader in the dating relationship, demonstrating alpha traits, and being a good provider to one of these amazing women in the church or in christendom that are just “everywhere”
but when the vow time comes “oh, it was all god! he joined us together!”
Self righteous posturing.
My parents had an excellent, loving, solid marriage without ‘god’ in it. My mother died not being a real christian, and my father was only “saved” by me so to speak about two years before he died.
god’s got nothing to do with this. he could care less, and even if he did care…………men / women are doing exactly what I said in the opening to get authority in the church to get permission to do “what they want and fell like doing anyway”
@lastmod: The non-redeemed are going to stand before the Judgement Seat condemned. Out of all of the sins a given person has committed, is it going to be “this sin, and none of the other ones” that condemns that person? You sound like you know the Bible, and so I’m guessing that you agree with me that the answer is “no”. And, to get down to brass tacks, it is not really any given sin that condemns anyone. Rather, it is the specific refusal to respond positively to the Holy Spirit’s call to repentance. And the Bible says that, once that request for forgiveness has been made, and repentance embarked upon, God remembers those sins no more, they are separated from him as far as the east is from the west, and “all things become new” for the newly-forgiven sinner.
I’m referring to what the Bible actually says, not to what people say, and applying some principles of logic to it. If God truely remembers the repentant’s sins no more, and if all things become new for the repentant, and if God truely does not join together any two where one or both reject God’s claim on their life – then a Biblical marriage is only created when a couple is married after both have repented and have accepted God’s claim on their life. That is the end logic of taking what the Bible says about sin and forgiveness at face value.
If we don’t care whether the Bible is God’s word to us, then this is a big nevermind, as you say in your post directly above. But – if the Bible IS God’s word to us, it is not true that he could care less about the issue of what I (God) have joined together.
Having said all of that, I agree with you that … men / women are doing exactly what I said in the opening to get authority in the church to get permission to do .what they want and fell like doing anyway.. It is the case that that can be true (and it is) even as at the same time it is also true that God gives a damn about what I have joined together in a Biblical marriage.
your reply in a nutshell: sin is okay…..just repent and be “really sorry” and it will be okay….even on your deathbed.
Why then even have the bible, church, ministry, striving for holiness, the ten commandments, being kind (un-masculine in the sphere…just have rock solid Frame), a cottage industry of books about “what jesus / paul / prophet really meant”
god doesn’t “join” together in marriage. the man has to behave like a trained money (Game / Frame) for her to “maybe” consider him. he has to have this amazing job, be *lucky* in the genetics department with looks……even though god loves everyone BUT made ugly people…………every culture has marriage. From the native americans, to ancient cultures throughout the world to now. god is used as a “placeholder” to make a joining “feel” legitimate.
if god indeed does this, no one would have to do anything, god would just bring people together.
Marriage is an elite thing today, esp in the church. The man has to be an amzing provider, have looks, great social skills, be the envy of other women he could have chose to marry (but god joins people together), be a (cough) leader in the church (every man is told they are leader….untrue. met about three real leaders in my life personally). Leaders are exceptional people. Just because you hand the program out during Sunday service, we now call a man like this a “leader”
The term is so watered down, it means nothing. plenty, no….most men claim to be leaders but most are just blessed by god with “looks” and an Ego the size of god that the church…whoops, I mean god made them a leader.
A man has to do everything for the PRIVLEDGE of having a priest, a pastor or some holy person DEEM the marriage as “joined by god” when god had nothing to do with it.
So if a divorce happens? Did god lie? Did god suddenly “un-join” what he brought together so the man could date again, and find another one????
Also, yes…..I have read the bible several times…….was never deemed *smart* enough to *really* understand what god, jesus, paul, moses, daniel, and all the other players *really* meant. I had to read all these other books by pastors who lead “big” churches…….read CS Lewis, read this book, watch what this priest or pastor says, or just obey what an orthodox priest says “because its tradition” and they know better.
we don’t need the bible today, well….we do…….but its pretty useless unless you understand greek, latin, hebrew, what this saint said when and where……and understand chivalry…..and bible history.
did these early believers have this? I am not talking about Paul. I am talking the rank and file guy who had a flock of goats he took market every year, was illiterate, didn’t have a bible, didn’t even have a church………he just met in someones home, broke bread, believed and prayed.
the church. All of them. have no room for this man today. he’s sneered at, looked down upon and isn’t being a real man because he didn’t become a “rich merchant” or some other job / career because he wasn’t following god and being the man “god called him to be”
Jason, you’ve read the Bible from cover to cover several time and what you’ve discovered is what Jesus taught:
“Jesus said, .Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these..
The poor, the lame, the children, uneducated. The kingdom of heaven is made up of such as these. Even our leaders are lowly shepherds.
I grew up Anabaptist, the son of an Anabaptist minister. My father eschewed the term “Reverend” because it implied that the role of pastor was somehow better than that of any other member of the church. Our churches were full of love and humility. I never felt like anyone was more worthy than another. How could we? Everyone is a sinner.
Yet we also had firm standards of behavior. We shunned divorce, sexual immorality, lies, alcohol, foul language, Hollywood entertainment, etc. Children understand right and wrong, at least when it affects them personally. Ancient societies were able to formulate excellent moral codes. You seem to complain about emphasis on rules while simultaneously complaining about bad behavior. You absolutely need standards of behavior, but what matters is the response to bad behavior. Of course the modern church doesn’t even bother with standards of behavior anymore…
the “rules” keep changing. The goalposts keep moving. I’ve just seen a trillion times in my ten year inside the faith and my walk “rules” or “standards of behavior” selectively used on some and not on others………and if you are the one who is “making the rules” or “benefiting” from the standards of behavior……well, nothing is wrong! Those others out there “just are not getting it” just complain, or get angry and depressed…….”If these folks just followed jesus, put their nose to grindstone like us…they all would become amazing godly men.”
It’s easy when you’re on the winning side culturally, socially, intellectually, genetically……..you don’t have these gifts? It’s just tiresome hearing the nonsense that “we’re all sinners” and “aw shucks, well we’re all equal, this is a church…we’re all equal!”
I’m not going to convince you otherwise. It’s cool. According to the people who aspouse that “they are following and loving god more than anything” should read their own bible…….men like me will burn forever (I renounced the faith), I know I won’t because it’s all made up.
With that said, the book of revelation speaks A LOT more about those who DID believe or claimed jesus and who will be cast aside……….
Heaven will be that place where I am not. Thankfully. I could not stand an eternity with the Christian man-o-sphere, and even IF I still was a christian….I would not be going according to 99% of them because some other made up rule, or interpeted verse of what jesus *really* meant to say. the modern christian heaven is a place for maybe 50 people and their families………
the body doesn’t need anybody. it needs self-righteous smack talk, and these folks are STILL rewarded by god. No thanks. Sadistic jerk if he really existed. Yeah, I forgot I should be “rejoicing” for my mothers painful cancer and short life, my brothers downs syndrome, my dad taken who was more holy than most Sunday pew warmer……..yes, I know “god is teaching me a lesson”
let he teach you all a lesson in humility before I am told to believe
the “rules” keep changing. The goalposts keep moving. I’ve just seen a trillion times in my ten year inside the faith and my walk “rules” or “standards of behavior” selectively used on some and not on others………and if you are the one who is “making the rules” or “benefiting” from the standards of behavior……well, nothing is wrong! Those others out there “just are not getting it” just complain, or get angry and depressed…….”If these folks just followed jesus, put their nose to grindstone like us…they all would become amazing godly men.”
It’s easy when you’re on the winning side culturally, socially, intellectually, genetically……..you don’t have these gifts? It’s just tiresome hearing the nonsense that “we’re all sinners” and “aw shucks, well we’re all equal, this is a church…we’re all equal!”
I’m not going to convince you otherwise. It’s cool. According to the people who aspouse that “they are following and loving god more than anything” should read their own bible…….men like me will burn forever (I renounced the faith), I know I won’t because it’s all made up.
With that said, the book of revelation speaks A LOT more about those who DID believe or claimed jesus and who will be cast aside……….
Heaven will be that place where I am not. Thankfully. I could not stand an eternity with the Christian man-o-sphere, and even IF I still was a christian….I would not be going according to 99% of them because some other made up rule, or interpeted verse of what jesus *really* meant to say. the modern christian heaven is a place for maybe 50 people and their families………
the body doesn’t need anybody. it needs self-righteous smack talk, and these folks are STILL rewarded by god. No thanks. Sadistic jerk if he really existed. Yeah, I forgot I should be “rejoicing” for my mothers painful cancer and short life, my brothers downs syndrome, my dad taken who was more holy than most Sunday pew warmer……..yes, I know “god is teaching me a lesson”
let he teach you all a lesson in humility before I am told to believe
Wrong. Your leaders are dyke priestesses, child-raping priests, and online liars like Dalrock and Cane Caldo.
You can make the point that Saul of Tarsus would have taken a giant piss in these people’s faces, and maybe I’ll agree, but St. Paul isn’t around today. Only the immoral scroungers are around today. They speak for your religion, they have the mantle of authority, and they are unopposed. You need to own this or walk away.
You said this only a few months ago and we tried debating it. It makes sense that you would suggest abandoning Christianity, because you don’t think Jesus actually existed:
If Jesus didn’t exist, then Christianity is fundamentally based on a lie. There would, logically, be no necessary reason to give allegiance to it. If that were the case, yes of course it should be abandoned. But the strength of evidence does not support that position.
Now, I’m aware of the mythicist position, but if you are going to cling to that, we are not going to find common ground. I’ve listened to Bart Ehrman and Robert Price debate “Did Jesus Exist” and found the mythicist claims severely lacking. As Wikipedia notes:
I really don’t know what else to say about that. I could repeat and/or refine my arguments from before, but there is no point if you insist that Jesus was not real. We’ll just have to agree to disagree: If Jesus did exist and his claims were valid, then following him would be the correct choice, no matter any other seemingly exigent circumstances.
You’re a bright guy, and there are so many autistic stupidities here, my mind boggles. If you are this sort of insane purist, you should:
*Go home and tell your children that Santa doesn’t exist. (Hint: they aren’t idiots, so they know this already). Thus, Derek has decided there’s no reason to have holiday fun like all their friends are going to be doing in just a few weeks.
*Quit paying most of your bills. There is no reason to pay your bills to Visa and AmEx and Discover this month, because all those purchases you made were “based on lies.” For that matter, you should also shun those Federal Reserve Notes (you can send those lies to ya boy Boxer, mind you, he’s not the weirdo you are). I guess you probably have to pay your water bill, but you should pay it in gold nuggets, or eggs, or something. Maybe the city public service will take a goat in trade…
*Throw all your books away. Not just fiction, but every biography that contains any sort of embellishment or slanted language. All memoirs of famous people need to go.
Lots of meaningful things aren’t based upon material/temporal reality and/or historical events.
I was loosely interpolating the argument between the premise (Jesus never existed) and the conclusion (Christianity should be abandoned) for sake of moving the rebuttal along. But whatever, autism it is.
I wasn’t trying to be coherent or accurate, because it doesn’t matter. It has no impact on my point either way. For example, consider the alternative:
Even if this is a misunderstanding of your position, it still doesn’t matter (i.e. red-herring) because your premise (Jesus never existed) is wrong, so any conclusion based on it does not follow.
If you read the New Testament, you’ll find the writer of it (St. Paul) acknowledging that Jesus is a literary character rather than a real guy. He liked the literary character enough to find him inspirational, so you ought to do that too.
The reason Christianity is being abandoned by decent men is that the typical Christian is Dalrock, Cane Caldo, and those like them. Christianity is a religion that promotes chaos, lunacy and dishonesty.
Why was Jesus was never mentioned by Philo of Alexandria? Where are the Roman records of his birth, trial and execution? Not only is there no contemporary evidence for Jesus, there’s also zero evidence for any of the outrageous stories surrounding him… Herod’s slaughter of all the babies in Bethlehem (lol) not only never happened, but the New Testament locates that historical event as happening years before Herod’s appointment to power… so it’s temporally impossible.
You’ve never presented any historical evidence for his existence, because none exists. Whether he exists or not is irrelevant, anyway. Lots of people like the Jesus story, so Jesus is at least as real as your great-grandfather. Problem is, he inspires people to great evil.
Jesus Christ is the devil behind all the bad behavior you see on Dalrock. Jesus inspires dyke marriage and abortions.
https://religionnews.com/2019/07/11/this-abortion-clinic-is-blessed/
So tell me again why I should pray to this demon? Why should I (or Jason) aspire to the Hell which is the Christian afterlife, where we can hang out with garbage like Deti and Cane Caldo for all eternity? I’m honestly interested in how you can spin this.
Best,
Boxer
This flies against scholarly evidence-based consensus, so why discuss it? Regardless, most of your stated objections are addressed by atheistic agnostic and humanist Bart Erhman. Watch his debate on the subject or read his book “Did Jesus Exist?”.
Here, again, we part company.
The scientific evidence (origin of the universe; origin of life; origin of information; consciousness) supports a supernatural Creator. That’s not enough to prove the Christian God, but it’s a start. If Jesus existed, taught a bunch of things, was crucified by Romans as a criminal, was buried in a tomb, came back to life, and appeared to eyewitnesses, then this would be quite relevant.
Christianity is being abandoned in many American denominations, but it is growing in Asia and Africa against the backdrop of chaos, lunacy, dishonesty, violence, and death around it.
I genuinely do, as do many others. Someone I respect suggested that if I disproved his Catholicism, he would still follow Jesus even while he rejected Christianity. I agree with this.
There is nothing to spin: you shouldn’t. You’re not a Christian and have chosen to reject the prerequisites. Even if you accepted that Jesus existed, you would still have many self-inflicted hurdles to cross before accepting the alleged claims. Christianity doesn’t apply to you. You previously said you are not interested in a step-by-step case for Christianity.