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Here's my opinion on the deal with the RC Church:
absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Communism - maybe a nice theory, always ends up with a bunch of really old men running an oligarchy.
Capitalism - maybe a nice theory, often ends up with a bunch of old men (senators, CEOs, Prime Ministers...) running an oligarchy
Catholicism - an incredible idea - love your enemies - ended up with an old man running an oligarchy

(In case you're wha? here's dictionary.com on oligarchy)

You have to understand the allure of power is so compelling that people either consciously or unconsciously distort the underlying system in order to hold on to power. The Bible is an extraordinary document. But much of what supposedly Biblical religion propounds finds NO BASIS in the Bible. You have two incredible books. First the Old Testament, full of mystical and troubling ideas and images. The best examination of this I have ever seen in the Genesis series by Bill Moyers. His idea was, ok lets go to the text (classic KJV mostly) and look with fresh eyes at the actual stories. I mean for heaven's sake people, Cain KILLS Abel. It's not only a murder, it's the invention of the idea of murder and God sees Abel's blood in the ground, there's no reasonable doubt. Yet God simply marks Cain and exiles him. That's the strongest possible statement that could be made about the biblical view of capital punishment. Yet people still use the Bible to argue in favour of retributive killing.

It seems to me spectacularly hypocritical that these arguments continue, when I, with a minimal Bible knowledge, can refute them with a few minutes of intelligent extracts (in context) from the Bible.

The US fundamentalists rant on and on about homosexuality, whereas 1) it's clear from the text that the prohibition of man-to-man "like a woman" is a health directive as part of the Levitican Law. 2) Jesus said "I am the New Law" - Levitican Law does not apply to Christians

Sorry for all the empasis and bold, but it makes me really annoyed.

And again, there's some idea of a prohibition of mastvrbation, but that's a ridiculous conclusion to draw from the tale of Onan, which is about the Levitican Law requiring a brother to impregnate his childless dead brother's wife.

As for violence, it is clear from the New Testament that it is completely forbidden to Christians AND for that matter, the tale of the adulterous woman makes it again clear that the Laws of Moses no longer apply - adultery is against one of the Ten Commandments, yet Jesus says to the adulterous woman only "go forth and sin no more".

I have more in my blog archives, let me go digging... posted by Richard at 08:28 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)