After reading on JU about the “furor” surrounding the release of the movie based on Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code , I have to admit that I initially thought that it was simply another episode in America’s curious culture war in which American christians are pushing themselves to the fore as a new oppressed minority, battling against secularist ‘persecution’
OK, fair point. I've googled a bit and found some protests in Thailand (??!!) and South Korea also, and I'm never shy about admitting when I'm wrong. As to whether or not the furor has been baited, I still find it hard to believe that there is much beyond a sensationalist and financial motive behind the book/movie.
The same people who would think me less intelligent for being a Christian (a creationist Christian for that matter!) are learning history from a book that's as historically accurate as Dragon Ball Z! Not so. Rightly or wrongly, the same people who think you less intelligent for being a creationist Christian are the same people who laugh at the gullibl
I can only hope that the bishops’ votes yesterday helped hasten the death of one aged body - the House of Lords. If your yardstick is "Rationality: Yesterday, Today, Always" then, of course, there is no defending this survival of an earlier, feudal age. The question however, once you begin to unravel the t
I've found that Taoism is more in line with my way of thinking, Jill. It's always useful to find a spiritual path that is congenial and in our modern world, with so much knowledge and wisdom from every culture instantly available, we can indeed look around to find what suits us best. Of course, we may end up following a religious path that originated
When you read some of the rhetoric from the patriot side in the revolutionary war, you would imagine that they were struggling to free themselves from some awful tyranny. By today's standards that might well be true, but at the time it would hard to think of a less tyrannical regime then 18th century Britain with its (limited) parliamentary democracy. Of course, one of the grievances that oppressed the colonists was the fact that they were not r
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Indeed. The Bible can be perverted to suit one's own purposes, but to be fair, that's true with anything. Again I have to agree with this 95% I'm not an expert but I think you would be hard pressed to find much in th
There was a time in Gandhi's life when he said something like, "hit me and I will get up again, kill me and you will have my dead body, but not my soul." Inspiring words, but I think they need to be looked at in context. Gandhi was fighting a particular enemy at that time, and the weapon he chose was non-vi
I'd recommend "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco, which is the "marble" global conspiracy novel as compared to Brown's "plastic" one. Spot on! Brown is very much Foucault-lite. The difference is that Foucault has created works of highly erudite and entertaining fiction on subjects about which he is genuine
there were also the albagensians (sp?) Indeed there were. They were also known as the Cathars, which is easier to spell so they advocated not h
Interestingly there was a fellow named Marcion in the second century who was so upset by OT accounts of an "inconsistent,jealous, wrathful and genocidal" God that he rejected the entire Hebrew Bible. Reading the accounts of slaughter and mayhem in the name of the Lord in the OT he decided that the god portrayed there was a demiurge that he referred to as Yaldabaoth , who had created the world, but was the source of evil. He was the first
Christian notion of "Original Sin" Actually you might be interested to know that, while western Christians, both Catholic and Protestant accept this doctrine as formulated by St Augustine and others, it has never been emphasised by the oriental Orthodox Churches, who have an entirely different underst
What is better, a capitalist dictatorship friendly to the US that can be returned to a Democracy or a Communist Dictatorship that will most likely see one of the famed industrial revolutions that would see millions starved to death at a net progress of nothing. Well a no-brainer really. However, more realis
Wise words. However, the problem isn't just a belief in inerrant text, but inerrant text plus inerrant interpretation. When I made the very points you make above I was informed in rebuttal that Christ's words from the cross " It is finished " 'means' that the Old Covenant had passed away, and thus the awkward verses of the OT could now be ignored. To argue against a belief in inerrant scripture plus inerrant interpretation of those scriptures is just about impossible, but poses an in
Soto Zen Buddhism, as well as Son Buddhism (Korean Zen) ordains women as monks and priests. Happily true. Unhappily Theravadan Buddhism in South East Asia ties itself up in knots trying to find valid reasons not to allow the full ordination of women. This is even more bizarre than the situation in Christianity, because the Buddha himself inaugurated
I see that Unamuno's pic is now your avatar. That's cool
Politically, I find his ideas naive. The 'organization' needed to make sure that 'riches' are fairly 'distributed' have always and everywhere become bureaucracies that themselves became ruling classes. All that had changed was the murder, imprisonment and torture, and the replacement of 'rule of law' by arbitrary power arising from the need to 'protect' the redistributive project from 'counter-revolutionaries' (a fancy way of saying killing anyone who objects to the new rulers' power and privile
I've started to get into the habit of writing, then 'edit: select all', then 'edit: copy' before clicking submit. When JU is hinky the article/reply usually does post to the forums even if you get a time out or some other error message, so I don't post again. I then just go to the forums to see if the article/reply is actually there. For the odd occasion when it might not be - well, I've already 'edit: select all', then 'edit: copy'ed, so it has
Preaching in another language is not the same thing as speaking in tongues not according to scripture anyway. ??? Isn't that what Avanti said? Tenth thing learned from preaching in Italian : " Speaking in tongues is a gift available to us today; and I don't have it ".
This is interesting, especially what you say about Indonesia - the tiny bit that I know about that nation seeming to suggest that what you say is at least partly true. However, I'm not quite as sanguine about the non-Arab Muslim states in general. These include Pakistan with its honour killings and shar'iah law (including the death penalty which is still imposed for 'apostasy'). A more revealing example has to be Turkey, which is a relatively
I believe most atheism is simply a rationalization to appease a guilty conscience! "...I choose not to live X way, therefore I do not believe in the religion/God/god/tenet that compels me to live X way." Hmmm... good one, Gid. Isn't that conveeeeeeeeeenient? Well, to come to the defence of 'atheist
This is one of the most scarily seductive apologies for fascism I've ever read. It would be interesting (to the rest of us) to know how many other Americans feel this way. There is so much that is true in what you say and it brightly paints the royal road from flags, bunting, brass bands and cheering crowds to the young man in a foreign field trying vainly to hold in his intestines and staunch the flow of blood while counting out his last seconds in un
One major problem for any would-be Islamic 'protestants' is that all Muslims have to believe that the Qur'an is the literal and infallible word of God. In some parts of the world the only 'education' available to the poor is to learn to recite this book faultlessly from memory. In Christianity the believe in 'biblical inerrancy' is an opinion . It is true that all Christian Fundamentalists hold this opinion, but there are enough sincere Christians who don't to make it a mat
Actually I believe in Banana, but not in any of the false bananas...
I think it is time for an English constituional convention! To finally get it right from the patchwork that apparently exists with no end in sight. Ah yes, but if I put on my Conservative hat for a moment, I could argue if it ain't broke why fix it? (There are in fact differing opinions as to whether or not