Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 Wright tackles the contemporary popular "Left Behind" reading of Paul's words Thanks for the link; I'll have to sit down and go through those passages, too. (One of these days Bouche's hand is going to be forced, and there will have to be a heady religion forum) . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 - well put here: Paul’s misunderstood metaphors present a challenge for us: How can we reuse biblical imagery, including Paul’s, so as to clarify the truth, not distort it? And how can we do so, as he did, in such a way as to subvert the political imagery of the dominant and dehumanizing empires of our world? We might begin by asking, What view of the world is sustained, even legitimized, by the Left Behind ideology? How might it be confronted and subverted by genuinely biblical thinking? For a start, is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God’s world on the grounds that it’s all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn’t this be overturned if we recaptured Paul’s wholistic vision of God’s whole creation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_rawk Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 I don't want to sound like a fanboy (and I'm not -- if pressed, I could come up with some hesitations I have about Wright), but if you haven't read or listened to him a lot yet, I think that you would enjoy doing so. Even if only to have something interesting to engage intellectually with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.O.B.E Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 (edited) I've always seen those comments by Jesus intelligible within a pacifist framework as metaphor. Paul flattens all that out, though; if there was one book I wish had never been included in the canon, it would have been Romans. Paul should be an embarrassment to all self-respecting civil servants.Heh. I'm also on record as being ... I'm not sure if the right word would be 'cautious' or 'annoyed' ... about and by Paul. (And Luke 22:36 - quoted by M.O.B.E above - for that matter. I remember asking you, DEM, for your interpretation of it, once upon a time)I was going more for Jesus denouncing the church in my quotations. Thats at least the way I have interpreted most of those quotes and the metaphors. Since it was the church they were hiding from and avoiding and who put Jesus up on the cross. IMO the bible was stolen and modernized from Egyptian texts and lineages.Ive been reading Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs and alot of it makes sense if you know about the period history. This( around the time of time bible stories) is a skewed point in history. Too many accounts, too many left out stories and too many altered stories and meanings. I'm also an avid David Ike and Graham Hancock reader though so this is where I bow out of this before somone takes offence to my comments, someone always does...I hate religion for that matter alone. edit to add: None of any of this will matter if we can't stop this man. Hans Kolvenbach. Edited November 25, 2006 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_rawk Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 (edited) Well, I'll be up front that I don't care much for Ike, and that I doubt his sincerity. I say that not in the interest of persuasion (I have no illusion that I might be capable of persuading, on such matters) but just to be honest about where I stand.I don't see Jesus denouncing the Church in your quotes at all though. Jesus wasn't hiding from a church at all ... he was throwing down a gauntlet to the scribes and pharisees, certaintly. And he was attacking the temple system, definately (chasing out the money changers with a whip!). But "the church" comes through him and after him. Prior to the church? Well he doesn't hide from that, either. He enters it, engages it, challenges it, at the cost of his life. In Luke we have Jesus reading Isaiah in the temple! (The writer of Luke's whole shtick, in fact, seems to be to hammer home this connection of Jesus with prior prophesy, Isaiah especially, which is a rather clever approach, I think)I've been reading Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs and alot of it makes sense if you know about the period history. This( around the time of time bible stories) is a skewed point in history. Too many accounts, too many left out stories and too many altered stories and meanings.This I don't disagree with at all. So much of scripture (by which I mean OT/Hebrew Bible) does this, and so much of of the NT references back to it directly. (Jesus being particularly clever in this regard, at least through the Gospel accounts). The creation story of Genesis, ie, being a retelling of the same creation story that was told and retold in so many variations through so many cultures, over such a vast expanse of time, but subverting it and taking *out* the war between competing gods, and taking *out* the need for constant renewal and saying instead "He made it, peacefully, through his will, said it was good, and rested". That is fucking radical. It isn't literal, I don't think. I don't suspect it is meant to be. But it takes an ancient story and says -- imagine it like this. More peaceful than you had ever imagined it.It borrows. Yes! Heavily. But it borrows in order to contrast. It wouldn't be new or interesting or subversive otherwise.[edit: glancing over your last link, you are really going to distrust me now, when I admit: I was *this close* to joining the Jesuit priesthood. Though I am not altogether certain what to make of them now. It was the Iran/Contra thing that made me partial to them] Edited November 25, 2006 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Birdy Posted November 25, 2006 Report Share Posted November 25, 2006 The trouble is more, imo, to do with people who are fucked in the head and who express it through religious language and symbols. Bingo. Religion, for the most part, spurs a relatively peaceful existence. I think because religious houses serve as a kind of meeting group for people to come in, discuss and share ideas on serious issues like salvation, faith, death, hope, life, heaven, and hell, that it becomes a kind of breeding ground for the already crazy folk to become crazier and to garner an audience. So I kinda find your outlook on religion sad Deeps! For the most part, i look at people of faith with a certain admiration... that there's something out there that has captured their hearts so wholly and given them such fulfillment is a beautiful thing, in my eyes. It's just a shame these extremist psychos have to give that a bad name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcO Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 For the most part, i look at people of faith with a certain admiration... that there's something out there that has captured their hearts so wholly and given them such fulfillment is a beautiful thing, in my eyes. Except that they are happily fooling themselves. The fulfillment they find is a fabrication, an invention of the human mind. Their impassioned defence of these fairy tales fills me more with pity than admiration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 I dunno, MarcO - religion can be as much a matter of art as music is. Neither has to be, of course. Luckily, none of us has any special passion for any particular kinds of music that we'd ever want to defend it . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Birdy Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 (edited) For the most part' date=' i look at people of faith with a certain admiration... that there's something out there that has captured their hearts so wholly and given them such fulfillment is a beautiful thing, in my eyes. [/quote'] Except that they are happily fooling themselves. The fulfillment they find is a fabrication, an invention of the human mind. Their impassioned defence of these fairy tales fills me more with pity than admiration. i'd say 'fulfillment' is a pretty solitary and personal thing, completely an invention of the human mind... and because of this i don't think there's a 'right' or a 'wrong' in how you get it, it changes from man to man. Besides, if we're to distinguish the religious from the extremists, what does it really matter to you or I if another is happily fooled? key word: "happily"! Edited November 26, 2006 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_rawk Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 Except that they are happily fooling themselves. The fulfillment they find is a fabrication, an invention of the human mind. Their impassioned defence of these fairy tales fills me more with pity than admiration.Meh. "Universal human rights" or the intrisic worth of human life are as much a fabrication of the human mind (and having their origin in religious conviction, for that matter), but that alone doesn't make the concepts unvaluable, nor has it stopped the many worthwhile impassioned defenses to their cause.We live - all of us - within all manner of intersecting and overlapping narratives. The chauvinism that would seek to make all those but the ones that inform your own life worthy of pity is chauvinism of the same sort that we most often ascribe to the hard-headed religious evangelists and dogmatists or the political and cultural imperialists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcO Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 Then consider me chauvinistic. Although I'm not sure that's the most correct term. Opiniontaed asshole is more applicable, me thinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcO Posted November 26, 2006 Report Share Posted November 26, 2006 actually, I regret being so hard-nosed. It occurs to me that several of my closest friends are devout believers. It's the concepts and the applications I find distressing sometimes, not the individuals.sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_rawk Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Hey thanks, I appreciate that. I do have the irksome little habit of overstating or exagerating my case (on all subjects, not just this one) in the interest of being provocative. It's an approach that pretty much demands pushback and contrary opinion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamilton Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Is there not some better word than something as abstract and overdetermined as "religion" to get to what we're talking about? How about "conservative religion"? Or does that not quite hit the mark?Monotheistic religions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 It's the concepts and the applications I find distressing sometimes, not the individuals. How very Gandhi of you . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Monotheistic religions.Maybe; I'd opt for any sort of theism per se. But again, what doesn't work well, in terms of metaphor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamilton Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deeps Posted November 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 For a little Dawkins listening, there is a lecture/presentation from Lynchburg, VA up on youtube: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Evil_Mouse Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Thanks for those, KK.Lynchburg, of all places! Nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deeps Posted November 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 DEM,Do you ever record your lectures? Audio or otherwise.I would definitely listen to them.Deeps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Thanks for those, KK.Lynchburg, of all places! Nice!My pleasure. I'm going to listen to them while I work this afternoon. I'd like to hear the q&a portion in particular.Later . . . Kanada Kev =8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phorbesie Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 talkin to a drunk man about religion he said it's all I got, but it ain't much. the way I feel these days, i'd rather have a gun than a crutch makes sense to me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ollie Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 DEM,Do you ever record your lectures? Audio or otherwise.I would definitely listen to them.DeepsPaging BradM... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradm Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 DEM' date='Do you ever record your lectures? Audio or otherwise.I would definitely listen to them.Deeps[/quote']Paging BradM...Hi, this is BradM. If you're calling about having me record a concert, please leave a message after the tone. If you want to record something going on in a school classroom, please contact my lawyer...Aloha,Brad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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