(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

It was a frustrating drive to work this morning, listening to a long debate on the Today programme about the ordination of women bishops. A convention of the synod today will decide whether or not we will get any; over a thousand priests have said they will leave the church if women are allowed to become bishops. In case they start menstruating in

Comments

[zenithblue]

There was a kind of interesting article in the New Yorker a little while ago referring to the Anglican Church as the "church of compromise," since historically so many of their policies and traditions have been cobbled together to allow for flexibility and interpretation (so as to better "show how modern social ideals fit into the wider religious tradition," as you so articulately say). The article was talking mostly about the "to gay or not to gay" question but it seems applicable here, too. How can you even rationalize excluding half of the society you're trying to unify, short of falling back on arbitrary scriptural bullshit?

[noramay]

Speaking of New Yorker atricles on faith...the one recently on theodicy was super.

[noramay]

ok, meant to copy the ilnk: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/06/09/080609crbo_books_wood

[wwidsith]

A brilliant article. I particularly appreciated the oblique criticism of "fundamentalist atheists" like Dawkins.

It also made me desperate to read some Dostoevsky..

[noramay]

When thinking about my own atheism (in which I am fairly firm), I never get too fussed by the possibility that there might be some sort of God, because if it were the God of Christianity (or Judaism or Islam--or Hinduism, after reading the Bhagavad Gita) I would have no problem saying "you may exist, but I reject you". There's nothing to make me feel like the God of the bible would deserve the adulation it demands if it existed. I do like groups like Unitarians or Quakers, but that's the result of their own action in the world; they get all the credit themselves for the interpretation, and it would be silly to pass that credit on to whatever divinity inspires them.

[wwidsith]

I am really pleased you say this, and it totally chimes with the way I feel too. I think it is kind of important to come to terms with the idea of saying "I reject you" to any putative God.....and in a way I think that is the idea encoded in quite a lot of powerful myths.

I am actually convinced that a lot of early religious thinkers thought of God in exactly this way -- ie a sort of ideal personnification of their moral code, rather than a literal being -- and it's a shame this trend has disappeared from mainstream religious thought.

[desayuno_ingles]

What leads you to believe that?

[desayuno_ingles]

I just wonder why we should take as fact a book supposedly written by a god but clearly smothered in human prejudice. I mean, if you want to, sure, Moses received the 10 commandments from God on Mt. Sinai, but the rest? Poppycock. And as far as I'm aware, Jesus never said anything about limiting anyone. But hey, I've not read the Bible fully and am not Christian anyway. Was raised Methodist, though.

[muckefuck]

Hence many liberals who are not prepared to accept that God dislikes homosexuality (even though the Bible is clearly against it)

What do you base that on? Leviticus is irrelevant for Christians, since one of the basic tenets of their religion is that the New Covenant that came into being with the death of Christ eliminated the need for most of the legalistic regulations of the Old Testament (including such fundamental acts as circumcision and ritual bathing). Knowing this, most fundie preachers go to Paul for their money quote, but the context is a condemnation of lewdness in general. If you ask what Jesus had to say about homosexuality the answer is nothing--and it's the teachings of Christ that are the basis for Christianity, not the Bible per se.

[wwidsith]

Well. I'm not sure how many Christians would agree that "Leviticus is irrelevant". As I understand it, there is some debate about this area...many theologians think that while dietary laws were fulfilled in Christ, moral ones should still be upheld.

But anyway, I don't deny that these arguments are weak, and obviously I agree that what Jesus himself said about the subject is basically nothing. But what I said in my post was that the Bible taken as a whole comes down against homosexuality, and I think that's fair. The passages may be considered irrelevant or contextually unhelpful, but the fact remains that where the Bible bothers to mention it at all, it is overwhelmingly condemnatory.

[ruakh]

> I would have a lot of respect for someone who said, "Yes, I believe in [G-d], and I disagree with him." And yet, if anyone did say that it would almost seem like psychosis, so closely does the word "[G-d]" seem affiliated to one's sense of self. Everyone's god is unique to them.

"Yeah, I believe in reality, and I disagree with it."

I think that people who believe in G-d consider G-d to be Who defines morality, such that {to believe in G-d} ∧ {to have an opinion about morality} → {to believe that G-d agrees with said opinion}. There are a lot of things I'm not sure about, but whatever the right answers are, G-d knows them

[wwidsith]

I don't disagree with any of that, but it leaves the obvious problem of why everyone has a different idea of what morality should be. If only there was a handy checklist at the back of Ecclesiasticus or one of those books no one ever reads, where the Almighty had helpfully ticked yea or nay against a range of different behaviours and sexualities...