Bishops Put Boot into Brown's Promises & Policies

xmaswoes

Bishops? haha ........dont u know ther just make believe

next thing i suppose people will start talking about gods, jesus, the queen, fairies, the pope, priests......none of these things are actually real........

Cat695

xmaswoes wrote: »

Bishops? haha ........dont u know ther just make believe

next thing i suppose people will start talking about gods, jesus, the queen, fairies, the pope, priests......none of these things are actually real........

Ok I'm not a believer in God (as no one as actually seen him) but the Queen I can promise you is real cause I've met her

And I'm sure the guy that married my wife and I (well now ex) was a priest

And the pope is real as he even has a car named after him....even god doesn't have that;)

And I've worked with plenty of fairies over the years so I know their real

tradetime

nickmason wrote: »

(And FWIW, I'm a resolute atheist.)

A viewpoint I can understand by many who have presented it, given the circumstances under which it was presented, unfortunately, whilst I have considered that view, even under such circumstances, I am unable to accept it, but I would concede that is relative to individual experience.

nickmason wrote: »

Okay - so not actually very venomous.

Thank you, but then you have no agenda

nickmason wrote: »

But I think it's fair to say that your perspective does focus rather a lot on the literal word of God bit and rather less on the good work that most members of the clergy do.

That is quite true, but then I made a response, a generalized response to a specific post, and someone else decided to take personal offense, their choice of words suggests a religious offence so I responded in a literal way to the text of a book, which religious people claim to be the basis of their faith, nothing more

nickmason wrote: »

And using the phrase blaspemers is bound to be inflammatory without the (rather esoteric, and certainly not tacitly obvious) explanation you've now given.

Possibly, (though I suspect my respondent is sufficiently enlightened) or simply a query of pedigree, if you use your "Righteous" religious position, to make mileage then you must expect a response, should we shy away from comment because they are "men of God" Oh I think not, if you make by your position in society for such a lofty claim then you must expect to prove your status. Having said that, I will reply to the last post and desist from this thread, since this is not a forum for this type of discussion

tradetime

I had considered the possibility that you were clergy, and that would have explained your previous post along with you knowledge of church matters, it would also not have been uncommonly in keeping with your opening line in this post, from my experience of some clergy, but I see from your ill informed reply that this is almost impossible.

iolanthe07 wrote: »

If you think Easter is not in the Bible try reading Acts 12:4.

Ah yes, that would be in the King James Version, or perhaps you use some more recently rehashed work. It seems odd, that such an important religious festival would deserve only one solitary mention, no mention in Acts, which covers decades of the history of the early church, stranger still that it's not mentioned at all in most other translations, a little digging provides an answer. Easter as it appears in this verse is translated from the Greek "pascha", but strangely, that word does appear quite a lot in the bible (some ninety times).

A puzzle, if it appears quite a lot in the bible what is it translated to elsewhere? The Greek word "pascha" in fact is an adaptation of the Hebrew word "pesach" which means passover, everywhere else it appears it is translated correctly. It is just in this one case it is deliberately mis-translated to legitimize Easter, but of course you'd know that given you think these things through properly.
I must admit it is odd that this only appears in a very few translations, mostly later, you would think man would be a little more careful, though it might be due to the fact that Easter was not fully adopted by the Church of Rome until about AD325 so short of destroying earlier translations they just bet on the fact that people never look too far.

It probably won't surprise you to know that Easter is actually mentioned elsewhere in the bible, by proxy, the word Easter comes from the name Eostre a Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring, which is the ancient european name for Astarte or Ishtar, a Babylonian goddess known as a "goddess of fertility" she is mentioned by her Hebrew name Ashtoreth, another pagan festival adopted. None of this should come as any great surprise given that all translations of the bible are in agreement that Christ was crucified at the Jewish passover, and yet Easter does not coincide with this festival. Account of the First Council of Nicaea show that the Roman church needed to separate itself from the Jewish festival, so they just moved it. Of course I wouldn't know that because I "haven't thought any of this through properly"

iolanthe07 wrote: »

Sunday became the Christian Sabbath probably as early as the first century because Sunday, the first day of the week, was the day that the Lord was first seen after his resurrection. The early church adopted it without argument because it was logical and sensible to do so.

Yes, well this is an interesting one, because if you believe this one then you pronounce the death of Christianity by denouncing Jesus Christ as a false profit, a bold claim. Jesus speaking to the Pharisees, since you like to quote the book, (oh yes whilst not thinking anything through, I've read it, twice, along with English translations of the Tanakh, and an English translation of the Koran) Matt 12:40 "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth"
After the resurrection:
Luke 24:46 "And he said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:"

Using a pure science, mathematics. If we believe the Easter fable, that Christ was crucified on a Friday then he would have to rise on a Monday to be true to his own words, a Sunday resurection would only allow for two nights in the earth. If you actually study it, and do the detective work, the only thing that fits with the text description was for a Wednesday crucifiction, but of course that would not make for a Sunday resurrection.
Of course most bibles do say "Mary Magdaline, and Mary the mother of James and Salome went to the tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week" but yet again we are into the murky world of man's translation, and we do need to separate ourselves from Judaism, and lets face it since he was only resurrected once it was less necessary to debate than some religious festival that had been going on for centuries. The translated word here in case you are wondering is "sabbaton", you almost don't have to be a literary scholar to attempt a translation of that, but it strangely became "day of week"

iolanthe07 wrote: »

. I don't know any clergy who treat the Bible as some kind of sacred idol. It is full of contradictions and inconsistencies - much of it is just plain weird.

What the bible is varies in Christianity from: the literal word of God, inspired human accounts, or of human origin only. It seems to me that most treat it with a degree of contempt, they basically take what they want from it, incorporate into their traditional pagan rituals and discard the rest. I agree the bible is one of the most complicated books I have ever read, considering that it deals with everyday common themes, this is most likely due to the fact that it is a collection of accounts written from the perspective of different authors at differnet times, that interrelate even across generations, thus to have any chance of understanding it none of it can be discarded. It is further complicated by the fact that it was not written in English and therefore has been subject to the translation of men, who throughout history have had their own adgendas to satisfy, thus it must frequntly be further cross referrenced with the original text where possible by means of dictionary and concordances. Susequently to read the one book you actually end up referring to several.

iolanthe07 wrote: »

That doesn't mean that none of it has any value, and theology is the fascinating art of sifting the wheat from the chaff.

Indeed, to use your analogy, much of the wheat is lost and to make up for this they add their own ingredients.

iolanthe07 wrote: »

Criticising the Bible is only blasphemous if you believe the Bible to be God, and that would be idolatry.

To observe what is written hardly constitutes idolatry, much less than to take a tree from the forest and adorn with decoration, and stand around it singing carols, and it appears they have litttle problem with this.

iolanthe07 wrote: »

Christmas was an adoption of the pagan Saturnalia, but so what?

Indeed, and alongside Easter it is just another example of how Christianity weaves the tradition of man into their belief, makes you wonder if it was what was referred to in the text Mark 7:6-10 and he answering said to them -- `Well did Isaiah prophesy concerning you, hypocrites, as it hath been written, This people with the lips doth honor Me, and their heart is far from Me; and in vain do they worship Me, teaching teachings, commands of men; for, having put away the command of God, ye hold the tradition of men, baptisms of pots and cups; and many other such like things ye do. And he said to them, `Well do ye put away the command of God that your tradition ye may keep;

iolanthe07 wrote: »

I'm not sure you've really thought any of this through properly, have you?

Smug, but not surprising.

In light of what I have seen, and read, it seems likely that as Easter was adopted to distance themselves from the Jewish religion, so Sunday was adopted for the same reason, and thus they gave no care or consideration for the text upon which they claim to base their religion, they simply insert their own tradition and rules. I have looked at many religions around the world and it is apparent that they all discard the bits that do not suit

iolanthe07 wrote: »

And I still think your comment about the clergy was venomous and unfair.

As you wish, I have given your smug and condescending post a reply, but I shall not bother you with any further comment.

Frankly I don't know why people hide behind religion, they mis-interpret it dis-interpret it, to mean whatever they want, not just christianity, but all religions, and I've looked at a few. (but oh yes, I haven't thought this through, have I?) to vindicate doing whatever they want, personally I have little problem with that, I pity them, that they have so little stomach or conviction that they cannot do what they want without claiming justification from a butchered translation of a book. Let us hope for their sakes that there is indeed no God, for I am sure if he is what they claim, he will take a dim view of their nonsense

baby_boomer

Conor wrote: »

"Bishops.... getting paid as much as Brown

In 2007, they got paid less than £40K according to the Mail.

Who gets paid what - Dail Mail Jan 2008

This is a paltry sum in comparison with their responsibilities.

As is Brown's £190K.

econo_2

macaque wrote: »

The Church of England helped to bury traditional conservative values by joining in the witch hunt against Margaret Thatcher and then John Major. Now they are discovering the alternatives are much worse.

Hmmm, not sure about that. Sorry for sounding negative but I don't have much faith either of the two former PM's you mention would have done anything different in the run up to the global mess (being about as in bed with the yanks as you possibly could be) or in implementing strategies to negate it as much as possible.

Unless you meant in a moral and faith based way. In which case, 1000 apologies and I'll get my coat. Brown's already turned out the light.