Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/26/83; site ihldt.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!ihldt!tmh From: tmh@ihldt.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: back to Paul Dubuc again Message-ID: <1909@ihldt.UUCP> Date: Thu, 25-Aug-83 17:42:17 EDT Article-I.D.: ihldt.1909 Posted: Thu Aug 25 17:42:17 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 27-Aug-83 10:51:38 EDT Organization: BTL Naperville, Il. Lines: 206 In replying to Paul's reply to my reply I first must say that you are right about Paul's origin, I was confused by his place of birth (the Hellenistic World is much like America a melting pot and he was born in a Greek settlement). However, I also have to point out several similar mistakes in Paul's article. ...--practices that were condemned by the early Christians even before the Hippocratic Oath came into strong acceptance. The Hippocratic Oath was strongly accepted long before Christ was born (among the Greek doctors at least). In fact the oath was old enough and well enough accepted that Hippocrates himself had become a part of the mythos. Also while the Greek's (with some pride) claim to have invented the Orgy I seriously doubt that it is true (they probably just invented a name for it). When Nero wanted a scapegoat it was easy to point to the Christians as a group that stood out among the rest. I seriously doubt if Nero would have known a Christian if you had hit him with one. Nero blamed what we today would describe as fanatical cultists as the cause of the fire. Rome of the period was filled with them. He was deliberately vague about which ones as he knew better than anyone who ordered the blaze. Because of their persecution in later years, Christians have always assumed it was specifically them. Some Christians may well have been persecuted in the aftermath, but it was a case of (to quote my favorite line from Casablanca) "The (German) Colonel's been shot round up the usual suspects." My reply to several other points in the article. I. The U.S. Govt and the Bible If I didn't know better I would assume that Paul was actually siding with me here. The various churches have always treated the Amerinds as human beings and attempted to convert them. Few churches taught that they were inferior beings especially after conversion. The treatment of them as inferior was a cultural phenomenon totally unrelated to Christianity (however some people tried). Therefore had the U. S. Government truly been motivated by the Bible they should have taken an entirely different path in their dealings. As for the Mormons where in the Bible does it say that a man is not allowed to have two wives? (Note it would have to be the word of God saying it. The fact that the Jews culturally took only one wife is irrelevant in this context. The same goes for Englishmen). Thou shall not commit adultery won't wash as you can have two wives without being adulterous. II. Greece vs the Bible I was commenting that the Greek culture was a filter through which the early church passed and which gave the church some direction. This doesn't mean that converts did not modify their behavior, virtually every human organization has some form of (for lack of a better word) hazing by which to test its members. In Catholicism for a long time this was that you can't eat meat on Friday and you had to attend church every Sunday. I suppose that my choice of words "where the Apostles based themselves after fleeing Judea" was not the best. I didn't mean fled after the death of Christ, but after the revolt of 79A.D.(?) when the Romans dispersed the population of Judeah. As I said before for a good example of how the church was influence by Greece look at the Moslems. They have virtually the same input, but their interpretation is vastly different. To the point where Christ is not the son of God, but only a prophet. III. Culture vs Religion. It is here that I see Paul and I differing the most. I think that the following statement by Paul can best be used to illustrate our differences. If you believe that "right" and "wrong", "true" and "false" exist, then two contradicting moral values cannot both be right. I believe that two contradicting moral values can both be right, because the guides used to measure them are different. Let me use a very crude example of what I mean by restating Paul's sentence above. If you believe that "feet" and "gallons" exist, then two contradicting measurements (of the same thing) can not both be right. Of course if you measure in the metric system you'll get a different answer, but it is still the right answer. (As I said a very crude example). My point can also be illustrated using the Geometry example of the two dimension world vs a three dimension world i.e. a point to point measurement in two dimensions could be different than that in three dimensions even if both used the same yard stick. Paul claims that Christianity has only one measurement in the Bible, yet could he go out and burn me at the stake as a heretic? I think not (at least I don't smell smoke yet). Yet Christians of at least equal intelligence and interpretive powers (and you would be gravely mistaken to say that the people of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries weren't equal)who read the same book he is reading today, but of an ancestral culture have used the Bible to do just that. More importantly they have used one interpretation of the Bible vs another to do that. Paul says that "The Bible is not as open to as wide an interpretation as many think--when it is studied carefully and with a real desire to know the truth" yet what is interpreted as truth is based on culture. When you find a passage in scripture that causes you to go up a level in understanding, how do you know it was even translated correctly or that you have correctly interpreted the syntax of the author? There is so much play in translation, in interpretation of the words through time and even the difference between how the translator thinks and how you think, that some external reference point will always be used to judge right from wrong. For example, the sentence "Upon this rock I will build my church" is a pun in Greek. Peter is a transliteration of a mans name but it is also a mistranslation since Christ chose that name for its meaning i.e. both translations would be right (Peter (org. Petros) is the Greek word for rock BTW). The Jewish religion and Christian have argued about the phrase in the Old Testament predicting the savior would be born of a virgin (the Rabbis translating it as young woman). Young woman implies Virgin more or less, depending on your point of view. At any rate you have not reconciled how cultures which have never heard of Jesus can be moral. How primitive cultures which do not really have any Gods (just ancestral spirits) could have any mores at all. Christianity and even Judeaism are relative late comers on the human scene, yet morality was there with out any word from God. I say its the culture not the religion that gives us these things. The culture may indeed modified by the religion, but the reverse is equally likely to happen. IV. Shifting Moral Values Can anyone out there say that the moral values of our society have not changed? I have seen our culture change. I have seen the moral basis this country operated on change. I can remember when the draft and being a soldier were good things to the people of this country. Hell, I can remember what real soldiers look like. I have read about times less than 100 hundred years ago when a person was inferior because of his skin color or his accent and I am damned happy to live in a time when that is changing. I have seen an era when our society has accepted free love and gay Christians as a valid part of itself. The moral views of our society have evolved and there are no absolutes. Paul wrote: But the moral values of society rest on shifting sands if there is no higher standard. It seems to me that, if we assume that the Bible is our higher standard it fails miserably. V. Marxism It seems to me that our inherent cultural fear of Marxism seems to plague some people. Yet nothing I said was contradicted. In fact the discussion turned decidely in its course from BR (Biblical Reference) to BS (figure it out yourself). It also seemed to me that Paul proved Marxism superior to Christianity. The syntax I got from his words was that Marxism thinks men can be made better on Earth, but God prevents this. On this basis the Christian would predict that Marxism will never achieve the ends it desires because only God changes men's hearts. Marxists look for patterns in history and view it as naturally evolving toward a socialist order. Christianity is not naturalistic in this sense. It acknowledges God's ability to intervene in history and change the "natural" course of events. Marxists seem to believe that a perfect social, political, and economic order can be obtained on earth. To biblical Christianity, this type of perfection is impossible. It views the world as fallen, not evolving. Biblical principals may be implemented in society successfully, but that success, great as it may seem, can never be more than a reflection of God's perfect order. This does not make the biblical principals inferior to any others because their success depends on the working of God, not man. (I think this paragraph needs work, Paul you ought to tune god down a little!) Actually the dialectic principle works really well in hindsight since it is basically that when you combine two things you get a third. I have used translated Soviet Archeological articles written with a dialectic twang that are just super. It works for religion as well i.e. you combine Luther with Catholicism and you get Lutheranism. The place it falls down is in predicting the future. Nevertheless, while not a Marxist, I prefer evolution since I don't believe there is such a thing as devolution. After all evolution really has no direction all paths lead onward through time. from the rock opera JCS: PP:What is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours? Tom Harris Bell Labs, Naperville