In the beginning, man created God in his own image...
Wait, what?
Yes, that's right. Or so many "Christians" would have you believe.
After thousands of years of Christian history, and thousands of years of Jewish history before that, modern man has decided, in his infinite wisdom, that the Bible is archaic and we need to remake God in our own image.
We can take out the parts that might offend someone -- such as that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Or that God is just and righteous and does not permit sin to enter Heaven. That isn't palatable to us, so let's just scrap it. God is only loving and kind and sweet. He's good, but not so good that He's holy. Sin is okay by him. I mean, after all, what is sin but a mistake? And he'd never punish anyone for making a mistake. Except Hitler, of course.
In fact, God is so sweet and kind that he might even be a woman. And Jesus never said anything offensive to anyone; He (or is it She) taught a message of love and tolerance for all. He/She just walked around giving hugs and kindness and telling everyone good messages on how to be kind and bring social justice. He/She was so good and kind and never offended anyone so much that people were offended enough to kill Him/Her. It must have been the evil Hitler type people back then, because people are basically good (except Hitler, of course). People are so good that everyone will go to heaven. Except Hitler.
In fact, Jesus died a needless death because there are all kinds of ways to heaven. You can be a Jew, Muslim, or Hindu because we all pretty much worship the same God. Jesus dying for "sin" must have been a mistake. Everyone can just get along, right?
Until someone rapes your daughter or kills your son. Then what? Who pays for that? Who fixes that problem? What becomes of the soul that sins? Are they basically good? Are people in categories depending on what they've done?
What about the people who have wronged you? What about...
you?
God gave us the Bible. The further we stray from it, the more ridiculous things become. Please do not claim to follow Christ if you don't believe the record we have about Him and His life and death.
Do you think that, in some ways, Christianity is becoming a watered down faith because we're taking out the parts of it that offend us? Why or why not?
True
Comments (17)
Christianity defines itself and that definition has never changed.
As a result, it is people who water down Christianity, it is people who misapply or ignore its doctrines and it is people who choose to redefine it according to their own personal tastes, hates, wants and wishes.
Yes, "man creating God in his own image," expresses it quite well.
As the saying goes, instead of claiming God is on our side, we should instead take care that we be on His side.
@Lynn Males@facebook - Congratulations, Lynn, you have made the same pathetic argument I made when I was 16. It failed then, it fails now.
@Lynn Males@facebook - "The Bible was written by powerful men to be used by powerful men for the purpose of controlling the masses."
Yeah, that's why Roman emperors became Christian--so that they could use Christianity to lord it over their subjects. Oh wait, they were already emperors--never mind.
And how did Christians control the masses before Emperor Constantine? Doh! I am so confused.
@soccerdadforlife@xanga - @Lynn Males@facebook -
As far as I remember my studies, the Torah was assembled from about 600 to 300 BCE from sources believed composed from about 800 or so BCE. Not the "thousands of years older" than the NT.
Not that it matters.
@Lovegrove@xanga - The JEPD Theory is now absurd, since writing was discovered in Ur of the Chaldees around the time of Abraham. JEPD relied upon the Wellhausen assumption that Abraham was necessarily illiterate because writing hadn't been invented yet in Ur. A little common sense should have nipped that ridiculous assumption in the bud, anyway. Ur was a major city and necessarily had real estate deeds and therefore written records.
What does that mean? It means that the sources for the Torah could well have been written two thousand years or so before Christ. I think that we have to consider that the Torah was well-formed during the reign of King Josiah.
Oh, it's kind of funny that someone used a computer program to try to find different writing styles in the Torah, then some grad student tried that on one of the prof's solo journal articles and came up with a bunch of different styles there.
@Lynn Males@facebook - "Um, the Bible came to be in its modern form well after Constantine."
So you're saying that all the books in the modern Bible were written after Constantine? What is your point? You do realize that the books of the New Testament were all written long before Constantine, right? It doesn't matter whether they were in scroll form or codex form.
Your point was that the books were written in order to control the masses. Are you now clarifying that you only meant the Old Testament? Even so, your point is highly controversial and outside general acceptance, being considered eccentric. Certainly, powerful men used religion to attempt to sway the masses as recommended by Macchiavelli and likely religion was used to sway the masses in China and Japan in ancient times as well. So something good was used for a bad purpose? Gosh, I'd have never guessed that such a thing was possible. [wink]
@soccerdadforlife@xanga - "I also find it interesting that the earliest gospel is written well after the supposed death of Jesus."
I find it interesting that your statement is highly controversial and not even important if true. What matters is that there was scrutiny of witnesses, that factual accuracy was considered essential in the early church (which we find in Luke 1:4) and that a written record was kept of the scrutiny. Otherwise, all history books would be considered a joke. They are generally written long after the events that they cover.
As I have covered over and over on my blog, the New Testament church was essentially Jewish for a decade or more, and corroboration of testimony, which necessarily implies scrutiny, was well understood by the Jews, said corroboration being formulaic in the Torah and New Testament. "Out of the mouth [singular] of two or three witnesses [plural] every fact shall be confirmed." "Mouth," being singular, necessarily requires corroboration of the testimony of two (or three) witnesses.
@soccerdadforlife@xanga - Saying "absurd" is a level of overkill and gives the immediate impression of an emotional response rather than a thoughtful one. Whatever.
While the notion that the Torah is the result of many hands over many
centuries, and that its final form belongs to the middle of the 1st
century BCE, continues to be included in scholarly debate about OT origins, I'd go along with the notion that it no longer dominates that debate as it did for early and middle 20th century.
Scribes from the earliest times of writing would certainly have not have been illiterate. Whether tribal chieftains such as the character of Abraham would have been, were also literate is a moot question. They could have been but not of necessity so. Norman-English kings certainly were not, although their could have been exceptions.
A common ground may be found if I say that the oral tradition certainly would have gone back a long time indeed before someone got the idea of writing their version of "runes" by pulling feathers out of startled geese, or whatever "pens" they used.
That's amusing to hear of the graduate student doing that test. I've never been fond of the idea of writing styles. Just having a headache can alter the style;
@Lovegrove@xanga - " Saying "absurd" is a level of overkill and gives the immediate impression of an emotional response rather than a thoughtful one. Whatever."
I provided an argument to back up my point, which you apparently ignored as the result of an emotional response rather than thinking about it. Whatever.
Alfred the Great was certainly literate and encouraged literacy, and he was around long before the Norman invasion.
If you can afford to hire scribes to do your thinking for you and you don't need to worry about contracts or deeds, then maybe being illiterate doesn't prevent you from functioning.
Have you looked at "More Evidence that Demands a Verdict," by McDowell? That book examines the JEPD Theory in depth.
Oral tradition maybe works when you don't have ownership of land, like the bedouins and societies that rely on hunting or maybe some societies among the Indians of the New World when all land was owned by the emperor or priests. For societies where private people own land and there are property disputes, oral tradition is bunk.
You dismiss writing styles, yet the JEPD Theory relied heavily upon writing styles. How can you not know that?
@soccerdadforlife@xanga -
Don’t get your panties in a twist, Dad. I only shared that the emotive term gave a certain impression.
I didn’t actually accuse you of being emotive, as you did me, as it may have merely been your usual style.
I think it is obvious that I did not ignore your argument, as you apparently acknowledge despite yourself by your introducing Alfred to counter balance my response.
Alfred was certainly literate, quite the scholar in fact. It all started to slip downhill from his time. I was rather vagually thinking of something I read about Jewish history in Norman England where it was said that while every Jewish boy could read the Torah, many of the kings and their court could not write their own names.
Being illiterate as an early chieftain or indeed as a latter king certainly would not have prevented one from functioning, I agree. Scribes would write what you wanted to say or get done.
Oral tradition precedes written tradition and of course the former slips into the latter as writing is developed as such phenomenon as you mention of developing property rights make their appearance; It is all intertwined.
I do know that.
How can the Bible be watered down when we, as children, never learned Greek? Were we taught to question things about our religions that were confusing, or, upsetting to us? Does this post mean that the more people question things, the more we stray from Christ? Because after I had what I felt was a born again type of feeling 24 years ago, I began going to many churches, and each pastor had his own special take on little issues here and there. So my friends told me it didn't matter, if I just told people I had Christ in my heart, the itty bitty issues weren't that important. Yet, some of them aren't itty bitty. Loving one's neighbor isn't itty bitty in an election year. Allowing a homosexual's neighbor's children to come to one's home to play with one's children isn't an itty bitty issue, at least not for some. So in comparing Bibles, we come to the conclusion that burning in hell and damnation pretty much wasn't around before the vatican got a hold of the texts, and began executing people for questioning the faith. Why do we not question the practice of slavery during Christ's time, or, of the way women were treated. We know Christ would not have us mistreat one another due to gender, yet, Christian women in the 70's literally hated feminism, because that would have meant equal pay for equal work. Yeah yeah, I've heard it from my own dad's mouth. That drove wages up and mandated a two person working family. What about those who never married? Couldn't get a credit card. I think oral tradition trumps most of the written texts, simply because those texts had mainly to do with the culture of the day, which wasn't pleasant.
@Nightcometh
An interesting post but I'm unsure whether you're being sardonic or not.
"God is so sweet and kind that he might even be a woman."
I often use the pronoun "She" rather than "He" to point out to people who still ask, that God is beyond gender.
Read Numbers 31 and the surrounding text to see if you think that God, or at least the one Moses says he got his instructions from, is always "so sweet and kind". The God of the bronze age Mullah Moshe comes across sometimes as an horrific monster.
"And Jesus never said anything offensive to anyone;"
He called some fundamentalists (literalists if you prefer) "vipers" and Herod a "fox" and he chased some capitalists out of the temple, no doubt using some choice words as he welded his whip.
Christianity is not so much becoming a watered down faith but rather more moderate, allegorical minded people are coming to the fore in the main-stream, certainly in the West, with the possible exception of some areas of America and the more protestant of the Protestants. ... uhm ... maybe it's not coming to the fore after all. Maybe Europe is the exception rather than the rule.
@Lovegrove@xanga - You didn't deal with my argument in the "absurd" comment. You used "whatever," which is dismissive and annoying; you implied an unthinking response. JEPD is absurd now because of the findings of writing present in Abraham's Ur. I read Wellhausen about twenty years ago and he definitely relied on there necessarily not being writing in Abraham's Ur.
And property rights were certainly present in Abraham's time. He bought Mamre's cave for a mausoleum, as I recall. Kind of hard to do if you can't read and write to verify the deed, especially when dealing with a foreigner.
Of course, I see writing as being present during Adam's time. Oral tradition is an anomaly. Adam wrote down his history and left it to his son. We see evidence of this in Genesis, where the author records the place where a new passage begins, which is similar to Babylonian style as far as ordering the pages goes. They didn't use page numbers in Abraham's time and probably not a scroll either. Probably just used loose papyrus pages.
@Lovegrove@xanga - no I think we in America are leaning toward 'allegorical' if I understand what you mean by that...I'd use the term 'mystical.' And btw - sorry for not responding to your message to me (I appreciated it), but have been distracted by personal circumstance.
I'd also express it in terms of spiritual journey...as AW Tozer thoughtfully describes here:
NightCometh@xanga is this helpful to describe what you might be seeing in relationship with other Christians...that we are each at different places in our journey and its difficult for me to see from another's perspective if I'm not in the same place. Sorry this is so long...thought it might be helpful.
IN OUR KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINE THINGS three degrees may be distinguished: the knowledge furnished by reason, by faith and by spiritual experience respectively.
These three degrees of knowledge correspond to the departments of the tabernacle in the ancient Levitical order: the outer court, the holy place and the holy of holies.
Far in, beyond the "second veil," was the holiest of all, having as its lone piece of furniture the Ark of the Covenant with the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat. There between the outstretched wings dwelt in awesome splendor the fire of God's presence, the Shekmah. No light of nature reached that sacred place, only the pure radiance of Him who is light and in whom there is no darkness at all. To that solemn Presence no one could approach except the high priest once each year with blood of atonement.
Farther out, and separated by a heavy veil, was the holy place, a sacred place indeed but removed from the Presence and always accessible to the priests of Israel. Here also the light of sun and moon was excluded; light was furnished by the shining of the seven golden candlesticks.
The court of the priests was out farther still, a large enclosure in which were the brazen altar and the lavar. This was open to the sky and received the normal light of nature.
All was of God and all was divine, but the quality of the worshipper's knowledge became surer and more sublime as he moved in from the outer court toward the mercy seat and the Presence, where at last he was permitted to gaze upon the cherubim of glory and the deep burning Fire that glowed between their outstretched wings.
All this illustrates if it does not typify the three degrees of knowledge possible to a Christian. It is not proper that we should press every detail in an effort to find in the beautiful Old Testament picture more than is actually there; but the most cautious expositor could hardly object to our using the earthly and external to throw into relief the internal and the heavenly.
Nature is a great teacher and at her feet we may learn much that is good and ennobling. The Bible itself teaches this: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge." "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." "Behold the fowls of the air." "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." Reason working on data furnished by observation of natural objects tells us a lot about God and spiritual things. This is too obvious to require proof. Everyone knows it.
But there is knowledge beyond and above that furnished by observation; it is knowledge received by faith. "In religion faith plays the part by experience in the things of the world." Divine revelation through the inspired Scriptures offers data which lie altogether outside of and above the power of the mind to discover. The mind can make its deductions after it has received these data by faith, but it cannot find them by itself. No technique is known to man by which he can learn, for instance, that God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth or that there are three Persons in the Godhead; that God is love or that Christ died for sinners, or that He now sits at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. If we ever come to know these things it must be by receiving as true a body of doctrine which we have no way of verifying. This is the knowledge of faith.
There is yet a purer knowledge than this; it is knowledge by direct spiritual experience. About it there is an immediacy that places it beyond doubt. Since it was not acquired by reason operating on intellectual data, the possibility of error is eliminated. Through the indwelling Spirit the human spirit is brought into immediate contact with higher spiritual reality. It looks upon, tastes, feels and sees the powers of the world to come and has a conscious encounter with God invisible.
Let it be understood that such knowledge is experienced rather than acquired. It does not consist of findings about something; it is the thing itself. It is not a compound of religious truths. It is an element which cannot be separated into parts. One who enjoys this kind of knowledge is able to understand the exhortation in the Book of Job: "Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace." To such a man God is not a conclusion drawn from evidence nor is He the sum of what the Bible teaches about Him. He knows God in the last irreducible meaning of the word know. It may almost be said that God happened to him.
Maybe Christ said all this more simply in John 14:21: "I . . . will manifest myself to him." For what have we been laboring here but the sublimely simple New Testament teaching that the Triune God wills to dwell in the redeemed man's heart, constantly making His presence known? What on earth or in heaven above can be a greater beatitude?
@Lynn Males@facebook - I am so sorry you have that belief. GOD is...LOVE. There is no pronoun for GOD but GOD or LOVE. You can only express GOD in that way...GOD loves and GOD forgives. I was raped, beaten and menally abused by my last husband, but you know what? I learned what happened to him. Do I want him to be beaten???? NO. I know he is sick. I do not want him hurting again and I do believe he needs to be stopped, but our system is to lock someone up in a prison. My belief is that he needs to attend a psychological institution permanently or until he can be fixed and pray that this lifetime will fix him with positive energy. GOD only allows positive energy to return to the next level because that is life. GOD is GOOD and GOOD is LOVE. Bad dies. All the good blood cells win and the bad lose. Yes, sometimes, in the body the bad win but in the end, when death occurs, the good blood cells won. GOD is all the good blood cells of the universe. We do not stray from the goodness and our positive energy survives. In the meantime, the good blood cells are attacked by the bad blood cells. Anything good that every existed in Hitler survives to the next level after death. Anything bad is deleted and ceases to exist. Thus are we like GOD.
@Lynn Males@facebook - The Christian Bible teaches how to free ourselves from bondage, not just of our own sins, but of lawless law. We are not to follow laws that necessarily create misery. Nations were destroyed because the people were hardened and the attitude toward the disenfranchised was amongst the top reasons. No where in there is God's back against anyone but those who are hardened or teaching corruption or promises in His name. People who read and follow the book are against the bondage of bad governance. But many use it to control those who 'feel' the faith but do not really read it. Does everyone miss the fact that Jesus Christ was himself a criminal defying the "Gods" who already had people under control?