The Biblical Method “If It’s In The Bible, It’s True” Advocates...

Interesting. The Bible gets started pretty early with 2 humans living in paradise. No indication they were wanting for anything. Certainly not hungry. Then they were told not to do something or they would surely die. At first glance, this fits the your point. But there's a difference between being told not to do something to be directed from danger and being told to do as you're told or else.

In the 2 humans case, there was no reason to disobey. The only temptation was they weren't supposed to do it. They were told it would harm them. We can go deep into this, but suffice it to say I don't see this matching your point.

Same as you progress through the Old Testament. Gods people in the story keep doing things which put them in danger and they are continuously told not to do things which are bad for them. This, like my first point can definitely be debated.

But what is hardly left open to debate is the story of Jesus from the Bible. There is no Do it or else. There isn't even any Don't do it or else.

When the religious scholar asks Jesus what the most important commandment was, Jesus didn't say thou shalt not.....

Jesus answered with Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your mind and all your understanding and love thy neighbor as thyself.

If you want to say most religions who claim the Bible as their basis, use this corrupt "Bible Method" to make people shut off their brain and obey...fine.

But it is definitely not the foundation of the Bible which clearly revolves around Jesus. Accept me as your saviour hardly constitutes having to do something. If it was absolutely necessary for a human to do one thing, and one thing only....the easiest possible thing would be to accept something given to them. And while I remember many instances where Jesus says what a person will receive when accepting the gift, I'm not recalling any "receive me or you will...." It may occur somewhere in there but for all practical purposes it doesn't.

Anyway, I don't see it associated with the story of Jesus.

justsumguy

06 Aug 2008 01:34

Comment

In the 2 humans case, there was no reason to disobey. The only temptation was they weren't supposed to do it. They were told it would harm them. We can go deep into this, but suffice it to say I don't see this matching your point.

Same as you progress through the Old Testament. Gods people in the story keep doing things which put them in danger and they are continuously told not to do things which are bad for them. This, like my first point can definitely be debated.

But what is hardly left open to debate is the story of Jesus from the Bible. There is no Do it or else. There isn't even any Don't do it or else.

When the religious scholar asks Jesus what the most important commandment was, Jesus didn't say thou shalt not.....

Jesus answered with Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your mind and all your understanding and love thy neighbor as thyself.

If you want to say most religions who claim the Bible as their basis, use this corrupt "Bible Method" to make people shut off their brain and obey...fine.

But it is definitely not the foundation of the Bible which clearly revolves around Jesus. Accept me as your saviour hardly constitutes having to do something. If it was absolutely necessary for a human to do one thing, and one thing only....the easiest possible thing would be to accept something given to them. And while I remember many instances where Jesus says what a person will receive when accepting the gift, I'm not recalling any "receive me or you will...." It may occur somewhere in there but for all practical purposes it doesn't.

Anyway, I don't see it associated with the story of Jesus.

Comment

But what is hardly left open to debate is the story of Jesus from the Bible. There is no Do it or else. There isn't even any Don't do it or else.

When the religious scholar asks Jesus what the most important commandment was, Jesus didn't say thou shalt not.....

Jesus answered with Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your mind and all your understanding and love thy neighbor as thyself.

If you want to say most religions who claim the Bible as their basis, use this corrupt "Bible Method" to make people shut off their brain and obey...fine.

Anyway, I don't see it associated with the story of Jesus.

Comment

Actually I thought that was pretty good reasoning justsumguy.

I do think in the Old Testament there are plenty of cases of "do it or else".  There's group punishments due to behaviors of just a few, there's lot's of smiting of nonbelievers, there's lots of rules which seem quite arbitrary in the current context (like kosher rules).  And I still think Genesis is just a parable, the only story the primitive culture could grasp for where it all came from, not word for word fact.

Then in terms of the New Testament I completely agree with you that Jesus was about love and compassion.  it's modern interpretations of his teachings which add force, coercion, hellfire to that equation.  I think a lot of my venting is against the modern judgmental focus of the believers not so much about what the original teachings said.

As I've said in other posts I do believe in God, I'd still call myself Christian, but I love to speak out when narrow - dogmatic - judgemental - punishing views are pushed on behalf of Christianity.  I don't think that's the right message at all.  Yet I still think that's exactly where most Bible thumpers are coming from -- thus the debate topic above.