Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Does a Christian owe their first loyalty to the Pope, or to God? If your conscience tells you one thing, and the Pope tells you another, which path should you follow?
Galileo followed his conscience. Even when given a direct order by the highest authority in Christendom, to recant his opinion that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, he chose conscience over obedience, divinity over temporal authority – until he was threatened with unspeakable pain.
I am not saying the church is always wrong. Most of the time, the church is a force for good. The moral authority which is the Christian church helped to create the modern world. The concept of a single god, a god of love rather than hate, a universe of order, in which the forces of chaos were chained in the abyss, gave the philosopher monks the peace to pursue their research into the innermost workings of creation – and the faith to believe that creation was orderly enough to be explored.
However, a papal encyclical which demands action on climate change would be tantamount to an accusation that people who doubt the urgency of addressing climate change are evil – are cynically exploiting the doubts of others, for their own selfish ends. Yet surely true evil is condemning millions to live their lives in endless drudgery, by denying them the opportunities inexpensive energy and affordable food might bring, on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence – defective models and failed predictions.
I do not doubt the sincerity of the Pope. I don’t even doubt the sincerity of most alarmist climate scientists. But sometimes scientists get it wrong. There was once another group of people who thought they were right – that the world was on the brink of a catastrophe which only their statistical models could foresee, that mass cruelty was the only path to salvation. Their sincere blindness almost plunged the entire world into darkness. The one regime which embraced this dark vision, even after others finally rejected it, is now a byword for evil. Yet arguably, those who believed were simply accepting the scientific consensus of the day.
The lesson is, or should be, that if you demand the infliction of unspeakable cruelty on a vast number of people, as many climate scientists, green politicians and activists in my opinion demand, with their vehement opposition to affordable energy, you had better be sure of your facts. You better have more evidence that such an abomination is an inescapable necessity, than a set of models which fail, again and again, to demonstrate plausible predictive skill.
If you believe in a creator, one day you will face, not the pope, but your creator. On the day of judgement, the opinion of the pope will count for nothing. All that will matter is whether you lived a principled life, and stood up for what mattered. Even if this sometimes means disobeying the instructions of the Pope, just as Galileo once did.
I am proud of arriving at Bertrand Russel’s “Teapot Orbiting Mars” argument by myself, at the age of 14. I said then, as I keep saying now, 40 years later:
“First you must prove that the Universe has not been created, as I choose to postulate, by the Navy-Blue Porcelain Mushroom with Golden Polka Dots, Softly Humming “Let It Be” in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.”
Prove that, and only then we may continue talking about those ancient myths of the Middle East.
P.S.
My wife disagrees with me. She says the Universe is a homework science experiment abandoned by the redhead girl with pigtails and thick glasses, after her younger brat brother has thrown sticks into it while she was taking a shower.
Spooky Holy Designer, my behind.
Although your wife’s version is as plausible as the others presented here and elsewhere, I hope you will encourage her to expunge any record of it, lest legions of lost, credulous searchers seize upon it and elevate an admirable hypothesis to religion status.
I fear it is already too late since your reckless revelation was carved into the permanent electron miasma and will probably resurface on a tablet in a cave some day.
AS A CATHOLIC I KNOW THAT THE POPES AUTHORITY EXTENDS ONLY TO MATTERS OF FAITH AND MORALS NOT SCIENCE.
“Does a Christian owe their first loyalty to the Pope, or to God?” It’s a silly question because it presupposes all Christians a Catholics. The question should really be, “Does a CATHOLIC owe their first loyalty to the Pope, or to God?” I’m a Christian, but by no means a Catholic so I have absolutely no loyalty to the Pope or to the Church.
Religion and science are inextricably entwined – both seek answers we do not yet have, both have unprovables, both have had their ups and downs, and both generally (though some religions and science are suspect) seek to improve the human condition.
One of the definitions of faith is “anything believed”. By this definition, pretty much all of our rational thoughts and actions are faith based even when there is conflicting evidence, e.g. I believe evidence supports the Big Bung theory, evolution, and that CAGW is garbage, though there is conflicting evidence.
It does one’s mental development (hopefully a lifelong process) good to explore the mysteries, such as the scientific question of the universe’s boundaries (is it infinite or not) or the theological question of God’s existence (does he or doesn’t he). There are all kinds of conflicting theories that are fun to explore, but it tends to drive one crazy if you do not choose a belief/faith version that suits you. So why choose a Christian belief in God? For one thing it is comforting plus it provides a rational method for society to get along when properly applied. Of course it is not always properly applied, but that be the animal nature in us.
PS: It amuses me to call it the Big Bung theory as the thought of all that confined mass and energy suddenly exploding is somewhat analogous to diarrhea.
This is a weird sort of post for WUWT. Not up to the usual standards, really. The author seems to conflate all Christian religions with Catholicism.
As a protestant, I do not feel obligated to do what the pope says. I might listen to him, but I might listen to the Dalai Lama.
There is an issue worthy of discussion, and that’s the Gaiafication of main-line Protestant churches. My own church has strong “environmental stewardship” leanings, and it’s almost enough to make me switch churches, except they’re all pretty much like that around here.
If the mainline Protestant denominations weren’t so busy losing members to the conservative churches, I’d be more worried. They do have a lot of money from their halcyon days, and that enables them to punch above their weight for now but they will run out eventually.
As for the posting of the above article, it’s Mister Watts’ site and he can of course do what he wants. His About This Site statement says “News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”. The above must qualify somehow. As I said elsewhere, I very much appreciate his willingness to broach such contentious topics despite the way this sort of article brings out every Village Atheist and theological Sir Oracle within hearing.
Have I missed something? Is this whole discussion based on something, a Papal Enciclical, which has not happened, and may not happen… A tempest in a teapot… so to speak? It is sort of like climate change, everybody yelling about something that has not happened.
Has not happened, may not happen and cannot be proved either way until it actually does happen!
Christians owe loyalty to Christ, Deists owe loyalty to God, Catholics owe loyalty to the Pope, and rational minds owe loyalty to empirically verifiable facts. Listening to the word of the Pope on issues of meteorology and climate makes about as much sense as listening to a politician on topics in engineering.
A relative once reminded me that the Church was the only entity that survived the Fall of the Roman Empire – and it is a bureaucracy.
Tom in Florida said, “Thankfully our Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment to prevent this.”
Those founding fathers that believed in God? Heck, Jefferson made his own bible. Those men said our rights come from God, not government. Hmm.
I would urge caution about making sweeping statements about religion. It would be ironic on one hand to point to “warmunists” as basing their belief upon half-truths, presumptions, and faulty logic, then turn around and apply the same faulty presumptive and misinformed logic towards Christians. Let me pull some examples:
“Does a Christian owe their first loyalty to the Pope, or to God?” – Eric Worrall
Not all Christians are Catholic, so this is a faulty question and really only applies to a fraction of the Christians out there. But to answer your question, the only Christians who consider the thoughts of the Pope are catholic. As for their part, catholics may not see any contradiction between the Pope and God on most if not all issues, but they certainly will cite God as the ultimate authority.
“It is religion that is the cause of almost all the strife in the world, always has been.” – Tom in Florida
It must be simple living in your black-and-white world full of sweeping superlatives. Most conflicts are economic, ethnic, and cultural. Religion may be an important factor in the formation these, but the reality is that of the cases that religion plays a part in a conflict, it is usually as a shallow pretext to rationalize a grab for power. In the middle east, it is largely muslim versus muslim, as with today’s ISIL mess. The Revolutionary War, the Cival War, World War I, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars: the largest conflicts of the last 200 years have been fought on nationalistic and economic terms that have no meaningful relationship to any religious pretext. Your statement lacks merit.
“Popes have been found wrong so many times over the centuries that I wonder why we still listen to them.” – johnmarshall
As have scientists, including a number with whom most on WUWT point to today as corrupting the political landscape of the entire planet. Christians may listen to one another, including perhaps the pope, hoping to glean a bit of insight, but ultimately we have to look within ourselves to find the nature of faith.
“Given that religious belief could be temporal lobe insanity, then I’m tempted to say that they will simply listen to the voice in their head, no matter what the head of the Catholic Church may say.” – The Ghost of Big Jim Cooley
Is love also temporal lobe insanity? Is that what you tell your wife? “Sorry, sweety, I’d like to tell you that I love you, but unfortunately I know it’s just a malfunction in my temporal lobe.” How about your mother or your daughter? I’m not sure if you’ve considered your position to its logical conclusion, but you might ponder that your existence would be cold and lonely were it not for these occasional fits of “insanity.” Love, Faith, Hope, Empathy….perhaps everything positive that we hold dear in this world are not rational, and really are the only ones that give us true meaning.
“Racism, intolerance and greed are hallmarks of religion.” – Tom in Florida
You prejudge all the religious by making sweeping damning generalizations. What a wonderful example of hypocrisy: a bigoted and intolerant statement about bigotry and intolerance. Let’s take the most recent conflict-du-jour: ISIS and their attempt to carve out parts of Iraq and Syria to establish a foothold for their caliphate. I am guessing that you would blame religion for causing this mess, right? But the reality is that these brutes are using Islam as a pretext to grab land and power while universally ignoring the tenants of their supposed faith, which is why Iranian Shiites muslims and Iraqi Sunnis muslims are fighting along with Coptic Christians and using Isreali Jewish intelligence to put them down. When such factions align and agree, you know the root of the problem is not religious.
Getting back to your insightful statement, you are correct that terrible things have been done in the name of religion, but that doesn’t mean that religion caused them. If I go out and do something horrible in the name of Florida and most Floridians disagree with what I did, does Florida still get to own it because I named them as my justification? How about if the CAGW movement corrupts governments and ruins economies in the name of science, does science own that one?
“Richard, I’m 56, and I’ve never met an intelligent, religious believer.” – The Ghost of Big Jim Cooley
Let me respond as someone reviewing your statement as a scientist. Your sample size is terribly small, your scale is horribly subjective, you failed to test the null hypothesis, and your analysis shows serious confirmation bias. Your conclusions are therefore without merit. Need I list the brilliant scientists who were also devoutly religious? “Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.” – Max Planck
“There is absolutely NOTHING rational or logical in believing in something for which you have no proof or evidence.” – The Ghost of Big Jim Cooley
Really, are you saying you’ve never been in love? Did you rationalize yourself into that? People who live their lives by rationality alone miss the real meaning of it. Like love, faith is something you can’t truly understand until you’ve experienced it. Science is the discipline that explains what and how. Faith and Love are why.
“Church is just another synonym for a legalized mafia.” – petermue
Because no other institution has abused its power. You can think of no organization, government, or institution which has misused its authority? And of course the trillions of dollars and man-hours of charity done collectively by churches is just like a mafia. My church (the little one in my home town), just sent $100,000 to quake victims in the east…surely that is some kind of shake-down effort, and we’ll be sending Guido over to break their knees when they don’t repay with triple interest, right?
“Atheistic tolerance is agreeing that you have the right to believe anything you like no matter how absurd.” – rgbatduke
No, atheists simply don’t believe in a God. There is nothing that requires that an atheist be intellectually consistent or tolerant of anyone else’s views. In fact there are no values or morals of which I am aware. It is a license to be evil as you please, which is perhaps why all of the great dictators are atheist and seek to destroy all religion. Make fun of the faithful if you like, but be careful of the company you keep.
“You believe things that violate mere common sense.” – rgbatduke
Yes, I love my wife despite all the headache that comes with that. I love my daughters even though they cause me so much stress. I love my mother despite all the strife I endured while she helped me to become a man. I do all kinds of irrational things. You know if you kill your mother and get away with it, you get to inherit all her wealth…it’s only rational that you consider it. You watch movies, read fiction books, and engage in all kinds of flights of fancy despite your rational brain knowing it’s all fake. Why do you do such illogical things? Faith in something you can’t confirm may be intellectually irrational, but some of the best things in this world are not rational like love and fantasy.
“After all, anyone that can believe that they are monotheists while worshipping the Father, Son and Holy ghost can be convinced of anything.” – Billyjack
The holy ghost is not a being or person. Jesus is the son of God, but his power and deeds were acts of God through him. There is only one God. Please before you try speak up, do at least 5 minutes of research.
“Ethics are rational. They do not need to be backed up by imaginary beings and threats and promises of postmortem supernatural punishments and rewards.” – rgbatduke
Sure. Nazis were quite ethical. As was Stalin. They had rules, processes, and worked towards a desired outcome of a better world. Survival of the fittest is an ethic. Eugenics. Need I go on? You can rationalize any behavior as logical and defensible with ethics. I would rather live in a world that is guided by morals, however fantastic their origin may be, than the “ethical” purity you suggest.
“Please, don’t let’s get into discussions about religion. You find almost as much intolerance and stupidity there as you find in a bunch of AGW supporters!” – wickedwenchfan
Are you trying to be ironic by posting a stupid intolerant post about intolerance and stupidity, or just trying to self-fulfil your own statement?
———
You want to do something as a purely intellectual exercise….go to church. Watch the people as they come in and leave. Make sure you sample a good number of churches before you draw any conclusions. Are they genuinely happy? Listen to the message of the minister…is he trying to help those people cope with life? Whatever your personal beliefs, if you go into those churches honestly trying to decide if that activity is net beneficial to those who do it, and by extension, the community of people in which it exists. My guess is that if you’re an honest social scientist, you’ll conclude that our communities, and our world, is a much better place thanks to the efforts of organized religion.
To the rest of you, science is the discipline that attempts to learn what and how. Faith is the discipline that attempts to understand why. Science is an act of intelligence. Faith is an act of wisdom. If you spend your whole life living by rational thought alone, you will miss out on love, faith, hope, and many things positive in this world.
+ ∞
I’d just like to add that it is science that tells us we only have four possible choices for the existence of the universe as we are able to observe it:
1) An extremely lucky universe (whether infinite or not) wrt to our existence — No evidence other than our existence.
2) A cyclic universe (cycles of expansion (big bang) and collapse) – No Evidence.
3) A multi-verse (multiple big bangs, ours only one of billions) – No Evidence.
4) A Creator – Additional evidence other than our existence is incredibly scant and what exists is mostly circumstantial, anecdotal, or downright unreliable.
So, I don’t see the irrationality of believing 4 when it is obviously the option with the most evidence to support it even if that evidence is woefully insufficient to draw an absolutely reliable conclusion.
Following that choice, Genesis is the only creation story that matches from a high level message point of view what we’ve been able to discern through science, therefore providing for the rational choice of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam.
The historical evidence of Jesus compared to the Torah provides somewhat plausible evidence to accept Jesus as the Messiah (whatever that truly means) therefore choosing Christianity is rational.
Examination and textural analysis of early Christian writings compared to scholarly accepted history provides compelling evidence that the beast (of 666 fame) was indeed Nero, therefore leaving only Preterism as a rational choice.
In addition, Christianity as a philosophy and behavior guide is morally superior and far more amenable to modern civilization than Judaism or Islam therefore making Christianity a rational choice between the three.
So, I don’t see the irrationality of being a Christian either.
Faith in my opinion can be rationally derived. Faith does not have to be a feeling or emotion or something irrational or unexplainable. Admittedly, I envy those that arrive to faith in that manner as I’m sure it takes a lot less effort. I spent hundreds of research hours deriving my faith; the above is the briefest overview. One not only has to delve extensively into many science fields but also extensively research various religions and philosophies including their critics and apologetics.
John West
It is interesting to note that every sequence of events in today’s much-favored Big Bang theory is already written in Genesis Chapter 1. Those itinerant shepherds, illiterate and with no science or biology knowledge, got every step right, and put every step of every “science” in the correct order. they got the nuclear physics right, the cosmological sequence right, the geological sequence of continental drift and atmospheric changes after plants began growing right, they got the biology right with life first developing in the sea, then on land. They got insects and birds, mammals, and even snakes in the right order.
I will admit their story does get a decimal place (or two or three) off – but that not hard to explain if you have no “zero”, much less powers of ten and exponentials.
To answer the specific opening question “Does a Christian owe their first loyalty to the Pope, or to God?”, let me quote from the Westminster Confession of Faith, the subordinate standard of the Presbyterian churches:
“There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.”
With regard to the specific question about conscience, the same Confession of Faith states:
“God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.”
This Man (the Pope) is not a representative of the Lord on Earth. He is not adhering to the Word, Spirit or the Father as the Bible says to do. He is taking a guess on one side or the other. Most such guesses are wrong because they are not based on the Word of the Lord or the Spirit. Anyway, he has now unfurled his colours and should be condemned for taking a Poverty making position at the expense of the People of the World.
The bible says to receive the Holy Ghost, learn about it, use it everyday in your life and bring others to it to be “filled and thrilled”. The Earth and all her trinkets are just a distraction from the real life which begins after we leave it. If anyone questions why they are here, google Revival Fellowship for your nearest assembly. My name is Craig and I belong to the Morley, Western Australia Assembly. This world will end one day soon and the Lord is the only answer. Do not be deceived or distracted by the Prince of this World, Satan. Happy Trails.
I suggest that the anti Christians should just take a deep breath, The Orthodox Church wrote the New Testament. see orthodoxwiki. also listen to Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy on Ancient Faith Radio an online site where many of you misapprehensions will be cleared up. try this http://orthodoxwiki.org/Main_Page.
The Orthodox Church was the whole Church until Roman Catholics split off. It is a conciliar church ie it has councils -it’s beliefs are found in the Nicene Creed. which you can look up easily. The priests are often scientists by training .http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/archived
“until he was threatened with unspeakable pain.”
He was under house arrest in the palace of a Bishop. He was not allowed to cross the river Arno 2km away. His daughter worried for his health because he ate and drank to much.
More importantly is that Galileo was wrong. The Copernicus model was as bad as the Ptolemaic and worse than the Kepler model that had recently been proposed when it came to predicting the position of planets. You do know what we think of models that don’t make correct predictions? There was also the parallax problem that threw doubt on an orbiting Earth that was not resolved for centuries.
What is really interesting is that both Copernicus (a devout Catholic) and Kepler (an excommunicated Lutheran) were supported with money, resources and advice by priests of the Catholic Church. Galileo also was supported but he wouldn’t steer clear of declaring that the Earth revolved around the Sun. He erred in interpreting scriptures to back it up when there was a political push to denounce the idea.
Ironically, if he stuck with the scientific attitude that the Sun was simply the centre in order to keep the models mathematically simpler, he not only would not have been harassed but would have been more receptive to Kepler’s ideas.
“Upon Galileo’ s return to Florence, in 1610, Barberini (Pope Urban VIII) came to admire Galileo’ s intelligence and sharp wit. During a court dinner, in 1611, at which Galileo defended his view on floating bodies, Barberini supported Galileo against Cardinal Gonzaga. From this point, their patron-client relationship flourished until it was undone in 1633. Upon Barberini’ s ascendance of the papal throne, in 1623, Galileo came to Rome and had six interviews with the new Pope. It was at these meetings that Galileo was given permission to write about the Copernican theory, as long as he treated it as a hypothesis. After the publication of Galileo’ s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World, in 1632, the patronage relationship was broken. It appears that the Pope never forgave Galileo for putting the argument of God’s omnipotence (the argument he himelf had put to Galileo in 1623) in the mouth of Simplicio, the staunch Aristotelian whose arguments had been systematically destroyed in the previous 400-odd pages.”
http://galileo.rice.edu/gal/urban.html
All religion may be distinguished into three sorts, natural, civil, divine, natural which is dictated by the light of nature that is by right reason, civil which is dictated only by the will of man, divine which is dictated by the will of God. All natural religion is comprehended in these two præcepts: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart & with all thy soul & with all thy mind. This is the first & great commandment, & the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self. On these two commandments hang all the law & the Prophets. They are dictated by the light of nature & by the truth of them is manifested the truth of the law & the Prophets which are in all things consonant to them & founded upon them & whose grand design is to inculcate them.
– Isaac Newton “Of the religion of the Jews & Christians” from The Newton Project
Eugene WR Gallun April 29, 2015 at 9:42 am
“Very few religions teach violence…”
Please read this introduction to violence in the OT, Selected from Exodus 12
Christian rationalization for the the OT’s infanticide:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Old-Testament-violence.html#ixzz3YtTrjnAW
I will close by noting that there are violent passages in the Quran and Talmud, as well:
Read it, and weep.
Steve, you may want to read the original Sanhedrin 57a. Your source has mangled the words, and the meaning. The URL below has spaces put in, so you have to copy the line, and remove the spaces.
http:// come-and-hear.com / sanhedrin / sanhedrin _57.html
Janice, Please feel free to post a short snippet of what Sanhedrin 57a really says.
Links should be provided to support the comment, which should contain a short counterargument, at the very least, to justify the effort of following said link, which you have mangled by adding the spaces, and which produces only a 404 error, to boot.
Steve, as I said, the link needs to be copied over to notepad, perhaps, and then spaces removed. This site used to ban anyone who posted an entire URL, and old habits die hard. But, I will try posting the URL as a whole, and see if I get moderated.
http://come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_57.html
To quote from a portion of the Sanhedrin 57a (and I apologize, because the original is somewhat tedious):
R. Joseph said, The scholars stated: A heathen is executed for the violation of three precepts —
Mnemonic G Sh R— viz., adultery, bloodshed, and blasphemy. R. Shesheth objected: Now bloodshed is rightly included, since it is written, Whoso sheddeth the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed;
but whence do we know the others? If they are derived from bloodshed, the other four should also be included; whilst if their inclusion is taught by the extending phrase any man, should not idolatry too be included?
But R. Shesheth said thus: The scholars stated, A heathen is executed for the violation of four precepts
[including idolatry]. But is a heathen executed for idolatry? Surely it has been taught: With respect to idolatry,
such acts for which a Jewish court decrees sentence of death [on Jewish delinquents] are forbidden to the heathen. This implies that they are merely forbidden, but their violation is not punished by death! —
R. Nahman b. Isaac answered: Their prohibition is their death sentence.
There is more, but I don’t want to inflict too much of this on the general readers here. The Talmud was not written as a list of laws, but as a discussion. Talmudic scholars sound a lot like engineers at their most tedious. However, I genuinely cannot find anything specifically about Jews being able to murder or steal from gentiles without fear of punishment. Also, as bloodthirsty as some of this Talmud selection sounds, the various Sanhedrin Courts were renowned for not inflicting the death penalty.
As another small tidbit of information, Sanhedrin 57a does not speak of Jews or gentiles. It mentions Israelites, Cutheans, and heathens. So what is a Cuthean? A Cuthean is known more familiarly as a Samaritan, which was a portion of the Israelites that were not taken into the Babylonian Captivity, but instead remained in the land of Israel. Samaritans were the equivalent of blue-collar workers. The heathens were not the same as gentiles. Gentiles were those people who ascribed to a particular religion, such as some of the pagan religions. A heathen was actually without religion, and thus fell under the seven laws given to Noah.
Not quite.
After the kingdom of Israel was divided into the northern “Israel” under Jeroboam and the southern “Judah” under Rehoboam, Assyria conquered Israel and, as their manner was, removed the people, “The Lost Ten Tribes”, to other areas of their empire and repopulated the area with others they had conquered, way to remove any national identity. Some may have been left behind.
(Before that Jeroboam feared that the people of his “Israel” would return their loyalty to “Judah” because that was where the Temple was. So he appointed his own priest and set up his own temples. What those priest taught was that his altars, one of them on the mount “The Samaritan Woman” refereed to, was where the OT law said offering were to be made. “The sins of Jeroboam.”)
Things didn’t go well for the resettled people so they brought back some of Jeroboam’s priests to teach how “the god of the land” was to be worshiped. What they were taught was “close but no cigar”.
PS Jesus Christ is Lord. He’s not going to show up in anyone’s living room at their bidding.
You need to approach God on His terms. One of the places those terms are laid out is Romans 10:9.
(You might also want to peek at Hebrews 11:6.)
“Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a “Jew” or to call a contemporary Jew an “Israelite” or a “Hebrew.” The first Hebrews may not have been Jews at all,”
–The Jewish Almanac (1980)
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/facts.htm#Jew
Steve P,
Inre: the exodus from Egyptian bondage
Not one human hand was ever lifted against the Egyptians, or the first born. Not one Israelite ever took physical vengeance for their slavery, nor the killing of their babies by the Egyptians.
The Egyptians reaped what they sowed, without a single human involved. Moses warned him many times before the death of the firstborn. That was the final, that is, the tenth plague. But there is no human agency involved in any of the ten judgments.
Just Recompense is always done without human effort. “Beloved, avenge not yourselves. For ‘Vengence is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'” It is in the order of the creation. Evil will carry within itself the very torment and sorrow it attempted to visit on another. It is the law. This is a primary lesson of the Exodus and the freeing of the slaves (plus some back wages.)
Zeke, I don’t believe any of it anyway.
The point of my response to Eugene WR Gallun April 29, 2015 at 9:42 am was to rebut his assertion that
““Very few religions teach violence…”
The Old Testament is the first section of the Christian Bible, based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, a collection of religious writings by ancient Israelites.
(my bold)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament
It’s great when you can blame the bloodshed on the guy in the sky, and even better when you’ve got a monopoly on the ancient fairy tales.
‘Even better still when you’ve got a monopoly on the modern fairy tales, aka the nightly news.
-☺-
SteveP,
From the Exodus there is absolutely no command to kill any Egyptian. It is not comparable to the Qu’ran’s command to make dhimmis or dead people out of non-Muslims. You do not have to believe the text of the Old Testament in order to see this.
In no case did any Egyptian master die but of natural causes. Therefore, if a historian records events to show that the Egyptians – who killed the firstborn of the Hebrew slaves “lest they become to numerous for us” – experienced a natural plague which killed their own firstborn, then you should understand that the writer of history has recorded events using a historical framework which demonstrates that those who visit a very particular harm on others will suffer that harm themselves.
Similarly, the Israelites later suffered and were decimated by the Assyrians for their own evils and corruption, and the Judeans were killed and scattered from their land by the Babylonians. And the Babylonians were also destroyed by the Persians. In this coherent, historical paradigm, no one escapes just recompense.
That is how our history is written. It is not a crime to view history in this way. Historians always write from their own framework.
Janice, Thank you. I think we have established that Christians do not owe their loyalty to the Talmud.
Steve, you’re welcome. Can we stop weeping over the Talmud, now?
Janice, I shed no tears for the Talmud, only for the truth.
Remember, all, that when the Pope issues an encyclical, he is NOT speaking from the Chair of Peter. It has absolutely NO DOGMATIC significance with respect to the fundamentals of the Catholic faith. That having been said, when the Pope comes out with his encyclical on climate change, I will read it, analyze it, and criticize it as I like based upon what I see compared to scientific truth. As a Catholic myself, my allegiance is to Christ and the truth. I believe that Christ is spiritually the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His Word exists for my spiritual guidance, and requires me to be charitable in my analysis, but never sparing when what we know to be scientific truth (or what should be considered under scientific debate) is proffered as something different from that.
I don’t see a conflict in being a theist and a scientist or an academic. To come come to that conclusion you would have to assume he believes just on blind faith and he has no cognitive ability to separate his spirituality with his rational and logical scientific consciousness.
The big mistake is for people to think that just because people like me are catholics, we must automatically follow everything the Pope says. Not true.
Just like the Church got it so very wrong on the heliocentric theory, it is now making an even bigger mistake on the supposition of the UN’s IPCC, that carbon dioxide emitted by human activity is causing catastrophic global warming and is the key driver of climate change. Big big mistake.