*sigh* I've decided to move this to a new topic since it's getting insanely off topic in the "In the beginning..." thread.
Excellent. This is more what I was hoping for.
To begin with, the Bible as a whole presents both a forgiving, merciful God and a God who judges. It is a balence between God judging us for sinfulness and God having mercy on us. The whole Bible tells us of God's character- as one who hates sin and one who loves humanity.
Alright. Let's begin. I will try to avoid the trite, "God is good/religion is bad" angle, despite it's relevance to my belief. The Bible, "as a whole" does not present balance - not in the least. Unless you are attributing "judging" to the Old Testament and "merciful" to the new covenant made by Jesus Christ.
To start with, you describe God as one who "hates sin" and "loves humanity." While the nature of God (even through Biblical interpretation) is unknowable, we can hope that this is correct. However, this is not a conclusion one can draw from the Bible. I realize that a historical, cultural context must be associated with the Pentateuch, but some things transcend temporal differences. The slaughter of innocents, of women and children, from the days of the Hebrew migration to Manifest Destiny, are littered throughout history. The self-serving superiority of not just its masses of adherents, but its allegedly God-appointed leaders, is a suffocating sight.
I believe James Madison said it best; "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." -- James Madison,
A Memorial and Remonstrance: 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught
This leads us back to my first statement, the trite yet true, 'religion is bad/God is good.' But to outsiders Jayelle,
you are the example of your God. You and your church, and its leaders, and its practices and tenets are iconic of your deity. And you (and just about every other member) sits idly by (and has done so for 2,000 years) whilst the sacred name of God has been (ab)used to commit some of the most heinous and vicious crimes against humanity, second only to Communism. Even today, with the facade of a totally accepting, totally tolerant construct, the dead and dying hand of the church claws away at the progression of human society. Luckily for us, its money and power can no longer hide its clandestine attacks. From the destruction of documents regarding the witch trials in Protestant circles, to the destruction of ancient art depicting Jesus and his disciples enjoying red and white mushrooms, the church (in all its sects and incarnations) has consistantly acted one way with one hand and manipulated a public image with the other. Leviticus and the like are only surface-scratchings of an entrenched, viral social construct of control.
As humanity has evolved, ever slowly approaching more and more individualistic societies, the two primary prongs of collectivism (religion and government) have created ever more subtle and appealing forms with which to bring mankind back into the Dark Ages. Philosophical altruists and collectivists created Socialism/Communism, and religion created the "New" Christianity, both with the tenets of self-sacrifice and the juicy bait of good intentions. Today, this means vehement, vociferous attacks against stem-cell research, gay rights, safe-sex, abortion rights, drug-rights, and any and all social behaviors that are (at least in this country) supposed to be beyond the purview of religion. Yet you (at least, your counterparts in the States) not only accept this, but encourage it by voting into public office people who admittedly use religious beliefs in their governance. This is, then, not an attack on the belief in an almighty-God who created humanity in his likeness, but on the weakness, servility and ignorance of its adherents. From BS like WWJD's pop-Christianity, we see it blatantly; the facade of a "merciful god" showing what's beneath - a power hungry, bitter, angry, anti-life doctrine of self-sacrifice and vague altruism. A truly Christ-like faith would embrace the foundations of America - total freedom for all peoples.
So, in the end, this is less about mixed cloths and vague reasons for not eating shellfish in ancient times, but a pattern of behavior that these things show - the rejection of knowledge, of science, of learning and of living in exchange for the blind acceptance that the people you are
told speak for God (remembering that
they are the ones who told you this) already know everything you need to know and will tell you when you need to know it. Are some of the things they have said correct? Absolutely. They were right to tell their people that eating shellfish was a bad idea in the freakin' desert. But they told them they couldn't because it was "an abomination unto the LORD", not that "hey, that's gonna make you sick." A self-fulfilling prophecy! Since they wouldn't know (and would never know to think about/study it) it would seem to them that they got sick because God wanted them to, for violating his law.
But this is part of the point - there is no
good when their is no
choice. Like the modern two party system in America restricts the choices you have for governance, rigid religious constructs like Islam and Christianity don't make you "good" or "righteous", they just remove allegedly "bad" and 'evil' behavior from your available choices. Because when faced with eternal fire and brimstone (which in itself is quite merciful, for the billions throughout history who will have gone their according to Christianity ((see: native Americans, et cetera))), the "other" choice is the only one you take.
I would think that before looking in at the motes in the eyes of the rest of the world, the church should remove the plank from its own. To take down, to deconstruct the evil empire that has been created from its faith. Because not to do so makes each and every adherent a hypocrite, afraid to stand up to even its own faith. How can you judge, lest you judge yourself? To refuse to truly, critically examine the machinations of your church? I submit that Christianity has nothing to offer society before the Chimera built in its likeness is utterly destroyed. I would, additionally, posit that any effort by the faithful that is not directed towards purifying itself, is effort totally in vain, and effort against human progress.
