(07-06-2012 12:51 PM)bitcruncher Wrote: JR, you should concede the point, since you're just quibbling to avoid admitting a mistake...
No religion can exist without the faith of its believers...
Your comment is classic projection. It is your arrogance that cannot concede the point and has heretofore only quibbled with cracker barrel philosophical observations. Most religion is based upon a quid pro quo which requires works and not faith. Faith is what it is because it requires no promise of something in return. A person chooses to believe in something intangible and wholly out of their control, an ideal for lack of a better word. They dedicate themselves to that hope, without promise of benefit, and that is what they work toward. It becomes their organizing principle. People of faith are hard to manipulate or control and are very frequently targeted by the religious for whom control is everything. Look at Jesus for example, he was killed by the religious.
People who are religious are easier to control. They tend to be either works righteous, or superstitious. The works righteous pick the religious rules they wish to follow, and that in their opinion they will keep, and then they use those rules by which to judge others. They tend to mitigate the rules they know they will not observe. Hence the birth of denominationalism in Christianity and the various sects in Islam. We know them by their fruits, a schizophrenic society in which we punish a common thief but allow executives to steal billions. Where we nab a kid for possession, but don't seriously try to stop trafficking. Where we nail a public official for a sexual indiscretion, but ignore a history of subversion of our political system. I believe the NT called that straining at a gnat and then swallowing a camel.
The superstitious believe that good will come from right conduct and evil from bad conduct. They feel their behavior will mandate particular outcomes in life. Even though they are like the works righteous in that there is a quid pro quo based on observances, the superstitious aren't looking to judge others. However, in their minds everyone must observe the superstitions they observe or the proper collective outcome will be voided. Out of fear of the bad they force others into compliance. Both the works righteous and the superstitious claim to be people of faith, but neither display the characteristics of faith. They do display all the characteristics of religiosity.
I came to this board for football. I have spoken often of the economy because it is directly influencing the events of realignment. The only time I have even briefly alluded to religion was to wish the other posters a Happy Thanksgiving on the appropriate thread, and a quip with you about Taoism. It seems to me that you are the one who has violated board rules by bringing the subject of religion into a football thread. My responses were made to inform when, as I said before, blatant mis-perceptions and outright ignorance of the subject matter were expressed as fact. E.G. Your discussion of the ten commandments and of the language of the Old Testament.
I notice this board has rules against personal attacks based upon a number of social criteria, but the lampooning of faith by the poster from Maryland yesterday apparently doesn't violate them. Of course I didn't file a complaint, he wasn't a bad person, just another operating under a mis-conception. It was another example of the growing intolerance in our society of people's right to think, or express, what they deem as an organizing principle for their lives. But then Herr Goebbels (the original spokesperson of political correctness) used tolerance to promote intolerance as well.
My opinion of you has crashed because in an area in which you have no expertise (the Old Testament was not written in Aramaic) you do not have the humility to admit when you are wrong. Instead you level that accusation against me. You might try educating yourself in the source theory of Julius Wellhausen and the writings of Walter Brugermann as they apply to the Tanach.
I also noticed you closed the thread on Clemson and F.S.U. fans opinions after a post in which I pointed out the bias of this board. (I do just chalk that up to coincidence, it was a weak thread.) It is a small wonder there are so few from the SEC who post here. I might add few from the PAC 12, few from the old ACC, and much fewer than I expected from the Big 10 post here. To my knowledge there is not one SEC moderator on this board. And until today I didn't even realize that we needed one for religion.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when they state their opinions as fact they had better be able to back them up. It is a fact that the Old Testament was written in various dialects of Hebrew. The apocrypha may contain some, but little, Aramaic, but it does so because it was written in the time between the writing of the Old Testament and the story of the Christ. After Constantine circa 330 ce it was Latin. The Leningrad Codex and the Vulgate which were used in the King James translation in 1604 were in Latin. (Thank you Guttenberg.) There are a few phrases in the OT that were appropriated from other Semitic languages. Outside of that Aramaic doesn't make even a significant appearance in the New Testament. There are a few phrases in the Gospel of John. It was however the language of New Testament Palestine, but the educated wrote in Greek. Just facts to enlighten the great bull shooters of the world.
It is you who have been wrong, and about more than I was kind enough to bring up over my time posting here. Unless something is particularly germane, or particularly wrong, I let it slide. Realignment posting has been speculative and fun. The ardor expressed by many who take a more thuggish approach to the defense of their beliefs has not. Then there are those who have attained a status by their many posts and use longevity as the credentials with which to defend their lack of knowledge instead of relying upon the community of posters to arrive at a truth.
No it's not a perfect system. It has many faults. Too bad, but it has been one of the few places to find a cross conference perspective, even if it is a limited one. JR
And by the way, if there is a God, then that God exists whether we believe in it or not. Only religion needs the support (financial and otherwise) of humanity to exist. Your closing words sum up my initial point. Faith doesn't need, and indeed is incompatible with most religion. Religion needs the support of its followers to exist. All to often it needs the unquestioned support of them. Faith, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, doesn't ask you to check your brain at the door. Why? Because Faith seeks an ideal it naturally welcomes questions that help it to arrive at truth. And because there is Faith no question is a heresy to ask. Faith never claims to know all things, but it does hope to arrive at the understanding of truth with others.