07 Mar 09
1 edit
Originally posted by FMFI asked you again and again to clarify your position. You're reply was silence to repeated requests for verifying evidence of your position.
Where did I talk about "class bias"? I made no such suggestion.
"Obvious" fakery of the book of Revelation is the product of your own biased unsbstantiated imagination.
On equal grounds then you should dismiss from the bibilcal canon Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah.
Maybe they too are obvious fakes according to your standards.
07 Mar 09
Originally posted by FMF===============================
[Coffe'd up, I shall continue]
Once the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Seven Seal and the whores of Babylon, along with a false and facile division of the world into good and evil, had been given equal footing in the New Testament with the inherently uncontrollobly straight forward Sermon on the Mount, it was hardly surprising that the Christian languag ...[text shortened]... telligent, manipulative people involved in what Jesus himself called "evil reasonings".
John's Revelations altered the nature of the Christian ethic.
FMF
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Where ?
07 Mar 09
FMF,
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Once the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Seven Seal and the whores of Babylon, along with a false and facile division of the world into good and evil, had been given equal footing in the New Testament with the inherently uncontrollobly straight forward Sermon on the Mount
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Are these then your examples of the contents of Revelation which altered the Christian ethic?
1.) The Four Horsemen of chapter 5 alters Christian ethic as you see it in the Sermon on the Mount ?
Is that a fair understanding of your complaint ?
2.) Is there something in the Seven Seals which alters Christian ethics?
3.) Is there something about the Harlot symbolism which significantly alters Christian ethic as you see it in the Sermon on the Mount ?
07 Mar 09
4 edits
Originally posted by jaywillFMF's theory that a "facile division of the world into good and evil" contributes to Revelation altering the nature of the Christian ethic so clearly stated in the Sermon on the Mount.
[b]===============================
John's Revelations altered the nature of the Christian ethic.
FMF
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Where ?[/b]
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along with a false and facile division of the world into good and evil, had been given equal footing in the New Testament with the inherently uncontrollobly straight forward Sermon on the Mount,
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I wonder if these words from the Sermon on the Mount also teach a facile false division of good and evil in the world.
"So that you may become sons of your Father who is in the heavens, because He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends His rain on the just and the unjust." (Matt.5:45)
If Revelation divides the world up between the evil and the good, what has it done which was not already stated here in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5:45?
FMF will have to exclude Matthew 5:45 then as also teaching a false and facile division of the world into the evil and the good.
So then FMF, does Matthew 5:45 in the Sermon on the Mount alter the nature of the Christian ethic too ?
08 Mar 09
2 edits
Originally posted by jaywillYes. All cleverly layered, hyper-referencing gobbledygook and mumbo jumbo - all set to equip fire and brimstone preachers with "tools" to terrorize, bemuse and mesmerize the throng - and justify the setting up of onion-like hierarchies of unctuous ecclesiastical technocrats that have studied it, interpreted it, gone punctilious and persnickety with it, and wielded it, and manoeuvered using it, and scored political/theological points with it, and won the day with it (smell the glove, Eastern Orthodoxy! ), and gained favour, recognition and promotion with it, just like creatures clambering up career structures have done since humans got up on their hind legs - all in superbly exclusory Latin too, of course, for centuries and centuries. The things we pretty much know for sure that Jesus said were all clear, incisive, and did not need to be interpreted or fetished over. Not at all, in fact. You have zero proof that Jesus was the "author" of the Book of Revelation and meanwhile you have a book that pointedly sounds nothing like Him.
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Once the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Seven Seal and the whores of Babylon, along with a false and facile division of the world into good and evil, had been given equal footing in the New Testament with the inherently uncontrollobly straight forward Sermon on the Mount
=====================================[/b]
Look, if you're enamoured with it, fine. But you have made no attempt to objectively establish its authenticity. You even appear to cite the "cleverly layered, hyper-referencing" nature of the text as "proof" that it is divinely inspired, whereas any open minded thinker approaching this material would probably see such "cleverly layered, hyper-referencing" text as a strong indication that it is a very carefully implemented hoax, perfectly zeroing in on your kind of personal meaning-of-life affirming superstition and feeding exquisitely portentous hocus-pocus into your intellectual feedback loop.
08 Mar 09
2 edits
Originally posted by FMFI find this response not very substantive but very emotional.
Yes. All cleverly layered, hyper-referencing gobbledygook and mumbo jumbo - all set to equip fire and brimstone preachers with "tools" to terrorize, bemuse and mesmerize the throng - and justify the setting up of onion-like hierarchies of unctuous ecclesiastical technocrats that have studied it, interpreted it, gone punctilious and persnickety with it, and wield and feeding exquisitely portentous hocus-pocus into your intellectual feedback loop.
I think you are dishonest to now try to characterize me as a fire and brimestone loving terrorist.
If you notice the expounding upon Revelation I have done in this discussion has not mentioned these things at all. At least I have not yet. I have focused on chapters 2 nd 3 and Christ's speaking to His own church. After all judgment BEGINS at the house of God, no?
At any rate you did not address the matter of Christ dividing up the world between the evil and the good and the just and the unjust in Matthew 5:45.
To say that there are no hair raising warnings of judgment in the Sermon on the Mount betrays one's ignorance of it, for example Matthew 5:22 speaks of the Gehenna of fire as a danger to those who would call someone worthless. You could probably include the calling of someone "moron" in an insultive way in that warning.
Judgment is not something NOT spoken to in the Sermon on the Mount. And frankly there are some passages which are just as disputed as to interpretation there as much as some passages in the book of Revelation.
Now on "proof" that Jesus spoke in Revelation ? I have the same faith that He spoke there as that He spoke in the four Gospels. When I ask YOU to point out what is so different about His speaking there I get not much response.
I do not blame Revelation for poor expositions of it. Neither do I attempt to throw out Matthew for inferior sermons or expositions on that book.
I expect that in the plenary word of God there will be some utterances which fit my disposition of which I am more fond of and there will be others which I don't particularly like.
When I read the OT there are some things which have taken me time to open up to and warm up to. I do not adapt the attitude that because they are mysterious or harsh I should deny that they belong in the canon of the Bible.
Anyway, you are too prejudiced by some offense you seemed to have incured at someone's preaching from Revelation I suppose, to be even clear minded enough to discuss the book objectively.
Someday when you finish licking your wounds perhaps you can look at the book without the prejudicial lenses which cloud your judgment.
08 Mar 09
Originally posted by jaywillAnd I think you are dishonest to put words in my mouth. I said nothing of the sort about you. And what's with the "terrorist" thing? The word hasn't appeared in any of my posts. However, with retorts like this one, I might just have to start calling you a charlatan.
I think you are dishonest to now try to characterize me as a fire and brimestone loving terrorist.
08 Mar 09
Originally posted by jaywillWell I haven't called you a "moron", jaywill. As you well know. I explicitly distanced myself from the language used in the OP early on in this discussion. You know this. Why are you insinuating otherwise? I did call you intellectually autistic, and then explained exactly why. Do you equate being 'autistic' with being 'moronic'?
You could probably include the calling of someone "moron" in an insultive way in that warning.