Tuesday, September 6, 2011

100th post spectacular

As you might be able to tell, I do posts about big issues on every big major mark (I posted about gays and lesbians on number 50) and this time it is the old testament.
It all started when I looked up Mark Osler (I was wondering what else he did) And came across this article about gays and lesbians at Baylor, and how they feel scared about being found out and kicked out. It is an excellent article, and if you want to read it I will put up  a link for it, but one of the comments really appalled me. It was by a guy called doc Joseph. It one part goes:
"That Old Testament, which Christians would like to edit to remove the "bad parts" or explain away with platitudes ("It was a different time...") still tells you what God, the Hebrews, AND Jesus thought about homosexuals."
Sorry, but for the rest of the post the text is stuck like this. 
Obviously this guy believes in a completely serious interpretation of the old testament. He says that christians "Like to cut out the bad parts" which is, in fact, exactly what I do. And I would agree with him, if I had not read one book.
It is about greek myths.
If you compare the old testament and Greek myths, they are surprisingly similar. I can't quote one part of it to show the similarities, but the way it is told, like a history, is really similar. And not just that. In both books, the gods (Or god) take sides of certain people and slay their enemies. How can this be, if one is supposedly all fact and the other fiction?
Simply because that is the way people interpreted life back then. They couldn't think about what made the great things of the universe, so they had god do it. And the world they lived in was violent, so the creator must be like that too. And wouldn't it be good if this creator(s) was on their side and used the violence on others?
You see? they made it up the exact same way.
The thing is, Jesus said that the Hebrew religion was right, so would he lie to us like that?
No. 
So god must exist, and do some of the same things as i the old testament, but the people changed it to meet their needs (Make them feel like god was on their side) Until certain parts weren't even his any more.
As for cutting stuff out, it's not like the stuff I choose not to believe is about love or acceptance or anything that would make the world better. It is about a vengeful god killing people. In fact, the reason that christianity succeeded to become the worlds most popular religion (That fact comes from my sunday school teachers) is because it isn't about an angry god, but rather teachings that help us be better people. 
Of course, this isn't condemning other religions (Other than greek mythology) as worshipping an evil god. In fact many of the people who practice other religions (Muslim, Judaism, Hinduism) are actually very nice people. Those people have seen things similar to Jesus' teachings of love and peace, and are attracted to them. And if anyone fro another religion is offended by this post, lease comment. I will remove the post immediately after I read the comment.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-osler/gay-christian-students-baylor-university_b_941141.html

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for reading my article! I had never considered that about Greek mythology, either-- but it sounds like you know that area better than I do.

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  2. God is love. Those are words I can live by.

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