Judging someone would be having some form of punishment for viewing the person as they judge them. For instance, refusing to be around a murderer cause you know they killed someone, refusing to show love to someone because you know they are and or was a thief. I made absolutely no judgement on you. I said no if you were going to heaven or not, I treat you no differently then I would a brother in Christ, a preacher, ect. Didn't say you were a horrible person for the choice you've made or anything of that nature either. Enlightening someone to their error is not judging anyone. Just reaching out a loving hand to try and help this person with the error you see in hopes they'll see it and be able to fix it to make themselves a better life. No harm ment Abra, I'm sorry you took it wrong and got offended by my comment. Love you Abra and wish the best for you.

Exactly. They are fables meant to smooth the troubled conscience and soul of those who aren't (and may never be) ready to be Christians.

Here's my problem with you guys. You don't even mention garlic butter. What good is sinning without the garlic?

Sorry, this just made me hungry that's all.

I am a filthy pig. I am not Kosher. Am I going to hell?

No one knows, that judgement all lays in the hands of Jesus.

No not for not being Kosher, but I have the other list here and it's not looking good. Do you have fire insurance by any chance?

its not about caring what anyone thinks.... 10 people can read the same passage, and get ten different opinions on what it means... to say you are right and everyone else is wrong is childish... many wars have started because of thinking like that..

This is true, but some things are just common sense. If one can't see that, doesn't mean some things are not true.

It's not a matter of Opinion. Look, it's like this: If you are a Christian, your doctrine comes from the Bible. The scriptures in the Bible encourage healthy loving sexual relationships in married couples. Cowboy has already said his mind has been changed by the scriptures I posted. Your profile says you are "non-religious" so I have to wonder what your dog is in this fight. Have you read the Bible? Would you care to provide the elusive scripture commanding that Christians not enjoy having sex? If not, then you are offering just an opinion and a totally uneducated opinion, because the discussion revolves around what the Bible teaches.

This is true, but the same can be said about any translated work of that size.

The fact is that everything in the Bible must be read in context. In addition to context, it is very helpful to get a concordance and look at the Hebrew / Aramaic words to get the definitions. That makes what you are reading a lot more clear. I think if you keep the scripture in context and read the definitions for the words in the original language, it would be hard for any 10 people to come to different opinions of what the scriptures mean.

Really?

Can we stop and think about that for a moment?

What does it mean to YOU to be a "Christian"?

Does it mean to blindly follow the dogma and traditions set out by a specific organized religion?

Or does it mean to following the teachings of Jesus?

If it means the latter, then can you show me where Jesus taught anyone that their "doctrine" should come from the Torah?

It seems to me that the moral values that Jesus taught were pretty much the antithesis of what had been taught in the Torah or Old Testament.

So why should being a "Christian" have anything do to with things that had been taught in the Old Testament?

Jesus clearly did not support those teachings as he actually taught the opposite of many of those things.

So if being a "Christian" means to follow the teachings of Jesus then why are people even concerned with the teaching of the Old Testament at all?

Also, why should they pay any mind to anything that Paul wrote? Paul wasn't Jesus!

If you break the Bible down to actual books that claim to have actual quotes from Jesus, you'd basically have four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

So anyone who truly wants to follow the teachings of Jesus should toss out all scriptures save for those four books.

And I would even read them with caution because they themselves are confessed to be nothing more than second-hand hearsay rumors.

They don't contain a single solitary word that was actually written by Jesus.

Also, if you read them carefully, you'll see that much of what they contain aren't not even always quotes attributed directly to Jesus but rather much of them is merely commentary by the authors claiming to know what Jesus meant.

But by their own confession they admit that Jesus own disciples didn't understand Jesus very well.

So the "Christian Bible" should be reduced to just those for books and even those books should be taken with a huge grain of salt and much caution concerning precisely what it was that Jesus himself might have been trying to teach.

Using Jesus as a battering ram to support crap from the Old Testament makes no sense at all.

<-------worship me

I am The King!

uh huh!!

James,

Do you ever get tired of asking the same questions repeatedly? If so, why don't you just for once accept or reject the answers and move on? I'm not going to answer your questions, because even though my reply would agree with the majority of modern Christianity, you would simply reject it again. We've had this discussion before, I posted the scriptures and arguments supporting my position and you rejected them out of hand. Not for any good reason, but because are so blinded by hate for Christianity that you blindly attack every belief held by Christians. Nobody is telling you that you have to convert to Christianity, but so great is your hatred for Christianity that you won't even agree that the scriptures are properly interpreted the way the majority of Christians have done for nearly 2,000 years.

Kleisto

I think it's very important to take what Spider has just said and think about it. There are a lot of reference books to study when you are looking at these writings. I personally would be completely lost and angry if I only looked at the bible in KJV alone without guidance. There are two things that help me 1) reference books and history courses 2) the spirit of the writings

I was watching a program on PBS last night that was talking about something that I have studied for years, the brain. I have always been of the belief that we see and interpret information different and uniquely than anyone else. It's kind of like having finger prints (everyone's got a different code). The brain works the same way when we read or process what we have just read. There are a whole bunch (billions) of sensors that go off in your brain when you are reading something. These sensors tell you what you like or dislike according to the way it gets stored and released again into your thought. This is why most, when they read, meditate on the words. This allows the brain to make a picture. This has helped me tremendously when studying the bible as I will be the first one to stand up sometimes and say I don't get it or how can a God do this.

I'm no where close to resolving many of my questions about the bible but I certainly have a much better understanding of how to learn as I study.

Sometimes when I read responses up here I say to myself I can dig that and I get ready to post something so we can talk about it but before I fire off a post there is usually a response to the post I wanted to respond to and I can see that it will turn into a big mess if I jump in. For example I see these passages that talk about Sodom a little differently than some do up here (maybe). I don't think that the writings were fingering homosexuality at all. I think that there was some pretty heavy sexual abuses going on in that area along with a bunch of other stuff that made the land unmanageable. So much so that the land was spoiled with the sickness of depravity. Basically this was a place that got so twisted that there was no good words or thoughts or respect for human values to the point where the place just got plain evil. I seriously doubt that a few guys running around in tights would cause the this area to be so despised as history depicts it. This was a bad land for a few reasons I'm pretty sure.

Any way I think what Spider is saying (and I don't want to put words in his mouth) is studying is a good thing if you wish to dig at the meanings on some of this stuff.

But remember even as you read your personal take still may be different as with any thing you read. And that's where we as students of these things depend on the spirit of the words.

That's not an unusual interpretation. I've seen a picture or a movie (can't remember, cause I'm getting old) that depicted a large mixed crowd and some of the members of the crowd were leading animals. The impression I get is that the people of Sodom were sexual deviants who had sex as a base act and not because of love. This was a part of their culture, which seemed to value sexual pleasure as the highest aspiration and they didn't care if the object of their sexual attention were willing or not or even human.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Sooo, do you still think I'm a heretic or have you studied the verses which I "offended" you with???

WHAT?

Nobody has a single comment about this?

but out of 11 people, there might be one or two or three or four who actually ARE right, will it be wrong for them to say so?

lol,, there is a lot there Peter,,,