From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 19 19:52: 9 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lariat.org (lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6EFB037B407 for ; Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:52:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mustang.lariat.org (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.org [12.23.109.2]) by lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA15951; Fri, 19 Oct 2001 20:51:49 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20011019203955.0464d920@localhost> X-Sender: brett@localhost X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 20:51:45 -0600 To: Elden Fenison , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG From: Brett Glass Subject: Re: Religions (was Re: helping victims of terror) In-Reply-To: <20011019154414.A43110@moondog.org> References: <20011004132949.D16297@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010924170815.0180aee8@threespace.com> <20010925001027.A750@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20011003210717.0442cb20@localhost> <20011004132949.D16297@lpt.ens.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 04:44 PM 10/19/2001, Elden Fenison wrote: >> Christianity has become modernised by permitting questioning of the >> Bible and rejecting parts of it; if you believe the Bible is the >> literal truth, not only will your views be medieval and somewhat >> barbaric, but they may to large extents be self-contradictory. > >This is simply false. Christianity teaches that the Bible is 100% >God-inspired truth. This "modernized" Christianity you speak of is not >Christianity at all. Many religious sects and splinter groups, throughout time, have adopted popular "holy" books but picked and chosen which parts to accept as binding upon them. A good recent example of an unconventional Christian sect is the Worldwide Church of God, whose founder, radio preacher Edwin Armstrong, believed that many injunctions in the Biblical "Old Testament" should be honored. The group celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, but not Christmas, which they believed -- probably correctly -- to be an adaptation of pagan winter solstice rituals rather than the actual anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Other groups -- including mainstream Christians and the Mormons -- believe that the Old Testament is divine but that mankind was given new marching orders, as it were, at a later date. In short, even holy books which are claimed to be the "word of God" are malleable. Islam has much stronger built-in defense mechanisms against such revisionism than most religions, however. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message