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Date:      Fri, 19 Oct 2001 20:51:45 -0600
From:      Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
To:        Elden Fenison <moon_dog@spamcop.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Religions (was Re: helping victims of terror)
Message-ID:  <4.3.2.7.2.20011019203955.0464d920@localhost>
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>

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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


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