gadgetlady

I've heard that joke before, but I think it's doing a disservice to the many, many good and decent men out there. Human beings have the capacity to gain control over their bodily functions and urges. It's a function of the desire to do so.

Last night I was watching an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In one scene, there was a Muslim man who called his family-arranged fiancée a “whore” (she was pregnant from her American boyfriend and had no intention of following her family’s wishes and agreeing to an arranged marriage). Then this “devout” Muslim man produces a “restaurant” receipt as an alibi for the time of the crime in question. The detective notices that the receipt is for a strip club. I was thinking about that scene later that evening. As a non-Muslim, my sentiments while watching it were, quite simply, “hypocrite.” But I thought later about how often I see Christians represented as hypocrites and how much it offends me when that happens. I realized that when you are a member of a group and a negative portrayal of your group is presented, you are outraged. But when you’re not a member of that group and there’s a negative portrayal, you are less likely to be outraged and more likely to “file” the portrayal in your mental rolodex. Because you generally have no standard by which to gauge the portrayal (i.e. “I’m a Muslim and I don’t know anyone who frequents strip clubs”), that mental picture becomes part of the information by which you assess the entire group. When you’re not a member of a group, disenfranchised, downtrodden, discriminated against, whatever, the media play a huge part in informing your opinion of that group. When conservatives claim there is a liberal bias in the news, the liberals laugh – not because there isn’t one, but precisely because they just don’t see it! And when Christians balk at the anti-Christian bias in television and movies (or on this board!), non-Christians really, really, just don’t see it. To non-Christians, when presented with a portrayal of pedophile priests, hypocritical preachers, and Christians who care about nothing but their own comfort and controlling others, they test it against their mental rolodex and determine it to be consistent with what they know – which is mostly made up of information from media, television, and movies - and of course it’s consistent. Every year, our church takes a weekend and does something called Serve Day (www.serveday.org). This is a partnership of 25-30 churches, each asking every member of their congregation to take off from services that weekend within the church, and instead go out and serve the community. So thousands of people from all over the Los Angeles/Orange County area go out and work in soup kitchens, feed and clothe the homeless, visit nursing homes, rake the yards of their neighbors, wash cars for free, etc. (some of the serving opportunities are geared towards being more kid-friendly because of the families in the church). The goal, among other things, is not only to serve on that one weekend, but to inspire people to continue their service throughout the year. Is there ever anything in the news about it? Of course not! The news feeds on the negative, not the positive. “If it bleeds, it leads.” And the mental picture non-Christians have of Christians remains the one built by the files deposited into their brains from the negative news stories, tv shows, and movies. I am not by any means saying that there are not Muslims, Christians, and those from all other groups that are hypocrites. There certainly are. But what I am saying is our opinions of everyone, from groups of people to political personalities, is very much informed by the bias of those who present it to us. And believe me, everyone has a bias (including me).

I never said you could only do good works if you did it out of love for God. I just said that the reason I believe only faith is required for salvation (in other words, the doctrine of salvation by grace) is because we can never "do" enough good works to be righteous in God's eyes. The only thing that makes us righteous is being covered by Jesus' blood. That being said, I believe all human beings have the capacity for both good and evil, and certainly good works are not the purvue of any one religion, culture, or group. I think there are many areas where what is "good" is pretty self-evident.

I think this gets back to the issue of faith vs. faith + works. I believe that we act on our faith out of our love for God. We don't do so to "earn" a ticket to heaven. We've been given that ticket by Jesus' work on the cross. None of us will ever achieve or even come close to being Christ. God knows our hearts, and if we truly love Him we will act on that love and perform good works not because we want to be rewarded, but out of knowing it's the right thing to do.

Absolutely! If we truly love Him, then we will naturally do good works out of our love. But it is not those works that "earn" us heaven. Do we actually agree here? LOL!

Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Faith without works is dead, in that if one has faith one will seek to do good works. But it is not one's works that lead to salvation. Isaiah 64:6 All our righteous acts are like filthy rags Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Our earthly parents love us because of who we are, not what we do. Their love doesn't increase when we "do good". I love my children the same when they are disobedient as when they are obedient. I'd prefer them to be obedient, just as God prefers us to be obedient, but His love for us and my love for them is not contingent on their behavior.

That's very normal after surgery. After each of my 2 c-sections it took several days. I don't even remember how long it was after my lap-band because I considered it normal and didn't pay attention.

You are absolutely right. It's not even always a 1-1 match in the original language! We have tons of resources at our disposal, like the Amplified Bible, which lists many of the possible translations of a word all in one place. Unless we all go back and learn the original language and the subtle nuances therein, our only option is to accept a translation. We can certainly reference several translations or the Amplified Bible to better understand the context under which something was written (or the nuances of a particular word and how it is used). Personally, never having liked Shakespeare, I find the KJV and the NKJV unintelligible and actually a deterrent to my study. I would never even consider attending a church that used one of these Bibles, primarily because for me it is like having someone reference things from another language. I prefer the NIV because it brought clarity to the Bible for me, but I also reference other translations if there's something that makes me crinkle my forehead because I don't understand it. And certainly commentaries from various scholars about the historical background of a particular verse or passage will always help clarify things. I don't believe we can know everything there is to know about any culture -- even our own! -- so we do the best we can with the resources we have available.

What I understood you and others to mean by tinkering, writing, and re-writing was the improper/inconsistent copying of the original text. My defense above was the description of the meticulous transmission of the text from generation to generation. The Apocrypha is a whole 'nother discussion which, again, I'm sure would bore most of the folks here. In a nutshell, the Apocrypha were rejected because they lacked Divine authority and, in fact, none of the authors of these books even laid claim to inspiration.

Why is translating "tinkering"? Incidentally, the version I read, the NIV, went back to the original text and translated it anew from those, rather than translating from a translation.

There's a difference between translating into a different language and tinkering. If a book is translated from the original language to another language, and then from the 2nd language to the 3rd, and then from the 3rd to a 4th, there is certainly room for significant error. But if each new translation goes back to the original language and the original texts that have been determined to be accurate, then that's a different story. I do believe that there are some "versions" or "translation" that are not 100% true to the original text. We could certainly get into a discussion of that, but I have a feeling it'd bore some of the folks here. I agree that translations that use "Old English" are, at least to me, very difficult to understand. I don't personally read KJV and NKJV because of language issues and translation inaccuracies.

I don't think it was ridiculous at all. It was a simplified example to explain the detailed process of Biblical authentication. Remember that the Bible wasn't written, rewritten, or tinkered with 5, 10, 20, or even 100 years ago. We have reliable text that we can refer to. If you do any research on the Dead Sea Scrolls you will find that they demonstrate the accuracy of the years of copying and recopying the Bible. I heard a speaker once say that there are numerous errors in Plato's text, yet no one claims that Plato isn't the author of his writings. It's also interesting to research how the Old Testament was copied by Jewish scribes. The process of hand-copying a scroll was basically a full-time job for one year (about 2000 hours). The scroll would be tossed if even a single letter was added or deleted. The scribe couldn't do even one letter by heart and he had to pronounce every word out loud before copying it. If one letter even touched another letter, it would invalidate the entire scroll; there was an exact precise measurement for spaces between words so that two words wouldn't be mistaken for one or vice-versa. Marred lettering or marred paper would be cause for the scroll to be tossed. With these strict guidelines, the scribes ensured that the copies of the manuscripts were indeed accurately reproduced. Most scholars agree that the accuracy of the reproductions is 99.5% or greater. Whether you believe the specific claims of the Bible is another matter, but the accuracy of the document is not in question.

I had the stomach 'flu while banded. It was actually a bit more bearable than pre-banding, because I used to be a very violent vomiter (sorry for the TMI, but it used to come up so fast it came out of my nose). Post-band, vomiting from the lower stomach (not PB'ing) is much easier than it used to be.

Not sure how I did that. I asked if there were any Christian leader you would not consider a cult leader. You answered that Christ comes to mind, and that after Him you couldn't think of any. I then clarified what I understood you to say, that Christ is the only one who is not a cult leader and all others who profess to follow Him and are leaders are cult leaders. What did I get wrong there? I then asked a question as to whether all Christians are cult members, which you didn't answer. OK, so following along here, if Christ wasn't a cult leader but He asked His followers to preach His word (any number of verses will demonstrate this) and they did so, in doing so they became cult leaders? I'm confused. I never said you were an anti-Christ, a spawn of Satan, a tool of a demon, or doomed to eternal damnation. I don't know anyone on this board who did. Furthermore, I don't believe those things and I also apologize on behalf of anyone who might have said such hateful things to you. You are right, they are just words, but words can be hurtful.

I find no conflict between these two passages. Matthew 6:5-6 is discussing righteousness before God and not praying for the sole purpose of others seeing you doing it (BTW, we didn't invite the entire restaurant to pray, nor did we pray with the waiters and waitresses standing there; it was a private family prayer, led by my 6 year old). 1 Timothy 2:8 is discussing the behavior of worshippers in church, and that they shouldn't be disrupting the service and the prayers with their disagreements. As with any subject matter, it is important to take Bible verses in context, to determine what is being referenced, and to take into consideration the culture of the time and the topic of the discussion. If you don't do that, verses can seem to conflict. But with further inspection, there's really no conflict at all.

Well, as usual, life interferes with my response to your post. I'm headed out to a family dinner, for which we will pray before we eat. Enjoy your evening!

So Christ is the only one who is not a cult leader. Every other person who claims to follow Christ and is a leader of a church or other organization is the leader of a cult? Are Christians cult members?

Perhaps I should word that better. Is there any Christian leader who you would not call a cult leader?

Are you seriously calling Greg Koukl a cult leader? On what basis?

Ohhhh, so much to say here! I understand the concern people have with televangelists, people who preach wealth and prosperity, and people who overall distort the Gospel. I share your concerns. We live relatively close to the headquarters of TBN here in CA, and whenever we drive by it we jokingly refer to it as "Mecca". It's all perfectly lit up with way too many Christmas lights ('year-round), like a shining beacon off of the 405 freeway. Please know that not all Christians subscribe to what you call "rabble-rousing rhetoric". At the church my husband and I used to attend (where we met), our pastor was fond of saying that as Christians we don't check our brains at the door. And indeed we didn't. His sermons challenged us intellectually and encouraged us to research and study. At our current church, the sermons are educational and historically-based. They don't always leave you feeling "warm and fuzzy", as indeed they shouldn't. That's not the real Gospel. I am a very well educated individual, and all of my research and investigating into Christianity has led me to my faith. I do not believe that God is interested in awarding me with a healthy investment portfolio, nor do I believe that my family and my children are immune to having bad things happen to us. In fact, I believe God uses the bad things to draw us closer to him. I am not a follower of Christ because he has blessed me and because life is (currently) good (although it was not always and I am well aware that at any moment things could change). I don't know if it was in this thread or another that someone said there are inconsistencies all over the Bible. Wherever it was, I replied that I hear that all the time and I always ask, "Where?", yet I have never had anyone point any out to me. It is common for people who haven't studied the Bible to level such claims, along with the ones about the Bible being changed over time. Yet Christianity is full of well-educated people who set out to study and disprove the Bible and ended up believers. Josh McDowell wrote a great book, "Evidence that Demands a Verdict", that is precisely the result of his mission to debunk Christianity. I believe C.S. Lewis is another of this ilk. If you or anyone truly wants to investigate Christianity, I would encourage you to turn off the TV and stay away from the charismatic personalities that dominate that medium. And please, please don't lump us all in the box with them, because many of us don't much like them either. My suspicion, though, is those that criticize Christianity by focusing on those personalities are simply looking for an easy target. I'd be happy to provide some good sources for an investigation, if anyone is interested.

I agree. I really miss my fresh fruits and veges. They're the one thing that I didn't expect to not be able to tolerate. I used to live for summer fruits and I'd munch on raw veges all the time. I honestly don't know if I would have gotten the band had I known it would end my love affair with fruit. Bread, while I love it, I am seeming to do without it OK. But I mourn the loss of fruit.

Yup. I feel a little vindicated because it was the middle of the day and nothing else was on (lights, tv, radio, etc.) so I had no other way of knowing the power had gone out. But still, I was feeling like my luck had run out and I was going to have to replace my beloved Bullet. I was happy when I pressed the button on the coffeemaker and it didn't work either.

I haven't gone back specifically to look at what you've said, but very clearly in this and other threads there are some who have either stated or implied that Christians are people who haven't examined their beliefs and/or adhere to a document which is outdated, inconsistent, and inaccurate. With my link I was addressing the latter claim. I have no quarrel with the notion that each person has a right to choose how to live his life.

I was reading an article recently and I thought of this thread and the claims of the inaccuracy of the Bible. Because I can't say it any better than the author did, here's a link for those of you interested: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6068 I also recommend this website in general for those who see Christians as anti-intellectual, blinded by their faith, or otherwise mindless.

I had a good laugh today over my Magic Bullet. I went to blend my morning shake and after one pulse, the darn thing stopped. I removed it and tried again. No luck. I thought my 1.5 year run had ended and the motor blew. I tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. No luck. Then the power in the house came back on.