Being Poor is a GOOD thing!

While searching for what Jesus says about helping the poor, I came across this:

Monika Hellwig lists several advantages to being poor:

as quoted in The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey, p. 115

1. The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.
2. The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people, but also their interdependence with one another.
3. The poor rest their security not on things but on people.
4. The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance, and no exaggerated need of privacy.
5. The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
6. The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
7. The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledged dependence.
8. The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
9. When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.
10. The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

Right. I can just see a poor person saying, 'Yeah, I'm poor, but HEY! I can distinguish between necessities and luxuries, so I'm way better off than you rich people... who have necessities and luxuries...'

This is truly disturbing, and telling.

The Bible: a txt msg from God?

I agreed to go to church with my Dad last weekend, and thankfully Cody agreed to endure it with me. Here is a summary of the sermon, and quotes with commentary.

The pre-sermon began with a series of video-interviews. The interviewer asked people on the street, “Do you read the Bible?” Most of the people said they did not, and the interviewer asked, “Why not?” and most of the people replied by admitting, “I don’t know.” The point here was, apparently, that the people who do not read the Bible don’t have a good reason for why they don’t read it. Not sure what the point of this was, unless maybe it was to make the people who don't read the Bible for no apparent reason seem a little... stupid?

After the interviews came a skit. General cynicism aside, the skit was extremely obnoxious. Three people sat in a row on stools, a man in the middle and a woman on either side of him, and they quoted this verse (each saying a couple of words at a time):

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16

One of the women began asking how ALL parts of the Bible could be considered useful to modern people. She told the man to open his Bible to Leviticus 7, which reads:

The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood is to be sprinkled against the altar on all sides. All its fat shall be offered: the fat tail and the fat that covers the inner parts, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys.

The woman asked how this could be useful to her, and… I’m sorry to say… the question was never answered. The other man and woman went on in their excited speech about something else, and it was only moments later that I realised no answer was given to the question. (Cody thinks they said something about covering it next week)

So finally Pastor Bob came up and began the sermon. Here is how it went (anything in quotes is what Pastor Bob actually said):

The BIG question: Can the Bible be trusted?

The answer, of course, is YES, and here are the reasons:


Part I:

The Bible says about itself that it is trustworthy.
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 2 Peter 1:16
This made me think of a Sam Harris quote: How do we know that our holy books are free from error? Because our books themselves say so.

“The Bible is the most influential book ever written.”
This is, simply, a totally subjective statement, and subjectivity is exempt from being considered valid.

“No other book comes close [to the] magnitude [and the] mystery [of the Bible].”
Again, this is entirely subjective.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books -
It took 1500 years to write, was written by 40 authors, and is a single story.
I'm not sure what the point here is...

The Bible has been in circulation for a long time and has lasted for a long time.
Yes it has, along with many other texts of different religions...


Part II:

There are 24000 manuscripts of the New Testament and these were written within 25-85 years of the events they discuss.
The point here was that there are many many more copies of New Testament manuscripts than of many other documents, such as writings by Plato, Homer, etc. and we don't question the validity of those. Of course, what was glossed over entirely was that the Bible makes huge claims about the nature of the Universe which are inaccurate and unreasonable. It doesn't matter if what Plato or Homer wrote was altered because people are not basing their lives off of their writings.

After 2000 years, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.
Sweet! And this discovery somehow proves the Bible can be trusted?

“Make sure you know the manuscripts have been mistranslated [before assuming they have been].”
Shouldn’t we also request that those who assume the Bible has been translated correctly go find out for themselves that it has?

“The Hebrews memorized the words [before they were written down] and quizzed each other.”
I don’t even know what to say about this one. Anna, I hope you have something…


Part III:

“The Bible is totally consistent with archaeological findings.”
It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. – Archaeologist Nelson Gluek
I’m afraid that I’m missing something important here, because this just screams Bullshit! to me. What about the theory of evolution? Or the age of the Earth? I'm not sure why he said this.

Archaeology has, in fact, backed up stories from the Bible:
Ex. 1: The walls of Jericho – God told the people who blew the walls down not to take any of the food. When the site was discovered, it was evident that a lot of food had been left, which was unheard of when people ransacked a city.
Ex 2: For a long time there was no evidence that the Hittites ever really existed, but then a site was discovered that proved their existence.


Ending:

“What if this book really is God-written?”
What if the Koran is really God-written? What if the Bhagavad-Gita is really God-written? I don’t think this is a valid point unless we’re going to ask it about all other religious texts.

He ended the sermon with two similar questions:
1) Why would the Bible continue to exist if people had been persecuted for believing in and advocating it?
2) Why would people believe it if it’s not true?

Well, the answer to #1 could only be, Because it’s true!
And I’m not sure what the point with #2 is.
People are always believing things that may or may not be true, usually for comfort: My boyfriend cheats on me, but he loves me. The weather channel says it will be sunny on Thursday. I believe my pets have souls and go to Heaven.

I assume the point is to leave the *audience* concluding something like, Well, people never continue to believe things if they’re being persecuted, and, People never believe in things that aren’t true, so the Bible must be true (and all the other people in the world who have totally different beliefs… well, this doesn’t apply to them, they’re just deluded).

I was thinking I would return next week to hear more, but now I see on the handout thing that it says,

"Next week join us as we continue in part two of our series txt msg… It could change
your life.
(Changing your mind verse) “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than
any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and
marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12"

which looks to me like the first sermon of the series is all that is being offered in terms of evidence for Bible's trustworthiness. I am very disappointed, and will certainly not return if the focus is now going to be changing your mind. I haven't even been convinced of the Bible's accuracy! What would convince me to change my mind about accepting it as truth?

I'm also curious why he is giving this convincing type of sermon to people who already believe...

I kind of sort of love this...

Is Barack Obama Muslim?

Boys Learn to Abuse (excerpts from The Macho Paradox)

(the title is a link to the book for purchase on Amazon)

I feel kind of lame always quoting stuff instead of writing my own ideas, but I feel like I'm still learning and forming my own opinions, and it helps to quote what really catches my attention, and will hopefully catch the attention of others. For now, I am gathering information in order to secure my own stance on specific issues.


"Everywhere you turn, you see manhood equated with power and control... They learn it on Saturday morning cartoons and trips to the toys store, where 'action heroes' with rippled muscles convey the powerful lesson that might makes right; on the playground, where recent research shows that bullies are not social misfits, but often the most popular kids; in the sports culture, where dominating one's opponent is seen as the height of athletic achievement; in NASCAR racing, whose most popular icon was nicknamed 'The Intimidator'; in hip-hop, where rich and famous rappers denigrate women and gays; in professional wrestling, where ritualized bullying, humiliation, and sexual harassment is normal behavior, and caricatured portrayals of brutish manhood are celebrated; in video games, where mastery of the joystick and the ability to 'kill' at will - and sometimes beat up prostitutes - is equated to manly competence; and in the larger adult world, where they see abuses of power by men in business and government.

At the same time that impressionable boys absorb these lessons about how to earn respect in the world of men, they get the complementary message that what is considered 'feminine' has less value than what is considered 'masculine.' It is a short step from there to the belief that women are supposed to be subordinate to men - and sexually available to them. ...our culture is saturated with stark visual evidence of women's continued subservience to men, especially in the sexual realm. The stylistic conventions of pornography have become decidedly mainstream. From advertising billboards to magazine covers, scantily-clad female bodies are ubiquitously on display as objects for men to use and discard. Pornography itself – the vast majority of which eroticizes male dominance and control – is a $10 billion-a-year industry. Major recording artists glamorize pimps, and radio shock jocks openly humiliate women – with little or no public outcry. In the context of this cultural environment, can we credibly profess to be surprised when boys and men verbally, physically, and sexually harass and abuse girls and women?"

This is why I'm an English major...

I keep up with a few different fundie blogs, and with Fundies Say the Darnedest Things!; through these sources, and my own investigation, I've learned quite a bit about the King-James-Only Movement. Basically, the KJVers believe that the original King James Version of the Bible is the only 'true' and 'perfect' version of God's Word. Yeah, I know. It makes me laugh, too.

But! Today, in my Shakespeare class, I learned that King James I, the guy who gets the credit for sparking this 'perfect' translation, whose very name is essentially the subtitle for their holy book, had a habit of falling in love with (and probably sexing up) men. Lots of men.