Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Yeah I been reading through this too, and its amazing to see someone like Didymus and others who know their Bibles well. Great job guys!

Well, I have a question myself:

In 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, it says "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."

Is there more to those verses, is it trully meant to be taken literally?

In all the churches I've been to in my life, I've seen women preachers, singers, musicians, speakers, etc. Does that mean that all the churches are being sinful by allowing women to speak in Church?

Ever since I read those verses, I've had mixed feelings about my faith somewhat. Not only do I dislike the verses, but they seem to go against the notion that all "men [human beings] are equal", which many believers and non-believers alike find so strong about the Christian message (as do I).

If we are to take the Scriptures seriously, then yes. The basic idea that St. Paul is expounding is that women are not to instruct men in the church, so at least as far as that is concerned, female pastors are out. My own church - The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod - does not permit female pastors.

However, musicians and singers could be understood differently, since there is precedent for female musicians and singers in the corporate worship of Israel (although they would not have been permitted to enter the inner courts of the tabernacle or temple). It is funny that this topic should come at this time: why just last week, there was a discussion among some of the pastors in my circuit about female cantors, musicians, and liturgists.

There is another exception: women in Scripture are permitted to instruct other women.

Now why is this? Is the Bible being sexist? The New Testament seems to grant a very high importance to women, and views them generally as equally capable as men. Note some of the key figures of Scripture: Mary the mother of Jesus, Elizabeth her cousin, Mary and Martha of Bethany, Priscilla, etc. But Scripture does not permit them to serve in the pastoral office. This is because, as Christ is the husband of the church, so the pastor is to represent Christ to his congregation (Ephesians 5:22ff). This is not to say that women are incapable of the responsibility, but rather that they are not properly called to do so.

So to answer your question, it is not proper for a woman to serve in the pastoral office, or to function in a related capacity (as elder, liturgist, communion assistant, etc.).

Please keep in mind that this falls within the scope of the Right Hand Kingdom (that is, the worship and conduct of God's Church), and not within the Left Hand Kingdom (secular life). As for any secular career, I believe women to be equally fit as men and should be treated as such. Just not in the Office of Holy Ministry or conduct of worship.

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Another view is that the verse you mentioned, NAU, could be seen in the same way as an earlier verse, I Cor 11:5, which says women should pray with a veil, and a nearby verse says men with long hair = wrong. But these aren't widely followed today. There's still some lingering anti-long-hair sentiment, but it's extremely rare to see a woman put on a veil to pray.

Just a couple paragraphs back, Paul says "'Everything is permissible'; maybe so, but not everything does good," and "but not everything builds people up," and "Never be a cause of offence, either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God." (10:23,32). Those restrictions on women come after this statement, which basically says people should avoid doing something that would be offensive to the culture you're in. Because even though that thing might be permissible ideally, here on earth, with people's cultural prejudices, that act would do more harm than good because it causes people to be repulsed from the Word before they even think about it.

That's the way it comes across to me anyway. Women praying without veils is no longer offensive to us as a culture, so they don't need veils anymore and we are one step closer to an ideal in that sense. Women preachers are still offensive to some in society for some reason or another, but it's not the church's place to push for that change directly, but to spread the Word of God and hope that, in the Word sinking in and with prayer, people's minds will come around to the ideal. And when that's happened, then women could preach because it no longer causes offense and creates a stumbling block.

Now here's my question: I haven't asked anyone who's made a living of bible study whether or not this view holds up. So... now's a good time. Didy?

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I just googled across this. That's some quite interesting philosophical games about logic and such. Try the "Do-It-Yourself Deity" and the "Battleground God".

Thanks Didymus and Inverse Tiger, seeing both of your views are very helpful, thanks you


The "Do-It-Yourself Deity" is some major hogwash if you ask me. At the end of it all, they hope that it will have me questioning my beliefs. Now its nice to try and have people understand why they believe what they do, but when I'm questioning more of who these "metaphysical engineers" are then of my beliefs, I don't think they did a very good job.

Well, it goes on to try and "rate feasibility" and tries to explain that there is too much suffering for God to be a loving one. The problem is, no one can explain why God does some of the things he does. I believe that such things like natural disasters, as awful as they are, can bring out the strong in many, and give people a reason to look up in the sky and look to God for guidance.

If you want to use Philosophical Logic here, I would say they're using an Apeal to Unqualified Authority (as I believe all men are unqualified to question God). Well, thats just me putting my PHIL113 class to work

Now I did check their FAQ, and I can agree with them that athiesm is a matter of faith over rationality. Of course, a lot of athiests I know hate this idea that they have any sort of faith (whether its positive or negative) at all. Either way though, every one of us will be putting our faith to something, whether we understand it or not.

First, when St. Paul says everything is permissible, to what is he referring? Obviously there have to be some boundaries on that. Should murder, adultery, and other such things be permitted? Obviously not, since St. Paul himself condemns a man in 1 Corinthians 5 for committing adultery and incest, and commends the church there to do the same.

Actually, on careful examination of the text, it is not St. Paul himself who is saying all things are permissible, but rather he appears to be quoting someone (perhaps one of the "super-apostles" from 2 Corinthians). He is correcting the scope of the original statement, "All things are permissible," with the statement, "but not all things are helpful."

But here's the problem: in Chapter 14, St. Paul is giving instructions on how worship is to be conducted, whereas in Chapter 10, he is discussing whether or not Christians should eat meat sacrificed to idols. If you lived in Corinth during the first century, if you were going to get meat, you had to buy it from a pagan butcher, and in all likelihood, that meat would have been sacrificed to Zeus before or some other god before being presented to you at the counter. Here, Paul says it is okay to eat such meat purchased from a butcher, but in the same chapter he states resolutely that Christians have no business eating at pagan temples or participating in pagan worship. The meat in and of itself may be harmless, but the false worship is not.

So, then, into which category does the female pastor fall? Into the harmless category, or into the false worship category? Again, I think it wise to consult the Scriptures themselves on this topic, rather than to assume safety in this area. Thus, St. Paul commends the church not to ordain women into the Office of Holy Ministry. If, however, we are going to allow this practice in light of a clear biblical mandate against it, I would suggest we do so with adequate Scriptural grounds for doing so. Where, then, does Scripture say that female pastors are permissible?

But if we cite that passage in which St. Paul says "All things are permissible" (and that is assuming that he is, in fact, speaking of all things, and not just regarding the issue of meat, which the context indicates), then where do you draw the line? Is it permissible for Christians to sacrifice their children on the altars of Baal? Is it permissible for Christians to murder and steal? Is it permissible for Christians to commit sexual immorality (some "Christians" seem to think it is, but I would disagree)? Where do you draw the line between what is lawful and what is safe? For the Christian, culture is not the authority to decide that, but Scripture. And Scripture draws a fairly clear line at women serving in the Office of Holy Ministry.

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Here's something that I've always wondered about, but not enough to really put much research into it. In World Civ, our professor, a big Roman history buff, says that, more likely than not, the events surrounding Christ's birth (he qualified this with "If it happened", it's pretty certain that he believes so) more likely happened in the spring than in the winter. Christ was crucified (more than likely) in the Spring of the year, as well. Yet, I often hear that Christ was 33 1/2 years old when he died...
If both events happened in/around Spring, where does this 1/2 year come from? Something doesn't line up.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

1. We are not certain what time of year Christ was born.

2. We are not certain exactly how old he was when he was crucified, although 33 is in the ball park.

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I was under the impression that scholars were pretty sure that the events (like the census that prompted Joseph to go to Bethlehem) surrounding Christ's birth happened in the spring.
If not, my bad..

Makes sense.
Like I said, I never really looked into it too much. I've just always heard 33 1/2.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

The census certainly helps us to date Jesus' birth, but not with absolute accuracy. At best, it would give us a ball park figure. The spring is more likely than the winter, though.

My guess is that the 33½ is a guess based on an assumption that he was born in the winter.

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I've always understood it as 33, somewhere in that year of His life, and that how many extra days weren't important... just 33 is around correct...

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We've been learning some things about Christianity in history class recently, and through our discussions, I noticed something that thought somewhere here might be able toe explain for me

So, we were talking about Jesus in the desert when he was tempted by the Devil - how he refused to jump off the temple, saying one should not test God, and how he would not turn the rock into bread, saying that man does not live on bread alone, but on the words of God. Later, however, Jesus seemed to go against what he had previously said - for example, when he was trying to prove that he was God's son, he tested Him by walking on water, and he multiplied the supply of bread and fish when he wouldn't before. Aren't these acts contradicting each other?

Ju Ju, you might want to actually study those accounts. In the story of Jesus walking on the water, he was not being tempted by the devil, nor was he tempting his Father. Rather, he was fulfilling the prophecy of Job 9:8, which states that YHWH walks upon the sea (in fact, Jesus' words while walking upon the sea were, "Take heart! I am! Do not fear!" "I Am," being a rough translation of the Hebrew name, YHWH - see Ex. 3). In the story of the fish and bread, again, Jesus is not being tempted by the devil or tempting his Father, but doing exactly what he had been sent to do: provide for the needs of those people on the shore. While Jesus was not willing to perform a miracle to benefit himself, it was most certainly meet, right, and salutary that he should perform that miracle for the benefit of others.

The key distinguishing point there is the involvement of the devil. Had Jesus taken any of the devil's suggestions, he would have been acting in submission to the prince of darkness, rather that in trust and reliance upon his Father. This is most clearly seen in the devil's demand that Jesus bow down and worship him, which Jesus rightly refused to do, instead choosing to wait upon his Father's will. Not only that, but, as stated above, the key for Jesus was that he wasn't going to act upon his own behalf or for his own benefit, but rather on behalf of others and for the benefit of others.

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God is omnipotent, correct?

Paradox:
Then, can He create a stone He cannot break?

If He can create this unbreakable stone, He would not be able to break it, so He would not be able to do something, and would not be omnipotent.

If He cannot create such a stone, then he cannot do something anyway, and is still not omnipotent in this case.

Is this a refutation of the concept of omnipotence?

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The argument is essentially centered around a theoretical object that exists beyond the boundaries of omnipotence. However, by definition, such an object cannot exist in reality. Therefore, the argument is nonsensical and illogical. At best it's a clever word game, but doesn't really prove anything. As Lewis once said, adding "God can" to the beginning of nonsense does not make it any less nonsense.

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Heh, makes sense now. Thanks for clearing that up.

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Ok, that makes sense. Thanks Dids.

(HHFOV: Reminds me of Homer's quote, "Could God microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?")

To be fair, I feel sort of the same way about Anselm's Ontological Proof. In essence, he claims that by definition, God must exist. It follows as such:

1. God, by definition, is the most perfect being.
2. In order for the most perfect being to be most perfect, it must contain the quality of existence (conversely, if it does not, then it is less than perfect and cannot be called the most perfect being).
3. Therefore, God exists.

If there are any Anselm experts who can make better sense of his argument than this, please feel free to correct me.

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Isn't that something like circular reasoning? I mean, I didn't think you could prove something using a proof based on an assumption.
Don't get me wrong, I believe in God, but I don't believe in that proof.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

That... that's just sad. For the past ten minutes or so, I've been trying to explain how terrible this proof is. I can't even put it into words.

Actually, SR, Anselm's Proof isn't based on a preconceived assumption of God's existence, but upon the very words we use to define God. But, like I said, I never was thoroughly satisfied with his argument, and there are probably others who can better explain it than I can.

Ju Ju: that's what I said. Anselm's Proof may have made perfect sense among the Aristotelian scholars of his day, but it's not a very satisfying one for us who do not hold the same type of Aristotelian reasoning.

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Yeah, I don't think it's really logical. What if I said, suppose there was a car that could travel faster than the speed of light. In order for the car to do that, it would have to exist. Therefore, such car exists. I definitely believe in God too, but that proof isn't why...

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The bible is so fuzzy, christians can use it to try to prove/disprove almost anything. If they find something they like, they'll use it as evidence. If they find something they don't like, they'll say it's out of context.


Job 40:15 says "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox."

Christian says "Aha! That's a dinosaur! Proof!"


Revelation 7:1 says "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree."

Christian says "Out of context! It didn't mean the world is flat!"


Job 26:7 says "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."

Christian says "It says the earth is in space! Proof!"


Genesis 1:16 says "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."

Christian says "Out of context! It didn't litteraly mean that the moon emmitts light!"


Numbers 13:33 says "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."

Christian says "OUT OF CONTEXT! It means something else!"


Isaiah 13:13-18 says "Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.
Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.
Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children."

Christian says "OUT OF CONTEXT! OUT OF CONTEEEEEEEEEXT!!!"


Many christians and other theists are so blindfolded by their belief that they will bend anything and everything they read, see or hear so that it fits their view of the world...

yeah....
Nobody does that. The Earth is in space. We all know that. There were dinosaurs, that's pretty easy to see.

Can we keep the narrow-minded "Christians are sheep that aren't allowed to think" attacks down?
kthxbai

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Well, there ARE people who do that, but not many people actually agree with them. But they're very vocal, and some people are quick to hold them up as representative of all Christians.

As for the Old Testament stuff, my take is that, for the Christian, everything in the OT is to be taken seriously as inspired by God and therefore containing an important message, even for us today, but if it clashes with the NT or with obvious scientific reality, it shouldn't be taken literally. God seems to have been leading people slowly toward a more perfect moral system over time. Think about if Jesus came 2000 years before he did. I don't think anyone would have listened. Everyone's moral worldviews were very harsh and tribe-centered and narrow. But God nudged the pagans toward civilization and the Jews toward a moral understanding broad enough to allow Jesus to come into the picture and do some good. Sure, when the OT was written, people had more primitive views. That's why we have to read it with the message of the NT in mind. There's been 2000 years of people studying the OT in light of the NT and finding ways that even verses about bashing babies heads in still contain a deeper meaning, and no one has to say that infanticide is a good thing.

In other words, yes, those verses were OUT OF CONTEEEEEEEXT as far as Christianity is concerned. Taking them by themselves, you're right, they don't convey accurate science or advanced morality. Taken in a larger context, they might (and a Christian or Jew would say they do) have importance and meaning.

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Know what I hate even more? Those 'Bible contradiction' lists. Every time I see one of those, I start with the first few and with my very limited Bible knowledge I'm able to disprove them with about 45 seconds of reading in context and Internet research, then I stop. So, either the people who made those didn't have 45 seconds on their hands, or they knew they were wrong but put the list together to say 'Look at these! Everything in the Bible must be wrong!'.

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Funny, I always thought that Behemoth was some sort of large land animal, like an elephant or a rhino, something that the people of that era would have seen and been able to relate to.


Have you ever referred to "sunrise" or "sunset"? If you have, then by your own arguments, you are attesting that the world is flat, because as anyone who has ever taken 4th grade science knows, the sun neither sets nor rises, but is rather a constant distance from the earth. And yet human languages universally seem to declare a flat earth inherently.

But as for Revelation, any serious Bible scholar would tell you that the language of the entire book is allegorical by nature.


Are you saying that the earth IS hanging on something? Like maybe one of those giant Christmas Tree ornament hooks?


Actually, the text only says that the moon has light, not that it emits said light by its own inherent nature, only that its there. I suppose whenever a normal person in a normal context speaks of "moonlight," you instead say "sunlight reflected off the moon," because if you ever use the term moonlight, then you're essentially claiming that the moon emits its own natural light.


And why wouldn't there be giants? Keep in mind that the text isn't referring to storybook giants that are 100+ feet tall, but rather of giant men, who stood about 8 feet tall (and we know that from biblical measurements). Heck, just look at the NBA sometime; giants are still among us.


What "out of context" are you referring to? This is a prophecy of the disaster that was about to befall the Babylonians, if I'm not mistaken. Why should I ever be ashamed to declare that God destroys the enemies of his people, and isn't above using their other enemies to do it? After all, he is only allowing the Babylonians to suffer the exact same torments they inflicted upon the Israelites, and was letting the Medes (aka the Persians) to pull it off. I don't have a problem with that.


Pretty much in the same way that you've attempted to twist our own text against us just now?

Duke, it seems to me that your little rant here hasn't really contributed to congenial conversation. In the future, if you have a problem with a specific text, I'd suggest you post that text and ask your question in a civilized manner. Otherwise, you would probably be happier finding an anti-Christian forum where you can rant until your heart's content. But that kind of attitude doesn't have a place on this forum.


And with my years of seminary training, I find the same phenomenon. more than 99% of these so-called "contradictions" can be understood if one only takes the time to study the texts in question. For example, the texts Ju Ju cited above about Jesus being forbidden in one context to make bread, but being allowed to in another (no offense, Ju, I'm just using yours as an example). A little knowledge of the two texts reveals that there are some very valid reasons why the miracle is forbidden at one time but actually necessary at another time. One shouldn't jump to the conclusion that just because he is forbidden the miracle under one set of circumstances (under a fast, under temptation by the devil, to serve his own immediate need) that the miracle is therefore likewise forbidden under an entirely different set of circumstances (not under a fast, with no devil around, and to serve the needs of others). It amazes me how just a little bit of knowledge of the texts themselves actually clears up a lot of these so-called "contradictions."

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I want to expand on this a little bit.

We're not, by ANY definition a "Christian" forum. We're all about respect for EVERY religion, belief, or lack thereof.
We don't like people bad mouthing Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or Atheists either and that intolerance is viewed the same as if someone were to post an anti-Christian tirade.

A strong response to an "attack" post does not violate this "bias" rule in any way. If you're being a jerk, don't expect to hide behind rule 2.

Anyway, back to the show!

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

That doesn't really disprove his argument, though. It doesn't matter if we acknowledge Earth to be flat in our everyday vocabulary - we know it is round and it would be impossible for someone to ave seen something on the four corners of Earth, because they do not exist.

Well, John knew that there weren't really corners of the earth, too (well, maybe they didn't know the world was round yet, but he wasn't asserting it as fact). He was just using it as language to describe what he saw (he probably meant that he saw angels coming far away from the north, south, east, and west). In the same way, when we say 'sunrise' and 'sunset', we know the sun isn't rising and setting, but it's descriptive.

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