Didymus wrote:
First, I wasn't saying that the left side was WRONG. I was exaggerating the way many Americans respond to that one particular custom that happens to be different from ours.
Yeah, I know. I was just saying that the analogy was illegit because we drive on a specified side of the road for a reason, whereas there is apparently no reason behind sarifices.
Quote:
Rituals DO have importance in societies. Almost any time you start finding communities of people living together, rituals develop. I was a humanities major in undergrad, and that was one thing I learned from it. Take for example The Seventh Inning Stretch. To me, it doesn't contribute to social morality at all, but it is a necessary part of the ritual of Baseball.
A baseball rule was probably not the best analogy to use when talking to a Brit. I assume it's just a rule of baseball, right? If so, it contributes to the game of baseball by making it enjoyable (if it had no rules, there would be no structure, getting home runs would be
easy and the game wouldn't be worth playing); baseball is a game played for fun (and even for money). Although fun is needed in our lives, God wouldn't say "...and if there be three strikes, thou shalt be declared out for one inning." That kind of thing isn't
important; people can decide that themselves.
Quote:
Now to me it makes sense for a culture that still makes animal sacrifices to make those sacrifices at the birth of a child, to dedicate that child to God, and to make propitiation for the woman in her childbirth.
Yes, that makes some kind of sense, allowing for animal sacrifices themselves to make sense. As they don't make any sense to me, that point falls through the floor.
Quote:
Now why exactly were there certain numbers of days for uncleanness and whatnot, I'm not exactly sure. It had to do with the rather unsanitary nature of the blood flow. I'll leave the rest to social custom.
If it was truly just a social custom, it wouldn't be God who decided on it.
Quote:
By the way, I don't know if you know this, but the sacrificed animals were not complete destroyed. Most of the meat went to feed the worshipers who were present (depending on what kind of sacrifice). A select share of it went to feed the priests in the temple/tabernacle or was distributed to the Levites, who had no land of their own. Only about 1% or so of the total sacrificed meat was destroyed (i.e. given to God). What it comes down to is that most sacrifices were much like the modern day potluck dinner.
No, I didn't know that.
Quote:
If there's one thing God has plenty of, it's time. Saying that God is wasting his time on rituals is like saying Bill Gates is wasting his money on a can of soda pop.
Okay, that was a bad choice of phrase to use. What I meant by "wasting his time" was that there's no point or purpose to him doing it and he no doubt has better things to do (appearing to the other tribes across the world, for example
).
Quote:
Besides, I think He recognizes the importance of rituals in society, so He took the time to establish some.
Why? Do rituals (assuming insignificance to be a property of a "ritual")
need divine planning? I don't see why they should; if they are truly insignificant, why does God care what it constitutes?
Quote:
Ah, the "Chosen" problem. We like to call it, "The Scandal of Particularity." Why is it that God selects the few rather than the many? It's just one of those ways in which he acts in the opposite manner than we humans would if we were given a chance. It's hard for me to accept sometimes, too.
See, that's the kind of answer that inevitably brings this kind of discussion to a halt. As I've said before, we reach a stalemate: although I'm not satisfied with the answer, it's still legitimate in theory - God is beyond our comprehension. Now, I simply hold with the idea that believing in a god who transcends the very logic that our universe runs on is irrational, but neither of us will budge.
Quote:
Who said Jews don't believe in Jesus? There's a synagogue here in St. Louis called Chai v'Shalom (Hebrew for Life and Peace), and they are Christian Jews (I believe they prefer the term "Messianic"). There's also Beth Hallel in Atlanta. Jesus himself was a Jew, as were all the apostles. But today, the race issue is no longer relevant. God's Chosen People are now those who are in Christ, not those who are of a particular race.
This makes no sense to me -
Judaism has deemed Jesus a false messiah, and religious Jews are still awaiting the arrival of the Messiah; viz., they don't believe in Jesus. I don't see how a Christian Jew is possible.
Quote:
As far as making converts, Buz already pointed out that you were merely trying to get us to think.
Ha ha, well played.
Buz wrote:
So, one great reason (though probably not the only one) for God to have set up sacrifices for intentional sins, unintentional sins, uncleanliness, and ceremonies was to show that it took death and specifically blood to atone for sin.
Blood? So, does blood have some kind of special supernatural propety that allows it to cancel out sins? I don't get this at
all.
Quote:
And the Bible has that kind of stuff too: like how heavy the sanctuary shekel was to weigh. Not that there's (necessarily) anything supernatural about that mass, but that having differing weights was deceptive in trading, and is actually named as a sin for that reason (Deut 25:13, Prov 20:10, Micah 6:11).
Granted. I admit that the Books of Law contain useful information like that - but it
also contains things that have no relevance or benefit whatsoever, whichever way you look at it (the whole sacrifice meme is my example).
Quote:
After my lengthy discourse above, I'd start to ask, "chosen for what?!"
Well... chosen to see God. Unlike the Aborigines, the Native Americans, the Aztecs, the Amazons, the Greeks, the Romans, the Celts, the Gauls, the Goths, the Inuits or any other tribe or civilisation (all of which had gods of their own, bear in mind), God made himself evident only to the Hebrews. (Well, arguably the Egyptians, with the plagues et al, but it was clear whose side Jehovah was on for that little epsiode.)
Quote:
...since it seems they were mostly chosen to be "made examples of" with all the negative connotations that go along with that phrasing. It makes me think your reasoning a few posts ago (something to the effect of "Religion would be better if God hadn't chosen a specific race but appeared to everyone so everyone would believe him") is turned on it's ear and I'm glad I wasn't chosen! How many people read Job with the thought, "better him than me," in their heads the whole time? We learn from his "chosenness" without having to take the hit ourselves (necessarily).
I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are you referring to the prejudice displayed towards Jews?
Quote:
I don't think I believe that. I believe in a remnant. No, really, read that link; it's Romans 11, which pretty much sums up Christian philosophy about mere Judaists. Verses 26-29 are the final word, though the whole chapter explains the apparent contradiction much in the same spirit as I discuss justification of sacrifices above.
Isn't it rather a contradiction, though? Throughout the New Testament we're told that to get into Heaven we have to believe in Jesus - and here a religion which doesn't give the man a second thought is apparently going there anyway.
Quote:
Yeah, I don't know why modern Jews don't burn cows and sheep... I can only guess it's because there's no temple and when the temple is rebuilt they'll start again.
Um... what temple?
Quote:
As far as arguing your case, I've not seen you be particularly agressive or even bold in pursuing your agenda. I've seen you ask a lot of very difficult questions for us to answer, and then scrutinize our answers to a point that makes us really think and examine our assumptions. For that it's I who am in your debt.
Aw, think nothing of it.
I'm really enjoying this discussion - keep it up!