Religious dodges

[DMB]

This may also apply to other religions, such as Hinduism, but I don't know enough to make the claim, so I'll stick to Abrahamic religions.

Religions that are old enough are almost bound to have exhortations and prohibitions that don't chime with the modern world and which therefore may cost the faithful some difficulty or embarrassment. One example would be usury, firmly forbidden by mediaeval Christianity and still forbidden by the Islamic world. In the case of Christianity, the prohibition seems to have been quietly dropped, thus enabling the development of modern commerce and banking. It seems to be a case of Basil Fawlty and "don't mention the War!" -- don't mention usury! In Islam a different solution has been found. The ban on usury is maintained and usurous behavour is carried out behind a figleaf of Islamic compliance.

Judaism gives an interesting example. Orthodox Jews are bound by all sorts of restrictions on the Sabbath. There are many activities that are prohibited outside the home. But one solution is to create a sort of extended home zone, called an Eruv, which maintains a fiction that one is really still at home, even though physically outside.

I love these strategems. First say that your god prohibits this or that. Then because it is inconvenient, find a transparent dodge to get round it while managing to convince yourself that you are still within the letter of the law, and apparently the god is satisfied because at least you are tieing yourself in knots rather than completely discarding the rule.

[tjakey]

As a general one it seems that Jesus (if one takes his supposed words seriously) had a serious problem with rich people, and an even bigger problem with rich, powerful religious leaders. He also had a serious problem with divorce.

And yet that pretty much describes modern American Christianity. Really, if one read the gospels without prejudice, one would figure the very last people who would get into heaven would be American Christians. Yet they have so many ways of legitimizing their wealth, power and greed.

It only gets better when they try to justify their multiple wives, girlfriends, lovers, whore mongering and gay boyfriends. $5, Jesus love me long time...

[Worldtraveller]

Explain to me more about the Islam usery thing, please. That's one I'm not really familiar with. (links are fine if you got some good ones, otherwise, I'll FGI later.) :)

[DMB]

Start here: Islamic banking.

Another link about usury: http://www.henciclopedia.org.uy/autores/Laguiadelmundo/Usury.htm

I think as far as the Catholic church is concerned, the ban on usury seems to have been replaced with the ban on contraception. Any self-respecting religion has to ban something.

[tjakey]

I think as far as the Catholic church is concerned, the ban on usury seems to have been replaced with the ban on contraception. Any self-respecting religion has to ban something.

There's another (perhaps fatal) dodge DMB. Even a couple of the believers around here have (in other threads) touched on the fact that the unrestrained human population explosion is simply untenable. We must find a way to bring our breeding under control or we will, at the very least, trigger massive "die-offs" of millions of people; people who will live short, ugly, painful lives and die in misery. And at worst we may simply cause the total extinction of the species. (Ours and a bunch of others actually.)

And yet it seems every single religion on the planet has, as one of its most fundamental doctrines: "Go Forth and Fuck Like Rabbits." (Of course they word it different.)

[DMB]

Ah, but "Take no thought for the morrow" etc.

[tjakey]

mmm...well, "Fuck Like Rabbits for tomorrow you die!" might be a religion I could live with. But I fear I have derailed your thread. Sorry.

[Valheru]

How's this for religious groupthink? (From the Pakistani National Assembly)

Taking part in the budget debate, M.P. Bhindara, a minority MNA [Member of the National Assembly]...referred to a decree by an Al-Azhar University's scholar that bank interest was not un-Islamic. He said without interest the country could not get foreign loans and could not achieve the desired progress. A pandemonium broke out in the house over his remarks as a number of MMA members...rose from their seats in protest and tried to respond to Mr Bhindara's observations. However, they were not allowed to speak on a point of order that led to their walkout.... Later, the opposition members were persuaded by a team of ministers...to return to the house...the government team accepted the right of the MMA to respond to the minority member's remarks.... Sahibzada Fazal Karim said the Council of Islamic ideology had decreed that interest in all its forms was haram in an Islamic society. Hence, he said, no member had the right to negate this settled issue.[25]

[tjakey]

And people wonder why Islamic countries are backward, third world, shit holes.

[Matty]

UY-ZrwFwLQg:)
Well said Marcus.
the OP reminded me of his pop at the Christians.


"You dont get to be millionaires whilst other people have nothing at all , they're your bloody rules, live by them or abandon the faith....................oh and stop pretending you are celibate as a cover up for being gay or a nonce. "

[premjan]

Extremely common in Hinduism, few rules are binding.

[DMB]

Extremely common in Hinduism, few rules are binding.

Can you give any examples where people maintain the fiction that they are obeying the rules while obviously dodging them?

[premjan]

Let's say you are supposed to shave your head, but you would rather not, they will just snip a few hairs instead. If you are supposed to immerse yourself completely in water but you don't have the time, they will sprinkle a few drops of water on your head etc. There are shortcuts for everything, it is more about accommodating the needs of the individual and making them feel they have done what they were supposed to do. The priest is not an authority just a mediator, he gets paid based on his rendering of services.

[rlogan]

I love these strategems.

Well the alternative, carried to its logical conclusion, is to reject most or all of these scribblings by bronze age goat herders. Fumbling around with superstitious gibberish.

So you just allow the disconnects to be overlooked if there is some church dispensation for it.

How about the Catholics selling indulgences. Here is an example where they just made up laws not in the holy book.

They invented purgatory as a way to blackmail money out of people with indulgences:


This idea of a stopping place between heaven and hell "emerged in the middle ages and became a part of the Catholic Church's penitential system." (Ekelurd, 152) Of course, having this sort of thought that mankind could be stuck in a state of limbo could not survive without a means to extricate these souls from limbo and back into the loving fellowship of Heaven. Enter Indulgences. This facet of the Catholic canon allowed its many principal agents assert a far greater power over the pocketbooks of the people as they prayed for loved ones and were preyed upon by this undisputed dogma. As can be gathered from the evidence, the use of indulgences in the doctrine of purgatory enables the Church "to extend its power over the faithful into the world beyond death."

http://economics.about.com/cs/moffattentries/a/catholic_church_2.htm

[HinduWoman]

You have undertaken a day long fast and not even water will pass your lips. But you are a tea addict. So you drink tea --- after all tea is not breaking the fast and it is not prohibited (of course the fact that tea is a recent import is carefully forgotten). :)

[Eudaimonist]

nm

[beamishboy]

I love these strategems.

Well the alternative, carried to its logical conclusion, is to reject most or all of these scribblings by bronze age goat herders. Fumbling around with superstitious gibberish.

So you just allow the disconnects to be overlooked if there is some church dispensation for it.

How about the Catholics selling indulgences. Here is an example where they just made up laws not in the holy book.

They invented purgatory as a way to blackmail money out of people with indulgences:


This idea of a stopping place between heaven and hell "emerged in the middle ages and became a part of the Catholic Church's penitential system." (Ekelurd, 152) Of course, having this sort of thought that mankind could be stuck in a state of limbo could not survive without a means to extricate these souls from limbo and back into the loving fellowship of Heaven. Enter Indulgences. This facet of the Catholic canon allowed its many principal agents assert a far greater power over the pocketbooks of the people as they prayed for loved ones and were preyed upon by this undisputed dogma. As can be gathered from the evidence, the use of indulgences in the doctrine of purgatory enables the Church "to extend its power over the faithful into the world beyond death."

http://economics.about.com/cs/moffattentries/a/catholic_church_2.htm

I read in a Christian forum that the RC church has recently ruled that there is no more limbo. A mother wrote to say that for years, she had thought her dead baby was in limbo. She asked what else the RC church would decide at a later date.

[beamishboy]

There is one other Christian dodge that I know. It's from Hebrew 6:4-6 which read " 4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because[b]to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace."

It used to be interpreted as a Christian cannot be forgiven for committing a sin after becoming a Christian. That was what the early church accepted. The Shepherd of Hermas was supposed to have given them one more chance after sinning but Hebrews was stricter. The verse was used to deter Christians from surrendering holy books to the emperor Diocletian who wanted to destroy them. Later scholars took the "falling away" to mean becoming an apostate or rejecting God totally. They then discovered there were some pretty good Christians who once did that. So, the verse is now generally interpreted to mean that it's a hypothetical situation that can never take place. So, a real Christian cannot fall away in the first place. If he falls away and returns to the faith, it means he was not in the faith in the first place so he's ok.

EDIT: The Shepherd of Hermas did not make it into the biblical canon. Hebrews made it on the mistaken belief that it was written by St Paul. When the error was discovered and accepted by all, it was felt that it would now be difficult to remove Hebrews from the canon and so it got in by mistake and remained in the canon because of habit.