Thu 8 Feb 2007
Religion Improves Moral Fibre.
Posted by anaglyph under Philosophy, Religion
[23] Comments
1 Corinthians 6:
‘Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God’
I guess that rules out Just. About. Everyone.
23 Responses to “ Religion Improves Moral Fibre. ”
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The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers will inherit the kingdom of Cow’
Guilty on 8 counts. Hooray!!
Oh, but the devil made them do it …
Well, I guess me and anyone worth knowing will reserve you a seat down there, Reverend. Bring ice.
jmf: And what a fun kingdom that is!
Universal Head: The Devil made me write that post…
Casey: You betcha.
only male prostitues ? So the female ones are OK ?
And I notice that its the prostitutes who lose out, not the clients. Given that a single person could have a boring night with miss palmer and the 5 daughters (which I think the church frowns on), then it sounds Ok to go to the local brothel and have sex with the women. But don’t be greedy, two is enough.
din
Cissy Strutt: Interesting how there is a delineation between The Sexually Immoral and Adulterers…
din: Thanks for stopping by!
I think the clients of prostitutes lose out under Clause 1 – The Sexually Immoral. And you raise an intersting point – is there a Sliding Scale of Sin? Is it better to take pleasure with Miss Palm or Madame Lash? And if either of those are going to keep you out of The Kingdom of Heaven, then why not go for broke?
Even as a child in catholic school, reading those very words, made me think how dreary heaven would be with all those souls who were ‘correct’.
Why only slanderers? Don’t the libelous defame in equal measure.
Who wants t inherit th kingdom o God?
I mean, can you imagine waitin fer HIM t die?
Nada: Good technical point.
Joey: Good technical point.
I wonder what a person has to do to become sexually immoral. Wouldn’t being an adulterer or a male prostitute or a homosexual offender be pretty much covered under the heading sexually immoral? Well…I guess by law the homosexual offender is legal here in Canada…but then I wonder if god cares what the laws in Canada say. My guess is he probably doesn’t care.
I believe that if you go strictly by the Bible (or the Koran for that matter) then anything other than sex for procreation will get you thrown out through the swinging doors. And you better not enjoy that procreative sex either. That’s bound to be a sin.
Swinging doors? You mean they go both ways?
Saved by grace yet damned by deeds?
So, homosexual non-offenders are OK? What does a gay man have to do to be unoffensive? I mean I am a HUGE fan of lesbians, provided they don’t have crewcuts, so most of them don’t offend me, but even a little bit of gay PDA makes me squeamish, though not really offended. Like, what if they just keep it to themselves? Is that offensive? I guess the parades in leather and crap will get you thrown in Hell, but for some reason I don’t see God hating lesbians, either.
And do they have to offend just anybody, or is there a threshold of offended bystanders? Maybe it should read:
and homosexual offenders provided the offense is grave enough to offend more than 75% of reasonable adults with a minimum of four registered voters present evenly spaced throughout the crowd…
The Everyone link is by far the scariest. Not even funny like the preceeding links.
Cissy Strutt: Yes, in my version of Heaven you can always a get a whisky and the angels play honky tonk piano.
Casey: Tsk tsk. You’re introducing grey areas. All good Christians know that everything can be clearly divided into ‘Black’ and ‘White’. It might not be representative of the real world, but heck, it’s just simpler that way….
LoL: I’m pleased you picked up on the gentle grading from hilarity into scarity.
you have captured the essence of the problem, rabbi.
if everyone is ruled out, how does anyone get in?
You are quite correct. religion does not improve moral character. it just sets the plumb line.
and christianity will always suffer the black eyes and bruises inflicted by those who miss the mark, which includes everyone.
“Be holy, for the Lord your God is holy.” who can claim to have met that standard? (only one, and its not me.)
so, we are stuck. no way into the kingdom, at least not by virtue of our virtue.
one way out of the box is to simply say that there is no kingdom of God. no worries then about missing the mark or being holy. no sin, no right, no wrong. just people trying to make the best of the here-and-now, the best way they know how.
another way is to simply say, if there is such a kingdom, its not for me, i wouldn’t like the company anyway.
either way, there we stand, foreigners to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God in the world.
do you ever wonder, if there is a kingdom of God, what its like?
do you ever long for holiness?
amazed: Our discussion must, as ever, return to an issue in which you will not engage: why is your religion the right one?
We are not talking about ‘a’ Kingdom of God here, but your Kingdom of God. The Kingdom that is defined by Christian beliefs which, in my opinion, have about as much value as Muslim beliefs or Wiccan beliefs or Scientologist’s beliefs or Ancient Egyptian beliefs.
If I ever wonder about such a fantastic place, then I wonder about it very differently to you because it is filled with crocodile gods, space aliens and tree spirits.
The passage I chose from Corinthians is inherently absurd. It is law laid down by a zealot levying terms of the impossible upon those desiring the fantastic. What is the ‘Kingdom of God’ in this reading, other than a carrot on a stick – a simplistic moral reward for those who ‘do the right thing’.
Surely we have grown out of the promise of rewards for our decent moral behaviour? What kind of person needs promises of candy to try and behave morally?
Do I ever long for holiness? What is that? Absolution? Enlightenment? Nirvana? Purity? Is it necessarily a Christian thing?
If so, then, no, I do not long for it. Because I think Christianity is misguided and flawed and full of flaky immature human foibles, things we should be growing out of.
I want to point out also another telling thing about your reasoning. It’s in this passage:
>>so, we are stuck. no way into the kingdom, at least not by virtue of our virtue. one way out of the box is to simply say that there is no kingdom of God. no worries then about missing the mark or being holy. no sin, no right, no wrong.
Whoa! Did you spot it?: ‘No Kingdom of God, no worries about being holy, no sin, no right or wrong‘
You’re confusing religion with morality, and like most adherents to religious creed make the assumption that we are incapable of making moral decisions without religious guidance.
Which is exactly the point of this post: look at how effective your Christian moral compass is for Ted Haggard and Bishop Tom Butler and the Hillsong Church of Mammon.
Hillsong Church of Mammon, HOW true is that!! Well said, anaglyph.
Hi people, I believe this is the answer you are looking for… The verse you have quoted needs to be put in context with other scriptures. What you are doing is like picking up a book and quoting one line of the book and expect to understand the WHOLE story.
Are we saved by grace or works?
Ephesians 2:8,9; Romans 3:20,28; Galatians 2:16
and James 2:24; Matthew 19:16-21
1. Saved by grace
1. (Ephesians 2:8-9) – “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”
2. (Rom. 3:20,28) – “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin…28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
3. (Galatians 2:16) – “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”
2. Saved by works
1. (James 2:24) – “You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.”
2. (Matthew 19:1617) – “And behold, one came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” 17And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
God does not want a faith that is empty and hypocritical. James 2 is talking about those who “say” that they have faith but have no works. Therefore, people cannot tell if they are true believers or not, because there is no fruit. That kind of a faith is useless and is not a saving faith. True faith results in true works.
In Matthew 19:16-17, Jesus was speaking to a Lawyer who was self-righteous since he wanted to put Jesus to the test (Luke 10:25). He asked what he must do in order to obtain eternal life and Jesus responded with the requirements of keeping the commandments. If a person keeps all of the commandments, it would seem that they could obtain eternal life. However, nobody can keep all of the commandments. Therefore, Jesus’ comments to this man show this man that justification can only be by faith since no one can keep all of the commandments. This is why it says in Eph. 2:8 that we are saved by grace through faith. Also, Romans 3:20,28 and Galatians 2:16 tells us that no one is justified in the sight of God by the law; that is, by the works that he can do.
There is no contradiction at all when we examine the contexts. We are justified by faith but that faith must be alive (James 2). The Law cannot save us because we are incapable of keeping it (Matthew 19:16-17). Therefore, salvation is by grace through faith.
1. (The Book of Vertabrae 1:23) – “Just because something is written down in a very old book doesn’t mean it is true, or that it makes sense. Even if you want it to be that way.”
In this passage, The Reverend Anaglyph is saying that human beings are very easily mislead by things that they are told in ancient, much-copied manuscripts, even though they may be familiar with the game of Chinese Whispers. This tendency to indulge in uncritical belief is amplified by their desire to make sense of a world that is ultimately difficult to comprehend, and by their fear of death.
Generally the human beings who indulge in this self-delusion like to quote copiously from their old books and cling to them in a desperation born of the intense paranoia that, if their stories were all untrue, the world would suddenly tear itself apart in an unmitigated orgy.
Since this has not happened in many of the great civilizations of our time that have survived without Christianity, this notion is rather difficult to comprehend.