Cherrypicked religion - A set menu vs buffet

[Dildo]

One thing I've never been able to grasp about religion, even as a believer is what my teachers would have called "Protestantism"; but because I'm not speaking purely about Christianity here I'll call it "Cherrypicked"

"Like, Jesus is totally my lord and saviour and stuff....But I love wearing my short shorts that show all this thigh"
"Divorce is a sin, but I've had a secret abotion 10 years ago"
"Bacon is verboten but I love my pork sandwiches"
"I'm unmarried but I still live with my boyfreind (Catholic)"

As much as I find their beliefs abhorrent, I can respect the faith of the likes of Shirley Phelps on the grounds that it is largely consistent. There is always going to be some theological bitching about more obscure aspects of doctrine or translation but on the stuff that is very clearly spelled out and unambiguous like "Gays are bad", "A woman's testimony is worth only half that of a man" etc there really isn't any room for debate or "interpretation".

Help me to understand this. If they're going to hell for using contraception, not making it your mission in life to convert the Jews by sword or book or any other aspect of doctrine specific to your faith (Unless they are Al-Baghdadi I can guarantee I can point at least one out that they don't follow) , why are they getting their knickers in a twist about gay marriage or lack of prayer in schools? If they fully and truly actually believed in what they were saying, they wouldn't be living a western lifestyle at all and would be undertaking religious vows, a life of campaign against the heathen or something in line with what their faith teaches.

They're going to hell anyway for wearing short shorts, it's not like they're going to get double hell for not going to Church/Mosque/Synagogue/Whatever as well. It seems people don't actually believe what they're saying enough to fear the consequences of not following through, or that they admit their faith is wrong but only whenever convenient to do so. I'd even put this forum as a prime example. If you do have traditional religious beliefs, why are you here? Gossip is a sin in all three of the major Abrahamic religions unless you're truthfully accusing them of Heresy or Blasphemy talking shit about your neighbour is roast worthy too.


I could never grasp it has a hardcore trad in my younger years, I understand it even less now.

 

[Wraith]

If I understand you right, I've heard it called 'cafeteria Christianity,' and you can expound on that for other religions. You get some slug who goes through the demands of their faith or religion and picks out only the things that they like. "Ooh, prosperity! I'll take that. Oh nice, salvation. Big heap of that." Etc. Then they get to the end of the line to pay for it all they have is Jell-O and pudding.
Remember two things: 1. Jesus said MANY would come to Him and he would say, "Depart from me workers of iniquity, I NEVER KNEW YOU." So God isn't fooled by them. 2. God is not mocked. Your sin will find you out. There is a thing where you become saved and you bring in your temptations, trials and tests with you and you might legitimately have struggles and need forgiveness and help for. However thinking you can do whatever and God not take it up with you someday is a fool's errand. Paul's letters, I forget which ones but it's ones where there was a I and a II for it, openly rails on early Christians because they are putting up with the SJW open-minded bitch parade / LGBT psychopaths. They had a dude boning his own mom! He told them to get that crap together and what to do about it and such. Another place had Christians getting drunk at communion. The hell.
These mopes are living in delusion that they can get away with crap and God won't have the last word on things. It's like the idiot saying they are going to live their life like hell and then right before they die accept Christ and get away with it all. Like somehow the God of the universe for those moments can't read your thoughts and hear you say such dumb ass stuff.
Having temptation difficulties is one thing. Being a faggot about stuff is liberal. If you don't learn anything else today learn this, the only thing that matches the love of God is the wrath of God. God don't play, and neither should you.

 

[DumbDude42]

Help me to understand this.

i dont think i fully understand what you want but i'll try

basically religious institutions have lost all their real power. they used to be in control of society to the point where being excommunicated by them was basically the same as being outlawed by the state itself - a death sentence. they used this position of power to enforce the rules of their faith.
but nowadays they don't have any power anymore, so they can't enforce the rules of the faith anymore, and force was the main thing that kept people following the rules. that's why most people gradually stop caring about them.

 

[Lonely Grave]

i dont think i fully understand what you want but i'll try

basically religious institutions have lost all their real power. they used to be in control of society to the point where being excommunicated by them was basically the same as being outlawed by the state itself - a death sentence. they used this position of power to enforce the rules of their faith.
but nowadays they don't have any power anymore, so they can't enforce the rules of the faith anymore, and force was the main thing that kept people following the rules. that's why most people gradually stop caring about them.

Unless if you're the Buddhists (minus the Tibetans and Sri Lankans), in which case ceasing to care was the real goal all along.

 

[FruitFever]

All religious tenents of all religions are cherrypicked. How often "progressive" priests call out conservatives for picking the parts of Bible they like and ignoring the rest, yet they ignore the parts about homosexuality and womens position in society?

It's just the way things are. Ideas are perfect, people aren't.

 

[DumbDude42]

Unless if you're the Buddhists (minus the Tibetans and Sri Lankans), in which case ceasing to care was the real goal all along.

yeah my post only applies to western christianity (catholic, lutheran, reformed, arguably orthodox too)
other religions (particularly islam) never really lost their position of power in society in the first place so what i wrote doesn't apply to them in the same way

 

[Oban Lazcano Kamz]

religion is hope for dumb people

 

[Biden's Chosen]

enlightenment is despair for midwits

 

[Pixy]

Unless if you're the Buddhists (minus the Tibetans and Sri Lankans), in which case ceasing to care was the real goal all along.

There's three main different branches of Buddhism (excluding the cherrypicked western interpretations of it), and they're somewhat different from each other both in iconography and practise. I know that with Theravada, to cover it in a very large (and somewhat inaccurate and cherry-picked) blanket-statement, the 'end goal' is to leave the cycle of reincarnation; reaching spiritual non-existence. However, that's only if you don't consider the rest of the religion's teachings.

The Sri Lankans managed to politicise Buddhism, but that's to be expected from them, as being buddhist is part of the Sinhalese identity and is even incorporated into their flag. Some religious figures have become involved in politics, with one monk advising their president that, "‘if they call you a Hitler, then be a Hitler and build this country," during his birthday.

There is a growing number people there who falsely believe the Buddha came from Sri Lanka, against the established Theravada Buddhism canon. Across the strait, there are Indians who vocally believe Buddhism is part of Hinduism, and isn't a separate religion. It's interesting to watch from afar.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

Hardcore fundamentalism doesn't work in real life. First off, as @FruitFever put it,

Ideas are perfect, people aren't.

Reaching or being any religion's or ideology's concept of a perfect human is impossible. For example, in capitalist economics, costumers are conscious, making informed choices every single time, which anyone with a working brain cell knows to be false.

There's always been loopholes, all over the place, in every religion. Alcohol is haram to muslims, and Allah, all-seeing and all-knowing, will always know when one of his (less) faithful drink. The solution to this is drinking under a roof, for that apparently obscures Allah's eyes, out of a non-transparent drinking vessel, with eyes shut.

Trump's Chosen People can abandon kosher food in time of need or calamity. What constitutes a time of need or calamity is up to the rabbi, at least as far as I know. Obviously, famines and wars were a lot more common in the past, but the opportunity is still there.

In the modern times, IIRC around 1990, they discovered microscopic shellfish living in the NYC water supply. Shellfish is treyf (non-kosher), so what can be done? The most respected and prestigious rabbis convened, and decided, that since those shellfish can't be seen by the naked eye, they can be treated as non-existent. On Shabbat, Orthodox Trump's Chosen People can take no more than ten thousand steps, strictly indoors. What if they run out of kosher wine, and there's no Shabbat goy at hand? Most cities with a significant population intalled wires on the borders of their districts and boroughs, just high enough not to interfere with telephone or electricity lines, and designated them as "indoors for all intents and purposes".

Lastly, there's the issue of punishment. In modern criminology, the strongest deterrent in considered to be the inevitability of punishment instead of its severity. In the simplest terms, "why be a law-abiding citizen when you can be executed just for looking at someone the wrong way?". Similarly, why bother observing the laws of your religion of you're going to be damned to Hell for the slightest of missteps?

Ostracism and excommunication always worked in the olden times, when people barely left even their villages and the Catholic Church held an enormous power - think about the Walk to Canossa, when Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV had to do penance by standing bare-headed and bare-foot in snow for three days. Nowadays, one can move to a different community or even a country with relative ease, and the Church is a shadow of its former "glory".

TL;DR this isn't a new phenomenon, it just got worse, as all things do, and there's no authority to stop it from getting even worse. 100% hard fundamentalism was never viable anyway.

 

[Lonely Grave]

There's three main different branches of Buddhism (excluding the cherrypicked western interpretations of it), and they're somewhat different from each other both in iconography and practise. I know that with Theravada, to cover it in a very large (and somewhat inaccurate and cherry-picked) blanket-statement, the 'end goal' is to leave the cycle of reincarnation; reaching spiritual non-existence. However, that's only if you don't consider the rest of the religion's teachings.

The Sri Lankans managed to politicise Buddhism, but that's to be expected from them, as being buddhist is part of the Sinhalese identity and is even incorporated into their flag. Some religious figures have become involved in politics, with one monk advising their president that, "‘if they call you a Hitler, then be a Hitler and build this country," during his birthday.

There is a growing number people there who falsely believe the Buddha came from Sri Lanka, against the established Theravada Buddhism canon. Across the strait, there are Indians who vocally believe Buddhism is part of Hinduism, and isn't a separate religion. It's interesting to watch from afar.

You've got a strong start there, and yes, that feeling that you have about the Sri Lankans (Sinhalese as they are commonly referred to) being batshit crazy is mostly shared by the other Buddhist divisions. The Tibetans also get the exemption because somehow they took Buddhism and turned it into a feudalistic theocracy, despite the fact Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha before he was Buddha, renounced his royal titles to seek enlightenment. It's because of this hypocrisy that many Buddhists remain apathetic or even opposed to the Dalai Lama, and to the situation in Tibet.

Theravada doctrine is centred on self-enlightenment as the Buddha achieved it himself, which means retreats, meditation, and a rigid interpretation of the Tripitaka (i.e. three baskets; the central canon of Buddhism). This means Theravada clergy are largely passive and rely on the goodwill of their attached communities to survive. A Theravada monk never demands or asks anything of material value, he takes only what is offered and nothing more. Whether a monk gives sermon or instruction is entirely dependent on the type of monastery established - 'parish' monasteries will give perhaps one or two sermons a week to the local community, while 'shrine' monasteries might be totally devoted to meditation or give sermons privately to benefactors. Despite their conservative outlook on Buddhist canon, the Theravada clergy are among the most tolerant and accepting of technological and cultural change, mostly due to their single-minded goal of enlightenment.

Mahayana doctrine on the other hand is the complete opposite, favouring direct interaction with lay people and a kind of mysticism a Theravada would frown at. This is the doctrine you see most in East Asia with the Buddha sporting long ears and large paunch. They take the divine and supernatural aspect of the Buddha's life to be truth, ascribing the Buddha to celestial demi-god status. A Buddhist monastery dedicated to Mahayana tradition will be holding some kind of festival every other week, some blended in with local tradition. It is this malleability of doctrine that Mahayana takes root so quickly in many countries - not to mention the myriad sects and cults that pop up with it as a foundation. Those cherry-picked western interpretations? Most of those picked rules come from Mahayana interpretation.

 

[Gramh]

People both crave and despise structure depending on if it is a net benefit or not. So naturally religion falls into this hole, and people try to extrapolate all the fun hope of meaning for life from the rules that they don't want to abide by and will do increasingly more dynamic mental acrobatics to adjust doctrine accordingly.

 

[Irrelevant]

A big deal with the Reformation was that a lot of people couldn't take the crazy Catholic miracle magic seriously anymore. The hardcore Calvinists/Puritans wanted it all gone and for there to only be a pure autistic "scientific" Christianity but most people didn't like that either so the various branches of Protestantism ended up being designed to allow people to cherrypick to stop the fighting.

 

[Syaoran Li]

A big deal with the Reformation was that a lot of people couldn't take the crazy Catholic miracle magic seriously anymore. The hardcore Calvinists/Puritans wanted it all gone and for there to only be a pure autistic "scientific" Christianity but most people didn't like that either so the various branches of Protestantism ended up being designed to allow people to cherrypick to stop the fighting.

Ironically, the Calvinists and Puritans probably did more to damage the staying power of Christianity in the long run than the Catholic Church ever could, even with all the corruption taken into account. They were so fixated on purifying the Christian faith to an extremely autistic degree, and it ultimately turned counterproductive.

Even now, the United States is still still dealing with the fallout of the Religious Right and the Evangelical Protestants, who were essentially the 20th Century Puritans and owed a lot to Calvinist and Reformed theology.

The rise and fall of the old Religious Right is one of the biggest reasons for the rise of the SJW zeitgeist of the 2010's alongside the Great Recession/Occupy Wall Street and the corruption of academia reaching its zenith.

One of the biggest reasons why so many who hate the modern Left but are otherwise liberal, centrist/moderate, or mildly conservative refuse to associate with the GOP or the wider conservative movement is largely due to the Bible-thumping traditionalists in the old Religious Right and how the GOP spent the better part of three decades pandering to them until the law of diminishing returns became too obvious for them to ignore. The close ties they had with the neocons in the 90's and 2000's didn't help their image either.

Even after being dead for more than a decade, a lot of people still don't like the fundies and don't want them to make any sort of comeback, and the SJW's and fedora-tipping atheists still invoke them as a boogeyman long after they lost any influence outside of a few geezer incumbents in the Bible Belt.

Edgy internet "traditionalists" going on inane tirades about "degeneracy" really aren't helping their case, and really come off as pathetic LARP'ers who just want to be the Catholic equivalent of the fundies from their childhood and teen years.

The only reason why society was ever "traditionalist" was because the Church was often coupled with political power and were able to use government to enforce their morals. In the Islamic world, this is still largely true, which is why Islamic fundies are a lot more hardcore than Christian fundies.

 

[dirtydeanna96]

I Think Muslims have the right idea.
i've got a couple Muslim friends, and they think I
(a protestant) am wrong for drinking beer, but don't see it as their job to correct me
i specifically mentioned Yonah Bex, a Jew living with two unmarried men, and who eats lobster for passover.
one Islamic friend has a brother who is homosexual,
same response. we all worship allah, allah will judge us all.
it's a lot more reasonable than people of my own faith who beat people over the head for this and that.


Matthew 7:3-5 ESV
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

There is a difference between "context-independent commands" (religious tenets that apply universally, across all times and places) and "context-dependent applications" (religious tenets that only apply situationally, in specific times and/or places)

The big debates within any religion are which tenets are universal and which are only situational.

 

[Watermelanin]

One common doctrine among many Christian denominations is that salvation comes from faith, not works. The commandments aren't "follow these rules or you will go to hell." They're seen more as a set of practices to lead you on the right path. ONLY Jesus can save you. And he has the power to save ANYONE so long as they accept that salvation.
It's generally assumed that someone who truly accepts Jesus into their heart would gladly follow the commandments without fear of repercussion. But failure to do so doesn't necessarily put you on the naughty list. It's just a sign that you must seek to strengthen your bond with Him.

 

[Terrorist]

"I'm spiritual but not religious" is code for "I only believe in whatever feels good to me at the time but don't have the balls to be a nihilist". A S-B-N-R person's "God" never demands he changes his life or holds a moral principle the person finds it hard to live up to.

 

[Syaoran Li]

"I'm spiritual but not religious" is code for "I only believe in whatever feels good to me at the time but don't have the balls to be a nihilist". A S-B-N-R person's "God" never demands he changes his life or holds a moral principle the person finds it hard to live up to.

True, but I can't blame those people. Traditionalists are miserable in their own right, but nobody wants to be seen as an atheist unless they're a clueless fedora man or a literal godless commie.

People were at least every bit as miserable under traditionalism as they are under hedonism, if not more miserable, just for slightly different reasons.

The idea that everyone was genuinely happier as fun-hating and self-flagellating puritans living in constant fear of eternal damnation is a revisionist myth based on a romanticized version of history that never really existed outside of Chick Tracts and Norman Rockwell paintings.

Really, life sucks no matter what and it's up to us as individuals to make it suck a little less. If you find self-fulfillment in Christian traditionalism, more power to you. But nobody in their right mind wants America to become the Christian version of Saudi Arabia.

You might find the old fundies to be milquetoast, but they were bad enough in the eyes of most Americans to effectively kill or at least severely cripple conservatism for decades, even if most of their power came from the neocons who backed them.

The only reason why society was more "trad" in previous years was through political backing of the churches, since both the church and the state could mutually benefit from it.

This dynamic never ended in the Middle East, which is why Islam is way more hardliner and less mellowed out compared to Christianity.

God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and He probably has a lot more pressing concerns than the behavior of insignificant mortals like you and me.

Let me put it this way, God caring about humanity is like us giving a shit about what deep sea bacteria does in its spare time. Why would He care about it? God is way above our processing power, just like humans are above the animals and plants when it comes to sapience.

 

[Emperor Julian]

Well the books where all written centuries ago by people with completly differant fears and concearns so expecting 21st century people to ascribe perfectly to bronze age cultures values is pretty unrealistic. Nevermind that their are broad variety of sins not mentioned in the book simply because they hadnt been created yet,

The quest to return to ancient purity is self-defeating since we cannot even conceive of what that would look like. Personally I'd recommend dropping the whole thing and being a non-alligned monotheist, but honestly you can ascribe to general principles and insights without worrying about the often disturbing minutae.