Amazing that you expect ME to read YOUR post in the context and humour in which it was "intended", yet you fail to do the same for me. On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 6:37 AM, Rick Moen via luv-talk <luv-talk@luv.asn.au
wrote:
Quoting Michael Scott (mds@inoz.net):
Rick, without elucidating on every point of your colourful "response", what I take offense to is not that you expressed your opinion on luv-talk.
In that regard, for context, please remember that I was responding to Trent Buck saying _he_ found the Bible inpenetrable after a few pages, i.e., was not able to read far into it. Therefore, I was replying back to Trent (Cc to the luv-talk assembled, of course) suggesting _another_ way to approach reading the Bible that could render it appealing, i.e., by interpreting it using a secular framing, seeing it in light of politics and local history and literature, rather than through the interpretive lens of religion.
IMO, it really should not have been necessary to salt and pepper my prose with 'Of course, this is par-excellence NOT the only way to read the Bible, for many, many reasons including people starting with radically different assumptions about the universe than mine, e.g., those, not to put a fine point on it, who are devout and for whom this is a holy book. For gosh sake, wasn't that obvious enough without my needing to expostulate about it personally?
You did more than just advise Trent another way of looking at it. Given that it IS a "religious" text, written in the first case for the Jewish people, and later for Christians, maybe it should be interpreted in the context in which it was written, rather than as a history textbook.
It is that if _I_ came on luv-talk expressing my opinion about the Bible, about Christianity, about a certain kind of "Christian", I would probably be howled off, because I hold the views of a Christian, so I would be seen as "bible-bashing", "evangelising?", annoyingly expressing my religion in public.
Once again, you appear to be confusing the verb 'evangelise' with the adjective (and noun) 'evangelical', even though those are extremely different things. I will make no apology whatsoever for saying I find evangelicals very alien to customary, traditional, and otherwise universal characteristics of Christianity.
No, I'm not. If _I_ came on expressing my opinion of something Christian,
I might be evangelising, but be seen as being evangelical in your eyes. Either way, it would probably not be accepted by most of the audience.
You aren't even an evangelical, so why the Gehenna are you offended? The strange subtype of alleged-Christianity of which I wrote isn't yours at all (you say).
Here's where we might be confusing each other. Evangelising is INSTRUCTED in the New Testament. If I express my religious beliefs I may be seen as evangelical to you, but not to me. I'm simply expressing my religious beliefs. You're putting labels on different "types of Christians", where I'm saying that some who identify as "Christian" are not following the teachings of the Bible. You've rounded them into your definition of "evangelical". I'm saying I'm not one of the ignorant people who identify themselves as Christian but do not follow the teachings of the person they claim to follow. Label me with anything you like. I told you WHAT offended me. Not WHO offended me. If YOU can't see that, you're doing just what you're criticising me for.
But those who come from the opposite end of the spectrum, who agree in the negative, can BASH the Bible and Christianity with impunity, without expecting any negative response.
Au contraire, Michael. Go back and read again what I wrote. You will find that I neither 'bashed the Bible' nor 'bashed Christianity'. So, stick your offense-taking in a pipe and smoke it, sir.
I used "bash" in a broad sense to show the IRONY of the term "bible-bashing". You said what you thought of the Bible, in no uncertain terms.
(Well, there was one small exception, the bit where I was startled by an Israeli asserting that I am 'a Christian' simply because I had mentioned observing Christmas as a secular holiday for the first ten years of my life until my father, Pan American World Airways Captain Arthur Moen, was killed in an airplane crash caused by employer negligence at Christmas 1968. My subsequent swipe at Christianity as a 'Middle-Eastern death cult' was just a bit unkind, but IMO was forgivable because it was also witty. If you cannot look past that one ideological sharp slap, then you're far too hypersensitive, and the hell with you.)
There you go again, missing the whole context of my original post. Hypersensitive? I told you where I was coming from. Standing back and watching swipes at the Bible, at Christianity, every day, and saying nothing. Not being allowed to mention religion...it's just not done... but atheists can do it with impunity.... did you miss that point? Hypersensitive?
And you, in one fell swoop, did a nice summary of BASHING the Bible in one email, in response to Russell bashing one kind of "christian" and the Bible.
If you call that bashing the Bible and bashing Christianity, then you need to learn to read better, because it simply wasn't.
Again, as I said, I was using the term "bash" to show the irony.
Yes, you're right, there is a difference between evangelical and evangelising. They ARE different. But the discussion about evangelical "christians" turned to why a certain group don't read the Bible.
Which I objected to Russell saying, please note, because it was illogically arrived at and simply untrue. So, I was ON YOUR SIDE on that matter, yet you're complaining? Really?
Again, I was responding to both you and Russell at the same time. I DID say that I applauded you.
I wasn't offended by you.
Well, you have a really peculiar way of reflecting that.
Who's hypersensitive?
Again, in this latest post, you have expressed opinion as fact
Bullshit. Flagrant bullshit.
Nope.... I don't know what happened in Moses' time, neither do you, and
archeology is finding evidence of all sorts of things all the time. Don't accuse me of ignoring science while science catches up every day. It certainly hasn't disproved the Bible account. How you read the Bible account, literally, figuratively, differently depending on what evidence turns up, can shape your view of WHAT was written.
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