(Christian) Domestic Discipline (sens re abuse?)

What a very depressing, limiting set of beliefs this discipline stuff is. It makes me sad to think that there are people who genuininely believe this.

What I can't help coming away with is a slightly resigned feeling that if you want to be kind to people and love them you'll do just that and may choose to explain it through your religious beliefs. And if you want to abuse people, you'll do that and equally explain why you do it based on your religious beliefs. When the sad truth is that people behave well and people behave crappily and religion is neither her nor there in why they do it...?

Re the Domestic Discipline thing, it's a total beard. Sadists, masochists, all manner of mind games and power brokering in relationships. For many I'm sure it's abuse, specifically when one partner feel powerless to alter the arrangement, but for a proportion (and I'd suggest a significant proportion) it's going to be an emotional/sexual buzz.

The Holocaust is surely not a major religious conflict (unless it's argued that Nazism was a religion) - Jews were persecuted on racial rather than religious grounds in the sense that you wouldn't get yourself off a train to a concentration camp by converting to Christianity/by being an atheist in the first place (actually many of the Jewish intellectuals who fled to London and other places were atheists, e.g. Freud).

I do agree with Knownowt as well about the tribal thing.

PP, i m really not sure why youre makign such a sarcastic and tiresome reply to me (genuine) question. However, since you have, I feel compelled to address it. You're right, I do have little idea what christians believe and this is principally because in my experience all christians believe something different and mould their belief to what suits them both morally, spiritually and in terms of their lifestyle.

and come on, derail the thread? you yourself have pointed out on numerous occasions in response to that every statement that in any given thread, other questions come up, small alternative conversations happen etc.

lastly, my questions had nothing to do with "is there a god" and was based on the same subject you were challenigng yourself ie religion/war/disease etc and since you asserted that it was your right to challenge jules about her statement, it is equally my right to challenge yours without being accused of "derailing" or treated like some child who keeps asking the same question over and over.

But as I've said many many times on here, the whole point of Christianity is that there are no set rules. Believe in Christ as son of God and saviour and treat others as you would be treated. That's it.

God gave guidelines to the Jews (10 Commandments) but by the time of Christ some Jews had turned that into a whole long list of dos and don'ts and lost the point of the whole thing. So when Jesus came, he said forget the past, all you need to do now is love god and love your neighbour. If you benchmark everything against that you can't go far wrong. Except once again, organisations form to try and interpret what that means, which is why you get denominations and discussion and differences of belief.

but as you demonstrate by that statement, thats YOUR interpretation. some stick to the letter of the bible, others some parts, some not much of it. it seems to be a moveable feast and is one reason why i find it so frustrating.

your faith is your own, and thats fine, i respect that, but i cant understand it.

It's an interesting dicussion - re. the moveable feast bit, what makes Christianity different from many other religions (most notably Islam*) is that we don't actually have much of what God said, the Bible is all written by men and the selection of those was a bit arbitrary. So, in a sense it has to be a moveable feast because there's no absolute authority, much of it will be a matter of interpretation unless you set up someone on earth to have that authority (like the Pope). Of course I also agree that people have used this lack of clarity and absolute guidance on every matter to create a version of Christianity that serves their own purpose, moral, political or (as in this CDD bit) as a pretext for abusing women. The lack of clarity I think you can criticise, but whether you can criticise a religion for individual people's misuse of it is a further question.

*which obviously has its own internal divisions, but the difference is that they believe they have access to the actual word of God

That's not just my interpretation, that's a pretty well accepted interpretation from theologians.

So why do so many peoples beliefs differ so much?

taking you as an example, you believe (correct me if i m wrong) that evolution/creationism are not mutually exclusive. i believe you take this position due to your sciencey background. some believe in evolution, some creationism. whilst the thrust of the faith seems to be similar in most christians, its the elements of it which differ so much. adam and eve/genesis etc/new testament. everyones different.

and zoays comment "not all religion is bollocks, only most of it" well, why do christians have a monopoly on whats "right"? what makes scientology different from christianity? nothing.

Because, as I said above, that's the core of it. The rest of it is about interpreting exactly what "love god and love your neighbour" means in practice. The Bible is a guide to that but that's also open to interpretation because of translation, context and the passing of time. And the fact that evolutionary science didn't exist when it was written.

There is nothing in the Bible defining creation. There's a story but most people accept that as an allegory. There's no description of genes or survival of the fittest or any of that but there's no alternative either, so it's something you have to interpret now.

It doesn't change the core principles. I don't see why you can only believe in a religion if it's one that has everything defined. No religions have that, not even Islam - some Muslims believe in jihad, most don't.

And with many of these things you get the views of a small but vocal group on the fringes of what most people accept as standard. In the same way you get the majority of scientists accepting climate change is manmade but a small and vocal contingent who disagree.

So that begs the question, why is there more than one religion?

what religion you follow is (mainly) purely an accident of birth / geography. nothing more.

There is one rather key difference - Unlike Hubbard, Jesus wasn't quoted as saying if you want to make a shedload of money, start a new religion ?

no, but at the time, social control was more important than money, and only that because people hadnt figured out that you can make money from religion.

oh, apart from the catholic church ?

btw, the quote is mythical.

Then stop asking the same questions over again. We've been over this ground countless times, to nobody's satisfaction. The original premise was to do with "religion", not any particular faith or deity. As knownowt pointed out, it was an unquantifiable and faintly ridiculous statement from Jules, and all she need done was to admit that.

You're the one that chose to bring god into it.

I understood it's more that it's been quoted/paraphrased by so many sources no one knows for sure what was said, but I think Orwell may have said it first. Who knows, it certainly fits in with his thinking ?

The actual quote was "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."

In a reply at a science fiction association meeting in 1948, apparently.

Maybe ?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard

PP, if you dont want to respond to my questions, then dont. simple really. as i ve said to you before, i am trying to understand it, and my repetition of questions is to do with that, as i never receive satisfactory replies. so i can get this in before you do, lets leave it there ?

its unsubstantiated. plus, its based on the myth of a bet which is described quite well here

http://everything2.com/title/The%2520Heinlein%2520-%2520Hubbard%2520Wager%2520Myth

Fairy muff. I don't have enough of an interest in Scientology to have googled it any further. Besides, I slept last night so not looking for another CDD or FLDS subject today. ?