Why do people believe in astrology?

[Pappy13]

Well I may be wrong, but from what I remember on the topic, when you get a divorce. Then god would have you stay single and celibate as the course of action. If you do get remarried...

How can I get remarried?  According to you I'm still married to my 1st wife.  There IS no divorce.  Once married, ALWAYS married.  That's what you are saying.  That's what the Church is saying.  It's not adultery to have sex with my wife.  If we are still married than it's not adultery.

So which is it?  Are we still married or not?  You choose, but you have to pick one or the other, you can't have it both ways.

[badger6]

Because there are many other parts of the religion that I do believe in.  I'm not willing to throw out the whole religion just because I have a hard time with one particular aspect of what the Church says.

You keep saying the church. The bible makes it clear that marriage is until death. And if you break that commitment and continue into another, you are breaking a commandment.

I don't want this to be about me, but yes I do believe it.

Now let me ask you something.  Where in the ten commandments does it talk about divorce?  It doesn't.  Adultery is out, but what does adultery mean?  If we define adultery as a married person having sex with someone other than their spouse, which was not an uncommon definition back in the days when the bible was written, then am I commiting adultery?  No, I'm not having sex with anyone not considered my spouse.  Neither is my wife.  Neither is my ex wife.  The Church has decided that marriage is forever and can't be broken, but I think they are wrong.  I think it can be broken.  I'm not encouraging it and I don't think it should be broken on a whim or just because things get a little rough, but if one person no longer honors the marriage vows, then in effect the marriage is broken regardless of what the Church says.

No, it's not the church that has decided marriage is forever. The bible says that marriage is until death. So what your saying is that the ten commandments are the only sins. I would assume that anything that goes against Christ teachings is a sin !!!

“Whosoever shall put away  his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry  another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery” Matthew 19:9

[badger6]

How can I get remarried?  According to you I'm still married to my 1st wife.  There IS no divorce.  Once married, ALWAYS married.  That's what you are saying. 
That's what the Church is saying.  It's not adultery to have sex with my wife.  If we are still married than it's not adultery.

No, that's what the bible is saying. I'm just pointing that out to you and you don't like that part of it.

So which is it?  Are we still married or not?  You choose, but you have to pick one or the other, you can't have it both ways.

I don't want it either way. I don't believe in any of this stuff anyhow. The fact that a person gets divorced and remarried is adultery, is under god's law. Not only do you have to worry about god's law though, god instructs us to also follow mans law or the law of the land. Mans law says that you are married to your new wife not your old wife, so mans law says that you are commiting adultery if you sleep with your ex. Just because someone puts them self in a catch 22 situation doesn't make it less valid...........

[Phishfan]

It's been a while since I put on a suit of my own clothes
And even longer since I cast my shadow on a church house door
They say every sin is deadly but I believe they may be wrong
I'm guilty of all seven and I don't feel too bad at all



From Cottonseed by the Drive-By Truckers

[Pappy13]

You keep saying the church. The bible makes it clear that marriage is until death. And if you break that commitment and continue into another, you are breaking a commandment.

Which one?  I don't remember seeing the thou shall not divorce commandment.

No, it's not the church that has decided marriage is forever. The bible says that marriage is until death.

And the bible was written by men and is interpreted by the church in various ways for various religions.  Which one is correct? I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that I don't subscribe to it because it doesn't make sense to me.  My wife and I both said vows when we were married and I intended to fulfill those vows, but my wife didn't.  She decided to stop honoring her vows.  In my mind she ended the marriage. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I'll let God judge me in the end.

So what your saying is that the ten commandments are the only sins.

Of course not.  I'm saying those are the only "rules" that were directly written by God's hand.

I would assume that anything that goes against Christ teachings is a sin !!!

Agreed, but how do we know for certain what those teachings were?  We only have the bible and some other scripture that tell us what he said.  How do we know the bible is 100% correct?  How do we know it's being interpreted 100% correctly?

“Whosoever shall put away  his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry  another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery” Matthew 19:9

I'm not going to get into quoting the bible because I've already said that the bible is NOT the be all and end all to my beliefs.  The Bible isn't even 1 source, it's actually many sources.  Many different writings by many different people combined into 1 book.  There are several different versions of the Bible.  They were written thousands of years ago in another language and translated to English. Some things in parts of the bible don't match up exactly with other things in the bible, which are the "correct" passages?  Scholars and religious men far smarter than I have fought over just these questions for thousands of years.  Even today all Christians don't believe the same things. How can ANYONE claim to KNOW exactly what God intends for us.  We don't.  We have faith.  We have interpreted things the best we can and have tried to come up with the best possible answers and we have faith that they are correct, but there are no hard and fast answers, only opinions, much like these forums.

If it were as cut and dry as you are trying to make it, there would be no faith, we would simply know the truth and we wouldn't need faith at all.

[Pappy13]

I don't want it either way. I don't believe in any of this stuff anyhow.

Exactly.  You are attempting to create a catch 22 where one does not exist because you don't believe any of it.  I on the other hand am trying to make sense of it so that I can believe it.  Do I know I'm right?  No.  It's only my belief.

[badger6]

Exactly.  You are attempting to create a catch 22 where one does not exist because you don't believe any of it.  I on the other hand am trying to make sense of it so that I can believe it.  Do I know I'm right?  No.  It's only my belief.

I am not attacking you or what you believe personally. I am simply showing you why I don't believe in this stuff. In my opinion, a perfect god wouldn't make such ambiguous and vague communications with us lower life forms. He or it would make it clear what he wants and then there wouldn't be everyone doing and believing different things. As far as divorce and adultery, I could care less, unless it has to do with me personally. Anyhow, I think we killed this topic, unless anyone else chimes in. I think we know where each other stands.  You get the pearly gates and I get to burn the flames, bwahahahaha.

[Dave Gray]

Now let me ask you something.  Where in the ten commandments does it talk about divorce?  It doesn't.

You're right.  It doesn't.

But the ten commandments -- they come from the bible, don't they?  I mean, the reason that we hold those words as important, because the bible tells us those words.  It's not like we actually have the stone tablets.  The whole story of Moses and the tablets, isn't that from the bible?  (I actually am not sure, I'm not a bible expert.)

As for the divorce thing, I didn't bring that up -- I don't care about it, specifically.  I'm just illustrating the point that the bible says many things, yet Christians (unless they are total fundamentalists) are forced to reject some things that the bible says.  At that point, once you realize that the book is fallible, how can one hold on to the rest of the book as the ultimate truth?

[StL FinFan]

That's the whole faith thing, Dave.  It's between you and God.

[badger6]

You're right.  It doesn't.

But the ten commandments -- they come from the bible, don't they?  I mean, the reason that we hold those words as important, because the bible tells us those words.  It's not like we actually have the stone tablets.  The whole story of Moses and the tablets, isn't that from the bible?  (I actually am not sure, I'm not a bible expert.)

As for the divorce thing, I didn't bring that up -- I don't care about it, specifically.  I'm just illustrating the point that the bible says many things, yet Christians (unless they are total fundamentalists) are forced to reject some things that the bible says.  At that point, once you realize that the book is fallible, how can one hold on to the rest of the book as the ultimate truth?

Yea, I brought up the divorce thing Dave. I think it is one of the best topics to prove that most Christians will rationalize and defend things in their own interests, that the bible specifically prohibits. Most people, whether Christian or not, will blame the other spouse. People will pick and choose according to what suits them at any given moment. We all do it, Christians just have the unfortunate task of having to defend a belief system that their choices and actions go against. But in the end that is their choice !!!

[Pappy13]

But the ten commandments -- they come from the bible, don't they?  I mean, the reason that we hold those words as important, because the bible tells us those words.  It's not like we actually have the stone tablets.  The whole story of Moses and the tablets, isn't that from the bible?  (I actually am not sure, I'm not a bible expert.)

Correct, it comes from the Bible, but it's pretty consistent across multiple sources what the tablets said.  It's not quite like the Bible where there are multiple versions of it and multiple sources attributed to different commandments.  Pretty much it's unanimous that the Ten commandments came from God and that those 10 are the 10 that were on the tablets.  There are lots of different variations on the Bible and there are lots of opinions on who wrote various parts of the Bible.  There's so much in the Bible that it's pretty hard to verify the accuracy of most of it's contents.  With just 10 commandments, it's much easier to verify the accuracy.  We don't actually have the tablets, but if you believe there were tablets at one time, I think it would have been pretty easy to determine what was on them wouldn't you think?

I'm just illustrating the point that the bible says many things, yet Christians (unless they are total fundamentalists) are forced to reject some things that the bible says.

It's not so much rejecting what it says as much as it is differing on interpreting what was meant.  You are talking about 2 thousand years.  You are talking about a different language, in a different time, with different customs, different beliefs and a different culture.  Heck we have a hard time making sense of what Shakespeare meant at times and that's only a few hundred years old, do you really think that we could bring scripture forward 2000 years and know with 100% certainty what it says when we don't even have the original text but merely what people wrote down hundreds of years later?  It's like trying to translate Shakespeare 4 or 5 times over and expecting it to be 100% accurate.  That's a bit unrealistic.

So just because we're not certain that it's 100% accurate, we can reject all of it?  You can, but that's not any more logical than believing everything it says as 100% the truth.

[Pappy13]

I think it is one of the best topics to prove that most Christians will rationalize and defend things in their own interests, that the bible specifically prohibits.

Or in other words it's one of the best ways to rationalize not having faith.

[Pappy13]

In my opinion, a perfect god wouldn't make such ambiguous and vague communications with us lower life forms. He or it would make it clear what he wants and then there wouldn't be everyone doing and believing different things.

That would defeat the purpose.  God wants you to choose what to believe.  If he simply made everything known to everyone, then you really don't have a choice do you?  This way you have to choose what you want to believe.  It's tougher to believe when there is no evidence, but then that's the beauty of it too.  Believing with your heart and having faith rather than being told what's truth and being forced to accept it.

[Dave Gray]

So just because we're not certain that it's 100% accurate, we can reject all of it?  You can, but that's not any more logical than believing everything it says as 100% the truth.

You use the word accurate, but I don't really feel that's appropriate in my case.  I'm sure that the bible probably has some personal accounts of actual historical truths, but I don't feel that any of it is divine. 

As for the 10 commandments, I'm on board with many of them as good things, but I don't believe that there were ever stone tablets handed down from God. 

I was raised Catholic and went to church regularly and when I was very inquisitive, my Mom would always tell me that the stories weren't literal, but were instead just meant as parables from which to draw lessons.  That bought her a few years.  But at some point, you had to actually believe that God talked to Moses on a mountaintop.  I couldn't believe that.

[JVides]

Yea, I brought up the divorce thing Dave. I think it is one of the best topics to prove that most Christians will rationalize and defend things in their own interests, that the bible specifically prohibits. Most people, whether Christian or not, will blame the other spouse. People will pick and choose according to what suits them at any given moment. We all do it, Christians just have the unfortunate task of having to defend a belief system that their choices and actions go against. But in the end that is their choice !!!

I'm pretty certain that most faiths at the very least encourage marriage for life, if they don't outright demand it.  This isn't just a Christian phenomenon. 

I find it odd that the average hypocrite (And I don't necessarilly mean YOU, Badger, but in the end, aren't we all?) believes that religious people, through belief and conviction, should or will somehow rise above the human condition; whereas he/she, unburdened by such ties to faith, is free to ride the morally anbiguous ride of life without fear of reproach or the self satisfied sneers of "non-believers" who seem only so happy to shout "see, believer?  You're a heathen, just like ME!" at every misstep.  Must be nice.  Though I am not overly religious, I am a "Christian" by definition, and have no problem admitting to my failings and shortcomings; to the hypocrisy in my life.  I view the commandments and the few parables I remember as guideposts for a life well lived.  If I fail to live by any one or several of these guides, it will simply be a case of me not following instructions, so to speak, and no one else's fault but my own.