[Vision2020] Jesus did NOT "not say it" 3

[Joe Campbell]

I realize that this response is very late, Princess but I just wanted to respond to a few of the points you made in your last correspondence to me.

You write below that "we shouldn't pick and choose among the rules/guidelines that we recognize as authoritative." This reminds me of similar criticisms that I've heard from Doug Wilson and other religious fundamentalists. The central claim is that folks who take a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible are motivated by truth and moral considerations only and that all of us other folks are motivated by selfish considerations.

Here's what I find ironic about this criticism. You are against gay marriage, you think that certain instances of slavery have a Biblical justification, and you favor a religious view in which men are deemed superior to women. How surprising is any of this given that you, I assume, are a straight, white male? 

I on the other hand am against gay marriage, against slavery in all forms, and believe that all men and women are equal. Yet I am a straight, white male, too! Now I don't want to make any allegations but it seems to me that if one of us was picking a religion that served his own selfish interests it wouldn't be me.

You also write that "wisdom is never optional but rather obligatory" and with this point I entirely agree! It is interesting, for instance, that "philosophy" literally means "love of wisdom." It is also worth noting that this semester I'm teaching both a logic class and a metaphysics seminar. Care to join me?

--
Joe Campbell

---- Taro Tanaka <taro_tanaka at hotmail.com> wrote: 

=============
I can agree that 1) we should read the Bible according to a biblical 
hermeneutic, and 2) we shouldn't pick and choose among the rules/guidelines 
that we recognize as authoritative (as you seem to be doing). Even where the 
Bible gives us guidelines (which it does in places, along with 
unequivocating commendments in other places), following the guidelines is 
wisdom, and wisdom is never optional but rather obligatory.

-- Princess Sushitushi

Joe Campbell <joekc at adelphia.net> wrote:
[[ By a "literal, fundamentalist interpretation of biblical passages" I mean 
an interpretation which treats the Bible as a rule book instead of a guide 
book, one that continually harps on a small number of passages condemning 
"homosexuality" yet ignores the many that suggest that we should love thy 
neighbor as thyself. ]]

>---- Taro Tanaka <taro_tanaka at hotmail.com> wrote:
>Joe Campbell <joekc at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> >But it just doesn't follow from this that one should take a literal,
> >fundamentalist interpretation of all Biblical passages.
>
>Joe, if I knew what constitutes a "literal, fundamentalist interpretation 
>of
>biblical passages," I might be able to say whether I agree or disagree with
>what you wrote.
>
>-- Princess Sushitushi

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