Why Christianity Must Change or Die

[kayky]

This is the title of one of John Shelby Spong's most well-known books. Spong refers to himself as "a believer in exile" because he can no longer relate to "orthodox" Christianity. Many thinking Christians identify with this position completely.

Consider the following passage from this book:

Creedal language comes out of another time. It reflects assumptions that this generation can no longer make. It thus employs a language that is not native to us. If we could just cease being believers, these problems would disappear. But some of us cannot cease believing. God is too real for us. We also cannot resign from our modern world or close our minds to its insights. We cannot pretend that we live in the first century. We cannot park our brains at the door of our places of worship in order to accept as real the words that were used to interpret God in years past but can no longer today illumine our understanding of God.

Is it time for forward-thinking denominations to rewrite the Nicene Creed in order to reflect a modern understanding of Christianity?

[kayky]

Did you know there is a correlation between pornography (which liberal legislators have long supported) and violence? How does that work for you and your liberal Utopia?

Easyrider, I am not going to allow you to hijack this thread. There is another place on this site for political discussions. If you want to respond to something that actually relates to this thread, you might want to check out my response to your first post here. You know, the big cut and paste job.

[Scotracer]

Did you know there is a correlation between pornography (which liberal legislators have long supported) and violence? How does that work for you and your liberal Utopia?

No there isn't. In fact a study has shown that the states in the US with the highest access to the internet have the lowest rape figures...and what's the most used thing on the internet? Yup!

Here's the data for you (you better appreciate because that was one terrorising google results page ):

http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.e ... s/porn.pdf

[McCulloch]

Did you know there is a correlation between pornography (which liberal legislators have long supported) and violence? How does that work for you and your liberal Utopia?

Let's carry on the political part of this debate over in the Politics and Religion forum.

DCR: Debate, "Is there such a thing as Liberal Fundamentalism?"

[Jebus]

Did you know there is a correlation between pornography (which liberal legislators have long supported) and violence? How does that work for you and your liberal Utopia?

No there isn't. In fact a study has shown that the states in the US with the highest access to the internet have the lowest rape figures...and what's the most used thing on the internet? Yup!

Here's the data for you (you better appreciate because that was one terrorising google results page ):

http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.e ... s/porn.pdf

Easyrider, I just need to confirm Mr Scotracer point here. This is a well known fact and it has been research heavily, where in the name of god did you get the complete opposite from?

[Easyrider]

Did you know there is a correlation between pornography (which liberal legislators have long supported) and violence? How does that work for you and your liberal Utopia?

No there isn't. In fact a study has shown that the states in the US with the highest access to the internet have the lowest rape figures...and what's the most used thing on the internet? Yup!

Here's the data for you (you better appreciate because that was one terrorising google results page ):

http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.e ... s/porn.pdf

Easyrider, I just need to confirm Mr Scotracer point here. This is a well known fact and it has been research heavily, where in the name of god did you get the complete opposite from?

Your research is incomplete at best.

For instance,

Psychologist Edward Donnerstein (University of Wisconsin) found that brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social attitudes and behavior. Male viewers tend to be more aggressive towards women, less responsive to pain and suffering of rape victims, and more willing to accept various myths about rape.1

Dr. Dolf Zimmerman and Dr. Jennings Bryant showed that continued exposure to pornography had serious adverse effects on beliefs about sexuality in general and on attitudes toward women in particular. They also found that pornography desensitizes people to rape as a criminal offense.2

These researchers also found that massive exposure to pornography encourages a desire for increasingly deviant materials which involve violence, like sadomasochism and rape.3

Feminist author Diana Russell notes in her book Rape and Marriage the correlation between deviant behavior (including abuse) and pornography. She also found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.4

Researcher Victor Cline (University of Utah) has documented in his research how men become addicted to pornographic materials, begin to desire more explicit or deviant material, and end up acting out what they have seen.5

According to Charles Keating of Citizens for Decency Through Law, research reveals that 77 percent of child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls admitted imitating the sexual behavior they had seen modeled in pornography.

Sociologists Murray Straus and Larry Baron (University of New Hampshire) found that rape rates are highest in states which have high sales of sex magazines and lax enforcement of pornography laws.6

Michigan state police detective Darrell Pope found that of the 38,000 sexual assault cases in Michigan (1956-1979), in 41 percent of the cases pornographic material was viewed just prior to or during the crime. This agrees with research done by psychotherapist David Scott who found that half the rapists studied used pornography to arouse themselves immediately prior to seeking out a victim.

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0 ... ograp.html

***Sexual Assault & Pornography: The Links***

(This is one of six fact sheets on the topic of sexual assault prepared by the
Ontario Women's Directorate, 1992.)

Numerous research studies have highlighted the links between pornography and
sexual assault.

Pornography is defined as sexually explicit material that portrays and
endorses degrading or abusive sexual behaviour (1).

Sexual assault is defined here as any unwanted act of a sexual nature.

FACTS TO CONSIDER:

A study of sex offenders reported that 56 per cent of the rapists and 42 per
cent of the child molesters in the sample said that pornography played a role
in their offenses (2).

http://www.ncf.ca/ip/social.services/ra ... /porno.txt

And it's a well know fact that in countless cases of where pedophiles were arrested for sexual assaults on children, child porn was common on their computers or in other materials.

Using a sample of 685 male patients referred to CAMH between 1995 and 2004, the study showed that 61% of child pornography offenders, 35% of offenders with child victims, 13% of offenders with adult victims, and 22% of general sexology patients met diagnostic criteria for pedophilia by showing greater sexual arousal to stimuli depicting children than to stimuli depicting adults in the laboratory. In other words, child pornography offenders were almost twice as likely of being identified as a pedophile, compared to the participants identified as offenders against children (sexual offenses against children 14 or young)

The results indicate that child pornography offending is a valid diagnostic indicator of pedophilia. This group was significantly more likely to show a pedophilic pattern of sexual arousal during testing compared to the other study groups. The results suggest that child pornography offending might be a stronger indicator of pedophilia than is sexually offending against a child. In fact, child pornography offenders - regardless of whether they had a history of sexual offenses against children - were more likely than child offenders to show a pattern of sexual arousal consistent with the pattern of identified pedophiles.

http://www.camh.net/Research/Research_p ... hilia.html

[Easyrider]

Are you trying to turn this into a political discussion? The topic is Christianity, not political ideologies. I refer you back to the OP.

You've been ranting about religious fundamentalism. I'm showing you there's a different kind of fundamentalism (liberal fundamentalism) that's the real culprit.

If people followed the teachings of Christ, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did he not teach people to love their neighbors as themselves?

And don't try to tell me religion (specifically Christianity) is at the center of a lot of violence and hatred. Rather, it's the violation of Christian principles that is the cause of that.

[McCulloch]

If people followed the teachings of Christ, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did he not teach people to love their neighbors as themselves?

How long do we wait for the Christians to get it right? Another thousand years? If people followed the principles of humanism, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did we not teach people to respect our common humanity?

And don't try to tell me religion (specifically Christianity) is at the center of a lot of violence and hatred. Rather, it's the violation of Christian principles that is the cause of that.

No, it is dogmatic intolerance that is the cause of all that. Christianity with its idea that one can only come to the Father through the Son (Jesus), embodies dogmatic intolerance. It is the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment (consent of the governed, elimination of class privilege, elimination of slavery and serfdom, free speech, gender equality and separation of church and state) as opposed to the corresponding Biblical Christian ideals of divine right of kings, acceptance of your class, toleration of slavery, dogmatism, subjugation of women and religious influenced government (OK the last one is not Biblical but merely historical), that can be a cause of political unrest and violation of rights.

[Fallibleone]

Are you trying to turn this into a political discussion? The topic is Christianity, not political ideologies. I refer you back to the OP.

You've been ranting about religious fundamentalism. I'm showing you there's a different kind of fundamentalism (liberal fundamentalism) that's the real culprit.

If people followed the teachings of Christ, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did he not teach people to love their neighbors as themselves?

And don't try to tell me religion (specifically Christianity) is at the center of a lot of violence and hatred. Rather, it's the violation of Christian principles that is the cause of that.

Like charity, societal improvement starts at home. So over to you, Easyrider, to start loving your neighbour as yourself and to stop demonising a large percentage of your countrymen and women and many of the users of this forum with your unsubstantiated claims of 'liberal fundamentalism' and the apparent damage it does. I'm fairly sure that Jesus didn't preach the blatant misrepresentation of the wants of people you disagree with in order to win a debate, but hey I could be wrong.

[JoeyKnothead]

If people followed the teachings of Christ, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did he not teach people to love their neighbors as themselves?

How long do we wait for the Christians to get it right? Another thousand years? If people followed the principles of humanism, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did we not teach people to respect our common humanity?

And don't try to tell me religion (specifically Christianity) is at the center of a lot of violence and hatred. Rather, it's the violation of Christian principles that is the cause of that.

No, it is dogmatic intolerance that is the cause of all that. Christianity with its idea that one can only come to the Father through the Son (Jesus), embodies dogmatic intolerance. It is the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment (consent of the governed, elimination of class privilege, elimination of slavery and serfdom, free speech, gender equality and separation of church and state) as opposed to the corresponding Biblical Christian ideals of divine right of kings, acceptance of your class, toleration of slavery, dogmatism, subjugation of women and religious influenced government (OK the last one is not Biblical but merely historical), that can be a cause of political unrest and violation of rights.

Now that's a reply right there.

My concern here is that folks are basing their understanding of the here and now on what folks wrote in the there and then. If we continue to allow religion this great reverence over what we think and do, then we condemn ourselves to remain ancients in all we do.

[Easyrider]

If people followed the teachings of Christ, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did he not teach people to love their neighbors as themselves?

How long do we wait for the Christians to get it right? Another thousand years? If people followed the principles of humanism, there would be no more murder, no more wars, and no more violence against others. And that's a fact. After all, did we not teach people to respect our common humanity?

Sinless humanists? <chuckle>I like our chances better. At least we will get to heaven and be raised "incorruptable." You won't.

And don't try to tell me religion (specifically Christianity) is at the center of a lot of violence and hatred. Rather, it's the violation of Christian principles that is the cause of that.

Christianity with its idea that one can only come to the Father through the Son (Jesus), embodies dogmatic intolerance.

That's pretty dogmatic of you to say that! Sounds like your not real tolerant of the idea.