Why are you reading the bible?

"Do you want to know what a hipster in Glasgow talks about?

"The hipsters in Glasgow stay up until all hours discussing Biblical matters. That is how they greet the dawn in spring. But they still get up four hours later to see how their private world is affected by commerce and necessity.

"The hipsters in Hillhead stay up to talk about Jesus, and how he felt about hipsters. All conjecture you must understand, because the straights that wrote the bible pretty much passed over it.

"But Jesus thought about them because he thought about all things. If all he said and did was written, then there would be no volume large enough to contain all the detail.

"So they ponder in dialect. And the dawn creeps up on them, reminding them to go to sleep for a few hours. Hopefully, the feeling they had on shutting their eyes is the feeling that will persist until nine. For it is then that their youthful ideals will be put to the test. When they come up against the commercial world and the awakening activity of everyday life.

"The hipsters will stay up to talk about things that concern them. When they wake up, they will weave their path through people shopping, signing on, visiting hospitals and cutting back grass. Though really it is not fair to call them hipsters, because that is still a slur.

"With fondness, I think about the hipsters beavering away in coolness. Because I'm looking upon a framed picture of where they live. It's one of my favourite pictures, and the change of season doesn't change the overall effect too much. The leaves are not on teh trees, but the colour of the sandstone is pretty enough. It seems grey and quiet in the picture, but I know for a fact there are a thousand Saturday meals being made and a thousand Saturday plans being hatched to drink and be senseless. Till the gentle tug of the working week brings sense to bear."

--Sleeve Notes from Belle & Sebastian's "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant"

What, you think you're in Glasgow now?

Aren't we all in Glasgow when you really think about it?

I'd rather we all be in San Francisco on the deck of this huge bar in China Basin that I used to go to with people I liked. It's big. We'd fit.

All right, let's go!

You seem to have it appropriately ass about face; you will find no violence in Jesus' teachings. The Old Testament is a different thing altogether, and is complex and confusing for complex and confusing reasons.

This girl has a beautiful ass.

John Malone

"you will find no violence in Jesus' teachings."

I believe that's exactly what I said. Jesus is completely anti-hate. Once you read past the Gospels though, Paul pretty much gets Christianity right back on the Old Testament's hate wagon.

ass about face???

British for "ass backwards." It's a nice image, isn't it?

Well, that's Jesus for you. He's here to tell you to believe in the next world, because world around you isn't the important world. However, keep in mind, there's a big difference between taking a sword to a notion of reality and taking a sword to a person. When his followers tried to take up arms in his defense, Jesus told them not to in no uncertain terms. And he said that you should never strike back and someone who would strike you.

I hope those aren't roses. Still, the photographer is a crackshot!

And the only time Jesus ever showed anger was when people used his father's temple for monetary purposes. Paul and the other apostles did some things not as wise later on. Good observations AM.

Heh, heh! Crackshot!!

Although Jesus was generally peaceful, he did occasionally slip up—as he did, for example, in this almost-never-quoted verse:

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me.

—Luke 19:27

Well, Len.... that's not exactly Jesus talking. Those words are spoken by the nobleman in the parable Jesus is telling.

From my reading of the passage, it seems that the parable of the nobleman is told in verses 12–25, and verses 26 and 27 are Jesus's conclusion and moral of the parable....

26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me.

But there's enough ambiguity in the passage that you may be right.

Interesting. The NIV translation definitely puts it in quotes, as the the nobleman's speech.

See, this is why Jesus should have used puppets and different voices when delivering his parables. Otherwise, there's room for confusion.

You hit it, AMD.

The New Testament replaces the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. (Although, depending on who you talk to, the Old Covenant of course still applies to Jews.)

The Gospels are a thin part of a big book, and they tell the same story four different ways. But they're the real meat of the whole religion.

After that, it's mostly Paul saying whatever he has to to organize and recruit for the early Christian Church, and then the whole thing collapses into the eschatalogical lunacy of Revelation. (This is your Bible on acid.)

The hate comes from wanting excuses to hate, not from the teachings of Jesus. (BTW, didja know the whole "eye for an eye" thing was lifted from the Code of Hammurabi?)

--Tim Mitchell
"Lighten The Fuck Up" Christian
Enjoys blowjobs, says "cunt" a lot, loves pictures of beautiful asses, always gives the homeless guy a buck.

Yeah, I hate that Paul and Peter are so beloved as the founders of Christianity. Peter misunderstood just about everything Jesus ever told him while he was alive. And Paul was a full time of persecutor of Christians, before he switched teams. Now these guys are the lenses through which most of contemporary Christians view their savior.

Christianity should begin and end with the Gospels.

Oh, and Lenken, you raise an interesting point.

People tend to concentrate on the divinity of Christ, and ignore his humanity. Jesus felt fear, anger (there were the moneylenders in the temple, too), love, pain -- the emotions of a human being. IMO, that's part of the point. God seeing for himself what we go through.

I will never forgive Gibson for putting Satan in Gethsemane. There was Jesus experiencing fear, and doubt. He didn't want to go through with it. He was, frankly, scared shitless. He was at his most human.

I don't give a damn if other people are Christians or not, frankly. But I do ask they recognize the story as one of a good man being killed by the state for being a revolutionary and a poet. The tradition continues.

Oh yeah, without the humanity, we wouldn't be able to relate to Jesus at all. My favorite bit is when Jesus is alone in the Gethsemane, telling God he doesn't want to die, because he's not sure he believes.

I strongly urge you to Google up a poem called "Ecce Homo" by David Gascoyne.

Others may enjoy it too, beliefs aside. (Gascoyne was one of the early surrealist poets.)

"That man's long journey through the night
May not have been in vain."

Very nice....

But Jesus cursed the poor fig tree in Mark 11:12 and it was dead by 11:20. All because he couldn't get fruit from it. Jesus apparently hated poor non-fruit-bearing trees. :(

Maybe you should open a new website for religious debate. This one sure hit the button. By the way,I translated from the English;for ass about face, read arse. Pace our colonial readers. Oh bugger it, that's pah-chay for non-Latin scholars.

Why is nobody else admiring the ass itself?

John Malone