Christianity

I find Bible translation to be a hugely interesting topic. There are so many things that translators have to take into account.

For example: if the Bible uses graphic or explicit imagery, do you translate into equivalent English? Or do you tone it down, to avoid offending the sensibilities of delicate churchgoers?

Consider the King James rendering of 1 Kings 14:10 -

Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.

How do modern translations handle this? The NIV, in place of “him that pisseth against the wall”, has “every last male”.

Lame.

Now, watch a Baptist preacher take on this very subject (RSS readers click here to view):

(Originally found at Better Bibles Blog.)

Pete of Freaked Out Fathers has a very funny post (and a followup) featuring Bible scenes from the Brick Testament, which is the Bible recreated in Lego. Scenes depicting people rising from the dead show them as zombies! That’s right, Lego zombies. From the Bible. How cool is that?

The Brick Testament also depicts the beheading of John the Baptist, many gory scenes from the life of Moses, and this representation of the Last Supper:

Happy Easter, everyone.

Genesis 1 is a very interesting part of the Bible; the account of Creation, it is highly structured and artistic. God pronounces everything he does as “good” or “very good”. So God creates light on day one and sees that it is good, cos light is teh r0X0rs. (He then separated the light from the darkness, so before that they were mixed together, which is odd if you ask me.) Then on day three God creates vegetation, and that is pretty impressive too. (If you don’t agree, make something better.)

And so on for every day of creation – except for Day 2. What was wrong with Day 2? On Day 2 God created the sky. I can’t see anything wrong with the sky, but then again, I’m not a theologian.

Possible reasons why God had an off day:

1. He was blinded by the light He created the previous day, so He couldn’t see what He was doing.
2. Now that he had created an empty space, He had to fill it. (Birds are an afterthought and God doesn’t like them, especially pelicans.)
3. He had “Creator’s block” or similar.
4. The angels were antsy about the creation of light and didn’t feel God was giving them enough attention.
5. Separating the light from the darkness had given Satan somewhere to hide, which was somewhat distracting.

Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The God Delusion recently. As you could guess from the title, he is an atheist. He also wrote an article online called “Why there almost certainly isn’t a God”, which I will respond to rather than the book because you can read it online for free.

It is important for an atheist to shut the logic door on God completely. If the existence of God is possible, then divine revelation and miracles are possible, a state of events that is anathema to an atheist.

There are two questions that Dawkins fails to answer sufficiently. The first is the argument from experience. Dawkins dislikes the argument from experience, which is fine, until you realise that if he had experienced God himself, he wouldn’t be dissing the argument.

The most perplexing question for an atheist to answer is “How did the universe come into being without God?”. Dawkins throws his considerable intelligence at this question, but his answer left me flabbergasted. I could not believe the answer he gave for this foundational question of atheism.

Dawkins’ answer to the question is simply this: instead of a God, there are lots and lots of other universes out there. We happen to be in this one simply because it is capable of sustaining life, whereas the other universes are not. This is his alternative to an “improbable” God. Pity it has no evidence.

Which is more improbable, dear reader? The existence of God, or the existence of an almost infinite amount of alternate universes?

The atheist claims to have no evidence for God. In reality, there is tonnes and tonnes of evidence, enough to fill many books, but it is all anecdotal so the atheist won’t accept it. Incidentally, holocaust deniers won’t accept anecdotal evidence either, not even that of thousands of eyewitnesses. (Hardly a fair comparison I know, but you’ll notice that hasn’t stopped me from making it.)

I don’t think the existence of all those other universes would sufficiently answer the question anyway. If they were all there, the question would have to be asked: How did they all get there? Something like that doesn’t just happen, after all. What caused all those universes to come into being?

Is there an acceptable atheistic answer to the question? Perhaps, each universe gives birth to another as it dies, and so on, until the last universe gives birth to the first one, in an infinite loop. Thus we would have a closed system of universes with no divine loose ends. Which is fine, until someone asks, “Who or what set that up then?” and we are back where we started.

Ultimately there is only one logical end point to all this, or “beginning point” if you will. There is, as improbable as it may seem, an uncaused Creator.

Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot, who were previously found to have vilified Muslims under Australia’s stupidest piece of legislation, the anti-free-speech and anti-freedom-of-religion Racial And Religious Vilification Act (Victoria), have had the decision overturned. The Act had been passed in order to promote tolerance, by the ridiculous method of – wait for it – getting religious groups to sue each other. Because, as we all know, nothing promotes peace and brotherhood like a good lawsuit, right?

The way the law was drafted, anyone who is offended potentially has a case. Thus, speaking publicly about another religion in such a way that does not provide good PR for that religion is illegal in Victoria.

This, of course, means that if you do speak unfavourably about another religion and their clerics don’t like it, and you cannot afford a lawyer to defend yourself, either shut up, settle or risk losing everything. Are the claims that you made true? Irrelevant, my friend; truth is not a defence. Could there ever be a law that has a greater chilling effect on free speech than this one?

The law, as it stands, is a perfect weapon for litigious, moneyed religions and cults against smaller, less privileged groups.

Back to the case at hand: it’s not all good news. The case will be re-heard by the original tribunal.

Was the Court of Appeal too afraid of the political consequences to make a proper decision? If the original decision was bad, why not quash it all together? Better still, pass it up to the High Court and quash the entire noxious law!

Some people are annoying. They simply can’t get along with other people, are one-eyed, and cannot see beyond their own prejudice in order to get along. They are full of intolerance and intolerance is bad. I hate people like that. They ought to be shot.

In other news, I was pondering the mysteries of life. (How’s that for a subject change?) As a Christian (heathens can fade out here), I was pondering my own life. Specifically, I was going through it year by year, to see what lessons I could learn. Also to spot patterns, to see where God might be leading me. (Because he does that, you see. Take THAT, deists.)

I spotted a few patterns. Two patterns, actually. Two patterns that have been consistent in my life up until now. Both of these things are normally considered negatives. Those that have them tend to gripe about them. Yet, here is the thing. As I pondered these two attributes, I was struck by the realisation that what I was really looking at were two mechanisms that God was using to train me up according to His purpose. When I saw this, I was able to embrace them and thank God for them.

For in Jesus there is a remarkable correlation between the extent of the trials and tribulations that we must face, and the power inherent in our calling. Those who are called of God to a powerful ministry will, like the apostle Paul, be taken through a gruelling regimen of trials. For those who have a “lesser” ministry (as we would judge it), they will have an easier life.

When we fully understand this truth, we need no longer gripe about our struggles, but rather we can embrace them like a brother or sister, knowing that God turns our struggles around for the good.

I posted on this a while back. The survey got a LOT of responses - 40,000 in total. But because it was mostly Christians who responded to it, they are refusing to release the results. I reckon they ought to anyway - who ever heard of a website that conducts a poll, and then refuses to release the results?

The Dems, predictably, blamed the results on “an intense effort by churches to apply influence”.

None of them are likely to read this, as no-one else does, but I did not find out about their survey through an organised campaign. I received an email about it through someone I knew. Once I had responded to the survey, I sent the email on to all my friends. Probably most of their respondents found out this way.

The reason that there was so much interest was simple: the survey strongly implied that the right to participate in the political process should be denied to religious people. That is how imflammatory it was.

Earth to Democrats: If you advocate removing people’s democratic rights, they ark up about it.

The Australian Democrats are running a survey (http://www.democrats.org.au/survey2/survey/GodGovt_v2/) addressing various issues regarding religion and government. The following are some of the questions asked, with my comments that I submitted with the survey.

The questions will bring deja vu for anyone familiar with American politics.

Question 1: “Currently some churches run commercial businesses as part of their operations. These businesses benefit from the tax breaks that churches are entitled to. Should the commercial businesses run by churches get the same tax breaks as the charitable parts of the church operation?”

Me: If profits from a commercial business are siphoned off to a not-for-profit organisation, it is disingenuous to refer to it as “commercial”. I still picked “no” because it is unfair for commercial businesses to have to compete with not-for-profits on their own turf (generally speaking).

Questions 5 and 6: “Should RE be linked to a particular religious faith or should it be more about comparing differing religious beliefs? Should RE be linked to a particular religious faith or should it be more about comparing differing religious beliefs?”

Me: Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both?

Question 7 and 8: “Intelligent design is the idea that the complexity of the universe and living things is best explained as the result of the actions of an intelligent supernatural being, rather than a result of a scientific process such as evolution. Recently politicians have started to argue that this idea should be taught in science classes rather than in religious education. Should intelligent design be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution?”

Me: The stated definition of ID is incorrect; ID is simply the idea that God designed the world. It does not address the issue of how this happened. Theistic evolution (belief in both evolution and God) is compatible with ID. ID is neither science nor religion, it is philosophy of science.

Question 10: “Should funding for school chaplains be redirected towards funding for professional counsellors?”

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both?

Questions 12-15: “Should hospitals that receive government funding be obliged to provide vasectomies? Should hospitals that receive government funding be obliged to provide abortion services? Should pharmacists that receive government funding be obliged to provide contraception?”

Me: Government funding should not be used as a Trojan horse for government control. Catholic hospitals, etc, should be free to do as they wish. Those who want a service that cannot be provided at a Catholic hospital can still go to a government one. To deny funding to a Catholic hospital on the basis that it does not provide services that are not medically necessary anyway would be completely ridiculous.

Question 16: “Should pregnancy counselling helplines which receive government money and DO NOT refer for abortion have to make this explicit in their advertising?”

Me: If it is obvious that the service is run by a church, most people can join the dots themselves.

Questions 18-21: “Do you think that politicians who have strong religious beliefs should try to use the political system to turn their religious beliefs into law? Do you think that religious leaders/churches/houses of worship should try to influence government decisions on issues?”

Me: This is a democracy. Everyone is entitled to vote and to be involved in the political process, be they religious or otherwise. To suggest that religious people should be denied the chance to have their views taken into account, simply on the basis of their religion, is unfair and anti-democratic. That there are people around who would advocate such draconian policies scares me.