Westboro Baptist Church.
I got it -- was just being obtuse. I always think of them as "Westboro," or sometimes "Phelps' Fools."
I feel dirty just reading about them.
And I am a dirty, dirty poodle.
I just feel loathing. I must be used to it.
They even manage to insult foreigners, having made claims about the scores of people who died in my country a year r so ago due to horrendous bush fires.
I think it would be a mercy for people to just ignore these attention seeking bigots and for them to wither away in said dark......
To not speak against them is to allow them to speak for us.
A review of issues with academic introductions to the Bible, by a Biblical scholar.
The general thrust:
In any case, after nearly 20 years of teaching Bible courses in public universities, I can see at least four ways in which Introductions still reflect religious biases:
A. Bibliolatry, which refers to the idea that the Bible is a superior collection of books that merits special attention.
B. Use of theological rationales
C. Ethnocentrism: promoting the superiority of biblical culture
D. Little or no criticism of ethical positions in the Bible compared to praise for biblical ethics.
And along the way he talks about many issues we've visited here in the past.
I have a Jewish friend who found it ironic, and was a little put off that her fortune cookie for her Chinese Christmas dinner said, "In God we trust. All others pay cash."
She did not specify, but that was not the impression I got. Just your standard, bulk fortune cookies…likely made in China.
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She did not specify, but that was not the impression I got. Just your standard, bulk fortune cookies…likely made in China.
Interestingly enough, many fortune cookies are made in the USA - just like many American flags are made in China. Also, fortune cookies aren't even authenticly Chinese, and you'll almost never see them in restaurants there, unless you're at one of the tourist trap restaurants in Beijing or Shainghai.
She did not specify, but that was not the impression I got. Just your standard, bulk fortune cookies…likely made in China.Interestingly enough, many fortune cookies are made in the USA...
You couldn't have just introduced me to one of the Great Old Ones?
She did not specify, but that was not the impression I got. Just your standard, bulk fortune cookies…likely made in China.Interestingly enough, many fortune cookies are made in the USA - just like many American flags are made in China. Also, fortune cookies aren't even authenticly Chinese, and you'll almost never see them in restaurants there, unless you're at one of the tourist trap restaurants in Beijing or Shainghai.
I read that they are, or at least where, actually quite the hit in China, when they started being imported 1989. Restaurants would advertise that they had 'Genuine American Fortune Cookies' as a way of bringing in customers. Apparently trying to translate some of the Americanisms into Chinese is a real pain in the rear. The biggest manufacturer is in New York but there is sizable competition from some mass producers in California.
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You couldn't have just introduced me to one of the Great Old Ones?She did not specify, but that was not the impression I got. Just your standard, bulk fortune cookies…likely made in China.Interestingly enough, many fortune cookies are made in the USA...
You could just get these cookies and know what you're getting yourself into.
Apparently, according to the site, Christmas is coming -- so they have a sale going on. Better get yours in plenty of time before Christmas...
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What if religion is merely man's way of coping with the inevitability of death?
It's not entirely unfeasible that medical science will, in the not too distant future, tame the telomere. Genetic therapy combined with a collection of nano machines could very well render the human species virtually immortal. Imagine nano machines so sophisticated that they could repair almost any injury, almost instantly. Imagine a Nancy Kress scenario where alterations to the human genome result in our ability to subsist from the very air, with no need to eat or drink.
Would we still have religion? Would we still, honestly, believe in God? With no fear of death; with guaranteed immortality, would we need, primally, any higher power?
What if religion is merely man's way of coping with the inevitability of death?
I think that's about all that's left to it now. Science took healing away. Who here, even the most religious among us, would forgo medical treatment for a sick child and instead just praying? Probably nobody.
When it really makes a difference to someone we care about, we're all secular. Yes, you might pray too. But if you can only choose one, we all know which everybody will choose, except people who we would agree are clearly deranged and probably shouldn't be allowed to keep their children.
Before someone yells at me for the previous sentence: refusing to secure medical treatment for one's children is a pretty bog-standard class of parental neglect. Imagine a kid with a broken arm for a moment and tell me what you'd really think of a parent who refused to take the kid to a doctor. Neglect isn't even the right word for that; torture is.
So religion's out of the medicine business. It's also, quite obviously, out of the explaining the universe business. Its moral authority has never looked more feeble, especially for large and hierarchical religions, than it does now. What's left?
Would we still have religion? Would we still, honestly, believe in God? With no fear of death; with guaranteed immortality, would we need, primally, any higher power?
It's already shrinking at an incredible rate, which is likely to continue to accelerate. The only places religion is doing well are also places of great human misery with scant access to modern medicine. Modern social democracies have taken over caring for the needy, and do a far more comprehensive job. And this is all without having secured us immortality.
I think there would probably be some vestigial things. There would still be the risk of random misfortunes: accidents, natural disasters, wars. Some will simply sacralize the more crazy non-religious ideas they have and become Objectivists or anti-vaccination crazies or whatever. Some people will always fear the dark and imagine demons living within it.
Which is not to say that I'm sure immortality is a great idea. I do think people should be able to choose death if they wish it, whenever they wish it. What kind of loathsome slime would demand a person who does not want to carry on living be forced to? (Answering that would probably entail being uncivil.) That's torture.
We would need to radically alter our culture if we're going to be living for centuries, let alone forever. Adjustment to most people living into their seventies and eighties has been rather graceless, and living even longer would take yet more work to accommodate. How do you get ahead at work if no one is retiring or dying to open a position? How do you manage social change when those most invested in the inequities of the old order are living forever? Living forever could just mean we're screwed forever. Imagine if the segregationists never started dying off. Or the slaveholders or homophobes.
My expectation would be more for a significantly, even radically, increased life span rather the true immortality. At least for the foreseeable future. Its one thing to find a work arounds for the major things that kill us and quite another to eliminate everything that kills us.
For one brains cells don't regenerate at all - so given long enough we'd probably all go senile. Another issue is that you don't really ever beat diseases from bacteria or virus'. Its an evolutionary arms race we have no hope of ever winning. Improved medicine usually has a Nietzschean effect (it makes the diseases stronger by selecting for those that have some kind of a way around our medicine).
There is also the issue that we may simply not be psychologically capable of handling eternal life...we could just get tired of the whole thing or it may eventually drive us mad. For example our biological memory system is believed to have a lot of slack but it may not have enough for two centuries and its unclear what happens if you actually go past.
My expectation would be more for a significantly, even radically, increased life span rather the true immortality. At least for the foreseeable future. Its one thing to find a work arounds for the major things that kill us and quite another to eliminate everything that kills us.
For one brains cells don't regenerate at all - so given long enough we'd probably all go senile. Another issue is that you don't really ever beat diseases from bacteria or virus'. Its an evolutionary arms race we have no hope of ever winning. Improved medicine usually has a Nietzschean effect (it makes the diseases stronger by selecting for those that have some kind of a way around our medicine).
There is also the issue that we may simply not be psychologically capable of handling eternal life...we could just get tired of the whole thing or it may eventually drive us mad. For example our biological memory system is believed to have a lot of slack but it may not have enough for two centuries and its unclear what happens if you actually go past.
I've tried to imagine what an eternal paradise would have to be like to not eventually make you wish for oblivion, and came to the conclusion that I wouldn't want to persist in any "heaven" that was free of challenge, conflict, and contrast. Ironic?
Imagine playing D&D with a DM you knew would always let you win, forever and ever. That sounds more like hell to me. So, ultimately, a place like Earth would provide me with the proper balance of tension and release, joy and sorrow, triumph and loss, ecstacy and agony necessary to sustain my interest longer than a few minutes.
I'm not a religion man anymore. I was raised Catholic, converted to Protestantism, and have currently arrived at highly skeptical agnostic. But I can almost subscribe to an idea of reincarnation, in which each spark of consciousness is focused or received on a material organism (or even organ -- the brain) until that focus dies, at which point the consciousness (which exists in a different kind of dimension than the physical dimensions we can normally perceive) is focused onto a newly conceived zygote. This might explain anectdotal evidence of past life memories, ghosts, etc.
Maybe Reality (or God, or the Universe, or the Laws of Nature) is the ultimate, eternally impartial DM, and each of us has a body that is like a PC that we play in the current "campaign", and when that PC dies, we "roll up" a new PC and join the neverending Game of Life?
Maybe Reality (or God, or the Universe, or the Laws of Nature) is the ultimate, eternally impartial DM, and each of us has a body that is like a PC that we play in the current "campaign", and when that PC dies, we "roll up" a new PC and join the neverending Game of Life?
That offers an explanation for the problem of evil.
Maybe Reality (or God, or the Universe, or the Laws of Nature) is the ultimate, eternally impartial DM, and each of us has a body that is like a PC that we play in the current "campaign", and when that PC dies, we "roll up" a new PC and join the neverending Game of Life?That offers an explanation for the problem of evil.
It kind of does, doesn't it? :)
In essence, what I'm saying is, if the DM was an awesome DM and totally impartial, I could stand playing D&D for eternity LOL
Now what would be the difference in an impartial, 'awesome' DM who runs the game world and a game world that runs itself based on a consistent ruleset?
Now what would be the difference in an impartial, 'awesome' DM who runs the game world and a game world that runs itself based on a consistent ruleset?
No difference, really. "Awesome", like "Heaven", is so subjective. Reality or "God" as an unsentient mechanism is just as awesome for all of its incredible complexity as anything our monkey brains can dream up, and then some.
Poodle brain...thank you very much.
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I would say that a game world that runs itself based on consistent rules is otherwise know as physics, and wouldn't likely be confused with a deity.
Naturally, when I wrote 'fear of death, I was speaking toward creative, imaginative, philosophizing humans, not instinct-driven animals.
Nonetheless, I know that rabbits have religion; I read it in that Adams novel, praise Shadrach...
The least surprising news of the day.
DUBLIN (AP) — A 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police — a disclosure that victims' groups described as "the smoking gun" needed to show that the church enforced a worldwide culture of covering up crimes by pedophile priests.
The newly revealed letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican's rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests following Ireland's first wave of publicly disclosed lawsuits.
That was the only missing piece of evidence in the case that the Catholic hierarchy has engaged in an international campaign to help priests continue to molest children. Is it too much to hope that we start seeing RICO-style asset seizures and forfeitures? Clearly this organization is engaged in a criminal conspiracy.
One of these days I'd like to be right about something that I can feel good about being right about.
Sometimes there is good news to post.
R. Brad White says, for example, “My Confession is I’ve allowed my religious convictions to make me numb to the human rights of gays and lesbians. I haven’t consciously fought AGAINST gay marriage, but I’ve allowed outspoken Christian political activists to limit the human rights of LGBTs (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) and let them speak FOR me through my silence. The Gay community deserves love, not discrimination. And for my part in that, I’m incredibly sorry.” So Brad’s note said “My confession is I’ve been a homophobic Christian. The gay community deserves love, not discrimination.”
This is progress.
During the Super Bowl pregame, they did a presentation of the Declaration of Independence. During the entire thing I could not help but wonder, how does this not apply to the rights of homosexuals?
What the Bible Really Says About Sex
That’s why Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that citadel of Christian conservatism, concludes that one’s Bible reading must be overseen by the proper authorities. Just because everyone should read the Bible “doesn’t mean that everyone’s equally qualified to read it, and it doesn’t mean that the text is just to be used as a mirror for ourselves,” he says. “All kinds of heresies come from people who read the Bible and recklessly believe that they’ve understood it correctly.” As the word of God, he adds, the Bible isn’t open to the same level of interpretation as The Odyssey or The Iliad.
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What the Bible Really Says About Sex
That’s why Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that citadel of Christian conservatism, concludes that one’s Bible reading must be overseen by the proper authorities. Just because everyone should read the Bible “doesn’t mean that everyone’s equally qualified to read it, and it doesn’t mean that the text is just to be used as a mirror for ourselves,” he says. “All kinds of heresies come from people who read the Bible and recklessly believe that they’ve understood it correctly.” As the word of God, he adds, the Bible isn’t open to the same level of interpretation as The Odyssey or The Iliad.
Interesting article. I disagree with a few things -- but they are pretty minor. Possibly a good start to looking at things differently -- although if experience has shown me anything, people who are set in their ways are usually pretty set in their ways.
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Mostly for Samnell -- I found this article while I was waiting for my car to get fixed. It's about the archeology surrounding the "truth" behind King David and King Solomon (from National Geographic -- December 2010). You've probably already seen it, but just in case you hadn't, I thought I point you to it.
During the Super Bowl pregame, they did a presentation of the Declaration of Independence. During the entire thing I could not help but wonder, how does this not apply to the rights of homosexuals?
I'd start with the Declaration having all the legal force of bathroom graffiti, to be honest. :)
But I'm sure we're all aware of the incredible contortions employed to claim that homosexuals already have just the same rights as everybody else. If you're into history you've heard the same arguments about interracial marriage and segregation. I'm not quite old enough to have had the experience, but plenty of people have been around long enough to notice that they come from the same lips too. The Segregation Forever crowd put up segregation (in public anyway) in the 70s and picked up opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and then morphed (if you can call being completely the same morphing) into the Christian Right in the 80s.
Mostly for Samnell -- I found this article while I was waiting for my car to get fixed. It's about the archeology surrounding the "truth" behind King David and King Solomon (from National Geographic -- December 2010). You've probably already seen it, but just in case you hadn't, I thought I point you to it.
I had not seen it, so thanks. I've meant to subscribe to Nat Geo many times over the years but never quite gotten around to it. I do have the entire backlog up to around 2008 on DVD, which is kind of a fun dork paradise I occasionally troll for game ideas. When I first got the things I -and I mean this literally- laughed and clapped like a child at a report from the 1890s on the state of land survey in the American west.
...yeah, I'm that kind of dork.
I think they're playing a bit coy with the article, though. Finkelstein makes the distinction between the David of history and the David of the Bible fairly clear at one point, and that distinction remains regardless of the dating of the copper operation. One can't just say that finding good evidence for one part of the story would authenticate the whole thing, however tempting that might be to fundamentalists and aggressive Israeli nationalists. That would be a bit like saying that we know London is real and therefore so is Hogwarts. :) The article spends a lot of time trying to ignore the same point, drifting around between David-as-history and David-as-Bible as though the two were much harder to distinguish.
The fact that it's so depressingly hard to accomplish just that is one of the reasons why the archaeology of the region is much less advanced than that of, say, Egypt. There is a lot of modern national pride built up around the glories of ancient Egypt, and for modern political purposes too, but there's no visceral dispute with piles of bloodshed over people living on the left bank of the Nile or the right. It's not at the center of anybody's religious life. A lot of quite reasonable academics just don't want to deal with that kind of baggage, which tends to cede the field to those with just these axes to grind. I'm sure Nat Geo insisted on using the term for lack of a self-explanatory replacement, but the fact that it's named Biblical Archaeology really says a lot.
The reference to the Tel Dan stele stuck out to me a little bit. I think they slightly oversold it here:
Today, many scholars (including Franklin and her colleague Finkelstein) doubt that all three gates are Solomonic, while others (Amihai Mazar, for example) think they could be. But all of them reject Yadin's circular reasoning, which in the early 1980s helped spawn a backlash movement of "biblical minimalism," led by scholars at the University of Copenhagen. To the minimalists, David and Solomon were simply fictitious characters. The credibility of that position was undercut in 1993, when an excavation team in the northern Israel site of Tel Dan dug up a black basalt stela inscribed with the phrase "House of David." Solomon's existence, however, remains wholly unverified.
I don't have a firm opinion myself on the historicity of David, seeing it a bit analogously to that of Jesus. If there was a real historical person involved in activities that are at least broadly similar to the narratives of the stories in question, it's very difficult at our remove to peel away the myths and find the truth beneath.
We do, however, have a bit more to work with for David. But taking the stele at face value and accepting its dating and authenticity doesn't get us from "there's no historical David at all" to "well yeah there was". In a region where divine kingship was the norm, I don't see it as far-fetched to say that the David of the stele is a mythic ancestor rather than a literal dynasty founder. (There may be better academic reasons to reject this reading of which I'm unaware, of course. I'm hardly an expert in the field.) It could be either, and the historical David could just be the leader of an outlaw band, his empire no more than a hill fort.
That’s why Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that citadel of Christian conservatism, concludes that one’s Bible reading must be overseen by the proper authorities. Just because everyone should read the Bible “doesn’t mean that everyone’s equally qualified to read it, and it doesn’t mean that the text is just to be used as a mirror for ourselves,” he says. “All kinds of heresies come from people who read the Bible and recklessly believe that they’ve understood it correctly.” As the word of God, he adds, the Bible isn’t open to the same level of interpretation as The Odyssey or The Iliad.
As little as I like Mohler's positions on, probably, everything he has a little bit of a point. Intensive Bible reading has been rare among Christians for as long as there's been a Christianity. People who are religious in the cultural, orthopraxic sense have probably always been in the vast majority. Knowing the doctrines in and out is the job of others: priestly specialists.
That's not totally unreasonable, from a pragmatic standpoint. Unsophisticated and ignorant readers about for any text, religious or otherwise. They can be misled by strange euphemisms, technical uses of words that have different common meanings, translation conventions, and so forth.
I have read some, if not as much as I'd like, on the history of gay people. It's a pain, because cultural norms for expressing homosocial affection have changed enormously. For two men to proclaim their love of one another in the 1800s could mean that they shagged themselves silly every night or it might mean that they were just really good friends. For unrelated men to hug and kiss one another has gone from solemn ceremony to eroticism to platonic affection and back. We know that when Oscar Wilde bragged about having Walt Whitman's kisses, it was an erotic act. We also know that when Tolkien had Sam kiss Frodo he, a rather conservative Catholic, meant nothing of the kind.
Before the late 1800s nobody, not even those who would today have sexual fantasies similar to mine, would have known to call themselves homosexual. The word did not exist. But inventing the word obviously didn't somehow make them feel things they did not feel before. I know from personal experience since I had my first sexual interest in another male when I was seven and the only word in my vocabulary for a gay male at the time was a slur my mother used to use without explanation.
So David and Jonathan: knocking boots or just friends? Beats me. My subjective sense is that more went on than just friendship, as the Bible seems to be giving David the kind of appreciation of Jonathan that it would use to describe a really hot lady David was interested in.
If it's helpful, I should note that Judaism has few of Christianity's hangups about sexuality. Instead of appreciating asceticism and reserving marriage for people who to Paul seem little better than animals in heat, the Jewish tradition is that one ought to enjoy one's earthly life. Sex is good, despite all the rules. This leads me to suspect that the straight reading of the Song of Solomon is the one closest to the intentions of the author(s). It's a bit of religious erotica, and why not?
As little as I like Mohler's positions on, probably, everything he has a little bit of a point.
If any religious text is divinely inspired by an omnipotent being, its message should be universal. It should not require a scholar to understand its meaning. Otherwise, I chalk it up to a failure.
I see this position too easily used as code for "just do what I say". I reject that out of hand. I am going to need a better reason than "this comes from god but you are too ignorant to understand". If the Bible is so easily misinterpreted, how can I be sure whoever claims to be in the known is not intentionally misinterpreting it for their own agenda? In fact, it seems there is evidence that is exactly what has happened in the past (slavery just to name the first one that pops to mind). I should trust the current middle men to have it right this time?
If any religious text is divinely inspired by an omnipotent being, its message should be universal. It should not require a scholar to understand its meaning. Otherwise, I chalk it up to a failure.
Your first two sentences nicely echo the old Deist pamphleteers like Tom Paine and Ethan Allen. They then blamed the thrust of your third sentence on the hand of man muddying things up, rather than taking the fairly obvious (in retrospect) next step. Still, that puts them two-thirds of the way into what today is considered the Dawkins camp.
Smartphone Sins: Catholic Bishop Approves iPhone Confession App
Um…o.k. I do not really see the purpose in this. You still need to see a priest for absolution, so, is this just kind of to get it off your chest? Is there not a site where you can anonymously post something you want to get off your chest…for free?
Does this connect the user with a real life priest at the other end…or is it just the digital Magic 8 Ball of confession?
The New Atheism and the Dogma of Darwinism
I read this and had no problem looking past the anticipated conflation of "the origin of species" with "the origin of the universe," and the blatant misrepresentation of positions -- those are to be expected in any article of the sort, and are almost a hallowed tradition now. Sadly, though, once I got past those things, there was nothing left of the article. Oh well, at least he didn't pull out the Nazi canard.
I started writing a line by line rebuttal, but I gave up. I can not speak on Dawkins…I honestly have not read any of his stuff. However, most of the article seemed like base assertions.
What irked me most was Mr. Mohler's attempt to make atheists appear like bumbling fools for not having any clear argument for why the cosmos exists or why life forms appeared. In my opinion, most people do not make up¹ explanations for things they do not understand. This is a feature, not a bug. To imply such a stance is foolish or unfulfilling is rather alien. What is the alternative, to accept that it is magic?
¹Sure, you need somewhere to start and that is usually some idea you pull out of your bum. However, you do not believe that is fact without testing it.
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The New Atheism and the Dogma of DarwinismI read this and had no problem looking past the anticipated conflation of "the origin of species" with "the origin of the universe," and the blatant misrepresentation of positions -- those are to be expected in any article of the sort, and are almost a hallowed tradition now. Sadly, though, once I got past those things, there was nothing left of the article. Oh well, at least he didn't pull out the Nazi canard.
I had pretty much the same thoughts. I chalk it up to a case of not understanding quite a number of things.
It must be that time of year to bring up this kind of stuff again. Yesterday my wife and I were shown a couple of clips from YouTube. One was to "prove" that Christians were wrong/stupid for suggesting that we are "unique" being in a "sweet spot" around the sun/orbit/etc. (The idea that the only explanation or the only option left is that we were placed here.) And I guess that it's been shown that there are at least 54 other planets in one small section of our galaxy that are also in a "sweet spot". This type of theology has come to be called the "God of the Gaps". Which is theology that is going on around 30 years old by now (or older?). So their tactic now is to attack Christians with theology that fewer and fewer people agree with? (Let alone that the clip didn't address a number of other things that I've heard that make our little solar system "ideal" -- it only addressed the distance of the orbit of one planet around the sun.) Not that much of that really matters though. At the same time, however, maybe it does need to be addressed better (but without the animosity associated with the clip I saw). My wife was referred to a clip that had some old guy who kept saying that simply the fact that there is a moon in the sky is proof enough that someone had to have put it there because there isn't possibly any other explanation.
** sigh **
There are times when I wish there was another term for what I believed so I wouldn't be confused with a number of other "Christians".
What Every Last Days Believer Needs To Know
…the diminishing of the United States as a superpower…
Seriously? Jesus is pro America?
I was watching a show about Nostradamus the other day and realized there is one, single fact which, of itself, is enough to make me dismiss his predictions entirely: nearly all of them are about America. He predicted Kenedy's assassination, but not the Arch-Duke of Austria? Such national-centricity makes me believe people are seeing what they want to see.
The Bible may need a "New New Testament"...
Qu'ran, Thomas Jefferson's Bible or The Book of Mormon? :)
Should we stone the Pittsburg Steelers?
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Terrible things here, that was the argument used to ban the translation of the Bible to other languages centuries ago. Seems than even today some people still needs to tell everyone else what to do, think and believe. The Bible may need a "New New Testament", not more people speaking in the name of God.What the Bible Really Says About Sex
That’s why Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that citadel of Christian conservatism, concludes that one’s Bible reading must be overseen by the proper authorities. Just because everyone should read the Bible “doesn’t mean that everyone’s equally qualified to read it, and it doesn’t mean that the text is just to be used as a mirror for ourselves,” he says. “All kinds of heresies come from people who read the Bible and recklessly believe that they’ve understood it correctly.” As the word of God, he adds, the Bible isn’t open to the same level of interpretation as The Odyssey or The Iliad.
I wanted to reply then thought better of it and now...
Technically, the Bible (or at least the Old Testament) wasn't really written for us. It was written (mostly) for 800 BC Hebrews. If I wrote a book about life in 21st century Chicago and translated it for a bush native in the middle of Congo who had never seen a picture of a city how much would he really understand? The New Testament was written more for non-Hebrews -- but the further problem there was the animosity between Jews and non-Jews and that so much of the New Testament references Old Testament cultures and traditions that non-Jews had no understanding of and weren't getting training for. Add to that years and years of exclusivity of texts and even reading being limited to those in the church. Then many many years later most people can read and you can find a Bible in any hotel. But we've lost all the traditions, the ceremonies, and the history of what it was all about -- so we make our own interpretations.
Does that mean that it's wrong? No. Does that mean that it's outdated? To some degree -- I mean Jesus as much as said that ("You've heard it said...but I say..."). Does that mean that it wasn't "inspired"? Depends on what you mean by that. Does that mean that it isn't the word of God? No.
I've been to a few celebrations/ceremonies with the Messianic Jewish Congregation that go to our church. I would strongly suggest that anyone interested in this kind of topic check out a local Messianic Jewish group (or probably a "regular" Jewish group). Is it "necessary"? Not really, but I found that it really gives a different insight and appreciation into the Old Testament (especially) and explains why it may be a little more difficult to strictly interpret the Old Testament without a lot of the prior understanding and traditions.
He also takes sides in sporting events. Statistically, the losing team always has a greater number of infidels.
Of course. That's why Spain beat the Netherlands in the last World Cup. Paul the Octopus was a false prophet -- he just looked at church attendance among fans -- nothing supernatural on his part.
Technically, the Bible (or at least the Old Testament) wasn't really written for us. It was written (mostly) for 800 BC Hebrews.
Why didn't god inspire something a little more universal? Your issue with god needing to poke holes in the boat is exactly the kind of issue I have here.