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Crazy stuff from the Bible (pg. 2)
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
But the moral of the story is, ALL religions are idiotic. Fact |
Obviously minus the parts about being a decent person and respecting each other, etc, etc. That's actually not that bad at all, I just wish people who were religious would take note of that part of their religion and not the part that says KILL KILL KILL (or the fact that most of them put the emphasis in believing in God rather than on how to be a good person) |
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| Krypton |
I agree with Moral Hazard. It's very easy to take passages out of context to mean anything the observer wants to believe.
I find the bible to be a revelation from another reality outside of our space-time universe and beyond any scientific measurement or comprehension, so I am not surprised at all at the confusion of humanity with the divine. |
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| venomX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
I agree with Moral Hazard. It's very easy to take passages out of context to mean anything the observer wants to believe.
I find the bible to be a revelation from another reality outside of our space-time universe and beyond any scientific measurement or comprehension, so I am not surprised at all at the confusion of humanity with the divine. |
But it was written by humans.... How can it be a revelation from another reality if it was written by people just like you and me. It may seem from another reality because it is very old text, meant for people that had different circumstances and a different perception of the world that we have. The bible is so open to interpretation (as are many other texts) that it is easy for anyone to draw some enlightening conclusion from it. You can read it as you want. It's been around for so long, no one really knows what message they were trying to convey in the first place.
There is no denying that the bible is incoherent. It was written by many people, in many places at different times. They did the best they could to match up the more coherent books out there during the council of Nicea, but in the end, it is impossible to bunch up together such a diverse collection of ideas. The fact is, the bible was arbitrarily put together. Any of the books the church calls apocrypha could up ended up in it. I've always thought the bible is a decent self help book, nothing more. |
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| George Smiley |
| Nah I'm pretty swayed by krypton's space-time continuem theory |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
My argument is that the Bible is a load of gibberish (well, I suppose Jesus does make some good points, but he'd have made them a damn sight better had he not tried to pass it off as God's word instead of his own, but then I suppose you have to consider the time and the delinquents he was trying to convince) |
You've either never read the Gospels or you didn't pay attention... Jesus, while living, takes great care to point out that he is a man and never portrays himself as devine.
| quote: | | There are probably as many Christians who believe the Bible is literal and the word of God as there are Muslims who believe the same. |
This is doubtful as Roman Catholics make up approximately half of Christianity at present and they do not believe the bible to be entirely litteral nor do they consider all of it to be the word of God.
| quote: | | The Bible contains a number of hilarious contradictions, but also contains as much blood thirsty violence as the Koran, which either faith, believing their book to be God's words, could use to justify like-minded violence. |
Your issue here should be with the Jews not the Christians, as the blood thirsty portions of the Bible are in the Old Testament which is rendered void by Jesus' commandment to "love one another as [he] has loved [us]." Unfortunately, there are Christians who still cling to the teachings of the Old Testament; however, this is actually contrary to their faith. In this instance one must conclude that the problem is not related to the religion itself but to the misguided parishener. Violent people will find something to justify their violent behaviour... if not religion they'd use philosophy or some other belief system (ugenics perhaps).
| quote: | | Likewise, just because some Muslims do, that does not reflect on the religion, because as I said, both religions justify violence in their texts, so you can't say "Islam is evil because it says they can kill in the Koran" because the Bible says exactly the same. You can only criticise the people who interpret it that way. |
I agree with you here.
| quote: | | But the moral of the story is, ALL religions are idiotic. Fact |
Fact? How so, because you declaire it? All religions, ALL, have merit and value. Even if there is no devine being or universal truths there is still merit in the guidence, codes of conduct, and stores of wisdom provided through religions. To state all religions are idiotic is in itself idiotic as you dismiss all the good things to have come from religion, which far out weighs the bad. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by LazFX
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:p |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by venomX
But it was written by humans.... How can it be a revelation from another reality if it was written by people just like you and me. It may seem from another reality because it is very old text, meant for people that had different circumstances and a different perception of the world that we have. The bible is so open to interpretation (as are many other texts) that it is easy for anyone to draw some enlightening conclusion from it. You can read it as you want. It's been around for so long, no one really knows what message they were trying to convey in the first place.
There is no denying that the bible is incoherent. It was written by many people, in many places at different times. They did the best they could to match up the more coherent books out there during the council of Nicea, but in the end, it is impossible to bunch up together such a diverse collection of ideas. The fact is, the bible was arbitrarily put together. Any of the books the church calls apocrypha could up ended up in it. I've always thought the bible is a decent self help book, nothing more. |
Sure it was written by humans, but for some reason, the bible has a strange cohesion for being written by over 40 authors, at different times spanning thousands of years, in different places, cultures, by average men, kings, and prophets, young and old, covering history, prophecy, and poetry. I simply can't just write off the bible as a simple self-help book. The bible is unique in its composition that despite the differences in the authors lives, still maintains a cohesion no other holy book can claim. I have not come across another holy book that wasn't written by little more than 1 author.
I think the councils did their job canonizing the different books floating around the ancient world for proof of divine inspiration, eye-witness account by the authors, and agreement with accepted canon texts. Their investigations ruled out the apocrapha's very well with questionable authorship, non-agreement with accepted canon, and the requirement for eye-witness account by every author. I can trust the gospels as truth because they written by eye-witnesses, who better to write about Jesus than the very people who lived with him 24/7??
We can certainly agree to disagree, especially with some of the atheists on this board, but as I said, I believe the bible to be divinely inspired revelation from a reality outside scientific inquiry.
| quote: | | You've either never read the Gospels or you didn't pay attention... Jesus, while living, takes great care to point out that he is a man and never portrays himself as devine. |
Jesus very much claimed himself as divine...
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Why do you think the Jews wanted him executed so badly for blasphemy? |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
You've either never read the Gospels or you didn't pay attention... Jesus, while living, takes great care to point out that he is a man and never portrays himself as devine. |
Is he not supposed to be God on Earth?
And whether he portrays himself as devine or not, Christianity says that he is devine (they had a vote on the issue!)
| quote: | | This is doubtful as Roman Catholics make up approximately half of Christianity at present and they do not believe the bible to be entirely litteral nor do they consider all of it to be the word of God. |
And how many Muslims believe the Koran literally?
Anyway, it was just a phrase of expression. The point is, there are a hell of a lot of Christians who believe the Bible literally (iirc this is what defines Evangelicals and there are 70 million of them in America alone)
| quote: | | Your issue here should be with the Jews not the Christians, as the blood thirsty portions of the Bible are in the Old Testament which is rendered void by Jesus' commandment to "love one another as [he] has loved [us]." Unfortunately, there are Christians who still cling to the teachings of the Old Testament; however, this is actually contrary to their faith. In this instance one must conclude that the problem is not related to the religion itself but to the misguided parishener. Violent people will find something to justify their violent behaviour... if not religion they'd use philosophy or some other belief system (ugenics perhaps). |
Well ok, if you say so, I'll blame it all on the joos! (Only messin!) Either way, the Old Testament is a Christian book as well as Jewish, so its up to the individual Christian to decide which contradiction he should follow, just like it is up to the individual Muslim to decide whether to justify actions based on the peace verses or the mentalist war verses (that, is probably not the correct term)
| quote: | | Fact? How so, because you declaire it? All religions, ALL, have merit and value. Even if there is no devine being or universal truths there is still merit in the guidence, codes of conduct, and stores of wisdom provided through religions. To state all religions are idiotic is in itself idiotic as you dismiss all the good things to have come from religion, which far out weighs the bad. |
I did actually say all that in the post after I posted that above.
But if we leave aside all the God nonsense from religion, and only concentrate on, for example, Jesus' guide to life, is that really religion what we have left, or is it merely another political philosophy to go with all the others like Marxism or Liberalism?
The fact is, religion is defined mainly by a belief in something (the existance of which is usually questionable), or faith, in order to make an idea presentable to people.
But today, this faith is not needed to create an ideology and present it to people, then the need for God in ideologies has vanished.
Religion no longer has the preserve of ideas, only of God.
The ones that have not worked that out tend to put too much emphasis on belief in God than in the ideas proposed by their respective religion. Belief in God seems to be more important than being a good person (something you don't need God for) and this has adverse effects such as the aids crisis in Africa, horrible oppression in dictatorships and a complete psychopath in charge of the largest military in the world! |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
Jesus very much claimed himself as divine...
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. |
Perhaps there is a suggestion of divinity there but he certainly did not overtly state he was divine. This verse could just as easily mean that only by following Jesus' teachings could one gain access to God. That same passage goes on to refer to God as the Father and Jesus as a son but he also refers to all people as God's Children (interestingly... Jesus' in the original Aramaic texts refers to God as Abba, which doesn't mean father... it's meaning is closer to Daddy... it's a very informal word).
Jesus goes out of his way to avoid claiming divinity by not giving straight answers when asked... normally saying things like "if you say I am", or "as you state", never does he say "I am the son of God and divine" or anything close. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Is he not supposed to be God on Earth?
And whether he portrays himself as devine or not, Christianity says that he is devine (they had a vote on the issue!) |
Yes, Christians (myself included) believe Jesus to be divine; however, he does not state this. You're statement was that Jesus would be more influential if he had not tried to pass himself off as divine, I was mearly pointing out that he never did.
| quote: | | The point is, there are a hell of a lot of Christians who believe the Bible literally |
| quote: | But if we leave aside all the God nonsense from religion, and only concentrate on, for example, Jesus' guide to life, is that really religion what we have left, or is it merely another political philosophy to go with all the others like Marxism or Liberalism?
The fact is, religion is defined mainly by a belief in something (the existance of which is usually questionable), or faith, in order to make an idea presentable to people.
But today, this faith is not needed to create an ideology and present it to people, then the need for God in ideologies has vanished.
Religion no longer has the preserve of ideas, only of God. |
Sorry friend, I think you're being too dismissive. If you actually believe that religion no longer serves a useful purpose in society then I fear your eyes are closed. I'm not saying that it is a necessity but you cannot discount it as being without merit. There is far more good done in the name of God then there is evil and what evil is done is done by persons manipulating religion to suit their own agenda. |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
Perhaps there is a suggestion of divinity there but he certainly did not overtly state he was divine. This verse could just as easily mean that only by following Jesus' teachings could one gain access to God. That same passage goes on to refer to God as the Father and Jesus as a son but he also refers to all people as God's Children (interestingly... Jesus' in the original Aramaic texts refers to God as Abba, which doesn't mean father... it's meaning is closer to Daddy... it's a very informal word).
Jesus goes out of his way to avoid claiming divinity by not giving straight answers when asked... normally saying things like "if you say I am", or "as you state", never does he say "I am the son of God and divine" or anything close. |
Uh, I don't think so. It's pretty straightforward. Jesus overtly states that he himself IS the way, is truth, and life. That's pretty much saying "I'm divine." I can't say that I am the embodiment of truth. I can't say I am the way, and I certainly can't say I am the personification of eternal life as Jesus stated numerous times. His followers and detractors all understood his words to claim divinity. |
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