Top Five Bible Myths
The bible itself contains some excellent myths of such fantastical magnitude that it turns reading Alice in Wonderland and dropping two taps of paper acid seem quite unexciting and normal.There’s so much on the bible’s bollocks but I have to cut it all down.
Number Five: Inconsistencies
If you think that your bible is the inspired inerrant word of the living god then it seems to me that any flaws in it render this proposition false full stop. The bible is supposed to have been written by the creator of the universe but, I think you or I would sit down one afternoon and come up with some way to improve upon it. There’s so many basic mistakes in the text that it couldn’t have been written by an magical being in the sky.
Here’s a small few for you:
How old was Ahaziah when he began to rule over Jerusalem?
(a) Twenty-two (2 Kings 8:26)
(b) Forty-two (2 Chronicles 22:2)
Solomon built a facility containing how many baths?
(a) Two thousand (1 Kings 7:26)
(b) Over three thousand (2 Chronicles 4:5)
What was the exact wording on the cross?
(a) “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37)
(b) “The King of the Jews” (Mark 15:26)
(c) “This is the King of the Jews” (Luke 23:38)
(d) “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19)
Did Jesus pray to The Father to prevent the crucifixion?
(a) Yes. (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42)
(b) No. (John 12:27)
That’s just a tiny amount. There’s a hell of a lot more.
Number Four: Virgin Birth
Tell me what is more likely—that a woman would conceive a child without doing the nasty or that she would lie about it?
Number Three: Noah’s Flood
There is so many nuts trying to validate a world-wide flood that they have stooped to coming up with bare faced lies. First, if there was a flood that covered the world wide water this would increase water vapour in the atmosphere to a point that it would drown everything just be breathing. Where did all this water come from? There’s a plethora of scientific facts on the problems with a worldwide flood. Google Noah’s flood science for the facts.
Number Two: We Get Our Morals from the Bible
In Genesis 19 the apocalyptic tale of Sodom & Gomorrah has an even more sinister sub-plot—Lot who was held captive in the city was to be rescued by two male angels sent by god—however, as the angles were attempting to rescue Lot and his family they were going to be raped by the city’s inhabitants—Lot was sickened by the thought of these chaste beings being violated barbarically that he offered the hoards his two virgin daughters as fodder but they were uninterested—what they wanted was to sodomise angels. If god was so powerful why would he need to send angels to rescue Lot and risk his angels’ flowers? On a wider picture why is god going around destroying cities and committing genocide?Do you think you are a good person because you read this? Of course not. The old testament is full of people like Abraham who are really not worth anything in terms of moral emulation and god himself is even less of a role model considering what he done to Job and the whim in which he decides to wipe out all life on Earth.
However, we are told that emulation is not the only way that we are to derive our morals from the bible in some places we are directly told in no uncertain terms how we are to act. I suppose the most famous of these is the ten commandments. They are regarded as the ultimate source of morals period god regarded them so important that he chose to write them himself—the only thing he has ever written—and for added dramatics in stone.
The story goes that Moses up on Mount Sinai was confronted by a burning bush i.e. god where he was given a list of god’s holy commandments. However, no sooner than Moses was away up the mountain were his tribe making a golden calf to worship. Moses ran down the mountain and destroyed the calf and sent the tribe off on a holy war Numbers 31 is a particular example of Moses’ divine compassion:
17Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man intimately.
18But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.
Here is the list given to Moses however, notice that there are 12 in this list that is because different denominations have grouped them differently but the substance remains the same regardless:-
1. I am the Lord thy God.
2. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
3. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol.
4. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God.
5. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
6. Honour thy Mother and Father
.7. Thou shalt not murder.
8. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
9. Thou shalt not steal.
10. Thou shalt not bear false witness
11. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.
12. You shall not covet thy neighbour’s goods.
What could be wrong with this list? It seems ok does it not? Well the first five are just egotistical servility codified. The rest can you tell me that before these were enumerated people thought that all these things were fine to do? This was not a sudden revelation—I do not think that the Faithfull’s hearts would have sank to know that no longer are they allowed to go on murderous rampages or they can no longer steal their father’s shekels to stay out past curfew to see the next stoning of an adulterous wife.
Sam Harris in a speech to the Aspen Ideas Festival makes a astute observation on the ten commandments he asks how could they be improved upon—a divinely written list that no moral could dare to improve— well this daring man suggests some dingers, perhaps—he says Thou Shalt Not Abuse Children or Do not deep fry all your food.
On the internet there are many people who are working on creating their own set of commandments secular in nature and in my opinion improve hugely on the biblical list. Want more examples of what the bible tells us to do? Leviticus 21 is says:-
9 ” ‘If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.
10 ” ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
11 ” ‘If a man sleeps with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
12 ” ‘If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.
No moral human being would ever subscribe to this twisted standard of righteousness.Is the new testament any better than its predecessor? Well for many the new testament is a modifier that quietens the vicious teachings of the law hitherto. They placate their inherent sensibilities by suggesting that Jesus’ teachings washed away the unpalatable scripture that preceded him.
However, I refer you to:-
18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
— Matthew5
Or
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
—2 Timothy 3
Or
34and the Scripture cannot be broken.
— John 10
The law of the old testament is fully endorsed and incorporated into Jesus’ communion. It seems clear that Jesus did attest to the validity of the law of the old testament as morally acceptable in his church. Why wouldn’t he—sure was it not the same god? Surly an omniscient god would not be disposed to completely reverse all of his past precedent in the 1 CE.
Number One: Creation Myth
In the beginning god created the heavens and the Earth. Open a copy of the bible at page 1 and read this account of the creation of the universe. It’s a far-fetched story of the creation of the universe in 6 days. We have come a long way since these were scrawled onto paper a few thousand years ago. We now know a lot more about science and the genesis of our universe. Of course we are not nearly at the place that we can say exactly how it happened but what we do have is a lot better than this voodoo nonsense.
This is What I Would Do 
I agree 100% with your estimation of the so-called holey book. Yes, it is Holey all right. It is full of Holes!!! Most people don’t want to question what the Bible says because they are told to have faith. Bull crap1!!! We are supposed to question stories that don’t make rational sense. I consider myself to be an intelligent being of the Light of the True Eternal Creator and He/She certainly is NOT depicted in the pages of the bloodiest book of violence on this planet. Thanks for your honest depiction of the Bible. Blessings to you sir.
may god(who is in bible) bless you ,
I’m sorry. The God I know for my own self is neither in the Bible nor up far away in Heaven. You really should get to know my God. Another name for my God is Love. It is the spirit of peace, harmony, tranquility and is the strength inside of me to go through horrid events like cancer, stroke, etc., land keep on being happy. I don’t believe in that “warrior/vengeful/child pouting” God pictured by most Christian and Jewish religions. I made my own God up and it’s a wonderful feeling!
Dear Mr. Alexandria be patient of what I am going to tell you. Have you ever read the Bible? I don’t think you have ever read it. If you said you have read it then, you haven’t understood, even the writer of this articles have not looked the possiblity of those happpening, there are many things are happening around us, we do not understand those and you both are such a naive, there are number of arguments and counter arguments for what this articles is written, I would suggest that you need to find it from web or a good books and read those….Bible could have human errror, or trasmitting error, that does not mean the Bible is true. For example you Friend or your Dad write you a email, if it has any factual error, will you say, your fathter or your friend does not exist… no.. you would not say that….Read at least five times whole Bible and write to me at khristyogi@hotmail.com
To Mr.Alexandria And also i would like to add some thing about Novas flood! As you said earlier i would like to say you that please go through the google you will find so many scientific proofs for the flood! I think your aim is to say that bible is not true
The stories in the bible are often violent, show incest as being the fault of the children (the sisters got the dad drunk and slept with him so they could have an heir to inherit the land), etc.
To Mr.Alexandria And also i would like to add some thing about Novas flood! As you said earlier i would like to say you that please go through the google you will find so many scientific proofs for the flood! I think your aim is to say that bible is not true Just go through this
What makes me wonder is, why Noah knowing what the serpent did to us, and he had to put like a thousand different snakes in the ark. He also forgot to mention the pandas,llamas,etc,etc it seems to me that the man who wrote the bible only knew what was going on in a 5 mile ratio, that’s why god took 3 days to do the earth and only one for the moon and the little luminous dots in the sky.
If you are not a christian, why even argue the bible? If it is just another book to you (like any other novel), let christians argue it. I don’t argue the Bible, the Quran or the books of Confucious or any other “religious” book for that matter because it is a waist of my time. Normally who starts arguements about the bible are christians who rile up the people to argue with them. .
If you are not a christian, why even argue the bible? If it is just another book to you (like any other novel), let christians argue it. I don’t argue the Bible, the Quran or the books of Confucious or any other “religious” book for that matter because it is a waist of my time. Normally who starts arguements about the bible are christians who rile up the people to argue with them. . Most non Christians are not going to convert, just because they have recieved “the word” in their minds. It has to be deep within their heart. A man changed against his will, is of the same opinion still. I can read the vinaya texts from the buddhist religion and if it is not in my heart, I am not going to follow it nor argue about it.
and by the way, I am a Christian. I cannot convert you by arguing the Bible with you, but to show (my testimony is what God has done for me) you and answer your questions (if you are curious enough) what you want to know. Go to Galatians 5:22-23 and read it. This is what we practice.
If you want to come up with some good myths ask this question – What was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God told Adam and Eve not to eat?
You cannot simply understand God, otherwise you are God
Close your eyes, what do you see?
No, you do not see nothing, you see the dark, you see the color black. You see many many things.
This is something. You can never see nothing. You can never answer some things and that’s the way it is. That’s why most of us are told to be patient. To wait because when the time the end comes then we can finally have our answers. Read Matthew, he tells you to repent for the end, he says the coming of the Lord is near. If you are at the end of his gospel and you don’t understand what he’s talking about then you’re god be with you. Do you know how many scientists that have gone LITERALLY MENTAL and have disorders because they try to understand the Lord. So so many. So please, don’t give up on God because trust me he hasn’t given up on you. This is coming from a 14 year old. God be with you.
Excellent article in here. A must read for every single man fooled by the bible.
You cannot simply understand God, otherwise you are God
Close your eyes, what do you see?
No, you do not see nothing, you see the dark, you see the color black. You see many many things.
This is something. You can never see nothing. You can never answer some things and that’s the way it is. That’s why most of us are told to be patient. To wait because when the time the end comes then we can finally have our answers. Read Matthew, he tells you to repent for the end, he says the coming of the Lord is near. If you are at the end of his gospel and you don’t understand what he’s talking about then you’re god be with you. Do you know how many scientists that have gone LITERALLY MENTAL and have disorders because they try to understand the Lord. So so many. So please, don’t give up on God because trust me he hasn’t given up on you. This is coming from a 14 year old Australian girl.
u are good , almost like god , well , actualy u are god , your own god . i hope u have a backup plan in case all what it is written in Apocalips (and in all the bible,inspired by god) about good thinking people (very inteligent) like you , it’s gone come once on top of you .
untill then … maybe u gone accept that u are on wrong path .
God wants to bless u with fredoom from devil’s ocupation … its your choice …
hahahaha
you are soooo naive.
i think you have a problem in accepting something so huge and supernatural.
we’re not meant to understand God, otherwise we would be god
the author of this article i mean
‘Templa’ means shield in latin, we get our word temple from it. Churches, temples and cathedrals are all their to shield us from the one thing, death. There is no proof of God and nor will there ever be. God does not control the earth clearly. An example of this is the earthquake in New Zeland, what did they do, a christian country, a peaceful country. If you can tell me why God let 100 peope die without saying God works in mysterious ways then I will be impressed. I think you will coward away from this article because it is true. Congratulations to the author of this article you pointed out the obvious to these naive people. Christians pray when they need or want something. I bet most haters on this website will back off, if you have nothing nice to say nothing and get off this website.
Oh man, I completely agree with you.
wow kiknda strange how you have all this wisdom …..
but still have no real solid proof .. weakness is also blind and to remain silent when questions are all we are ,,, as humans we are all small and are just manifestations of a forbidden world as in all life on this planet we come and we go thats it otherwise after all this time we would have transcended this place of suffering ,, mutation is what we are expierincing most likly not divinity … i for one am not a sheep to be hearded by heritics, or hipocrites, or bigots,, with hidden agendas .just a thought …..
k explain this one call me crazy but i was there in the afterlife my uncle who’s deceased come down and instructed jesus, buddha, god or whoever to “save a spot 4 me in the independent section” and i know that i wasn’t sleeping and i sure as hell no pun intended wasn’t dying how do u explain that? and there wasn’t one person on a throne there was as I said many different heavens and not a single bible or religious book in sight. Explain that.
Hold on there!! You cannot spell (apocalypse, not apocalips), nor can you use proper grammar. Yet you claim to know what will happen? Wow. I would propose unto you an even better question. How about freedom from both ‘god’ and ‘satan’? If god truly loved us he would as the song goes, set it free, let it go. Read. Question. Learn
Wipe that froth from your mouth Calin, and take your meds.
Ooo I love arrogant nuts like yourself.
I feel sorry for all of you, you don’t understand scripture. I have seen miracles, spoken in tongues when I received the Holy Ghost, it was amazing, a truly unique experience, and witnessed things that you cannot comprehend. So, knowing that God is real, I would suggest you rethink things, not to mention the very simple fact that bible prophecy is fulling itself “word for word.” What a bunch of dumb asses!!!
I agree, the bible is hard to understand, These people need to read some on Quantum Physics.
Maybe then they will understand.
Quantum Physics takes on the form of the person studying it, really weird stuff. Then when they read the bible they might get a better understanding. How can we know Gods will when we cant get any further than a couple hundred miles above the earth and go around it like a puppet in a string? Impossible. Science is just now finding out there is Life out there but they can’t prove it. Oh I recon some day they will see for themselves, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall testify unto the Lord, Quotes the bible.
‘witnessed things you cannot comprehend’ eh? Awfully presumptuous of you, but what can you expect from a blind, deaf, mute, narrow-minded zealot?
asjfaslfqwalsjgblejbgalsbgabgalsbj: I’m typing in “tongues” so you can understand me better. You’re the dumb ass “Rocker”. There is nothing written in scripture that a sane rational intelligent human being can’t understand. We DO understand it. It’s absurd nonsense written by men to manipulate, and take advantage of ignorant weak minded individuals like yourself. laksg;asg;aksg;ag;kas-god-;as5;sfg-doesn’teljflejb-exist-lakshfgo3-idot-;asf;asf!!!!
FYI: Gerald… IDIOT is spelled like that not idot…
Understanding comes from a reverance toward the One True God of the Bible.
First a realization that you don’t know everything.
Second an understanding that EVERYTHING in the Original post has already been addressed
first one:
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/joshua-esther/how-old-was-ahaziah-when-he-began-rule-over-jerusalem
Since we have a TRANSLATED copy in english there ARE translation issues as mentioned above…
BUT THE ORIGINAL TEXTS HAVE THE CORRECT ACCURACY.
Whats more believable
The Universe POPPED into being by itself and expanded faster then the LAWS of physics then chose to slow down on its’ own..
-OR-
An Intelligent Being beyond your understanding created it.
Obviously, the rational intelligent person can see NOTHING pops into being in the known world so the later is more rational.
Why get all bent out of shape about whether it’s real or not. God commanded his followers to spread the word to the world. So as a follower of Christ i am just doing my job to tell you about it, what you do with that is up to you. God has given you a choice between Heaven and Hell
Your ‘god’ will not appreciate that language… arse
Hey rocker!! Stick to your own creedo. “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” “Cast not the first stone.” But then the childish normally resort to name calling when they do not get their way.
Rocker, I think your brain is acting up .
I, also, got “saved” by speaking in tongues and having a full water baptism. Yes, it was an amazing experience. SO WHAT? I have had many such eye openers. What is DANGEROUS about that is once you do that, you are then BRAINWASHED horribly! You have to “obey”, put yourself in complete obedience, and they actually put you through “tests”. In my church, if people didn’t speak in tongues “right” enough, the “mothers” of the church SLUGGED THEM IN THE STOMACH to get rid of the demons supposedly holding them back from speaking tongues the “right” way. I saw it, it made me sick and when I began questioning, I also got punched in the stomach and asked what was my name. I told them, and they said, “No, your name is LEGION because you are many demons”. Be careful! Having FAITH in God is one thing, but giving yourself over to a church is TOTALLY different.
exactly, i have it seen it all i have i have even witnessed a ghost do drugs and ask me if i wanted some i told them politely of course that i didn’t want to and to get out before anyone sees them. So yeah REALLY CREEPY!!!
You are a nutcase sir. They put people like you in mental hospitals when they do the things you do outside the religious veil. A nutcase? Yes you are.
Hey, Honest Truth… he is not a nutcase. Religion, itself, is a nutcase; he’s just a victim.
Hi, Don. I, too, saw miracles, spoke in tongues and had those amazing experiences. In fact, many miraculous events happened in my lifetime; however, truth is truth. I don’t let the fact that the bible is just another mythological book written by ignorant but perhaps well meaning people deter me from my beliefs in a good God, a loving God (not the one described in the bible). I also know that although I spoke in tongues, not everyone who does is “saved” as we were taught. In fact, the idea of all or nothing, saint or sinner is extremely dangerous. It is dangerous because as we see that we are human and can err, there is a tendency to think we have “backslidden” into the “dark side” (sinner) and so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Also, there is a human tendency to want to believe that there is an “us” and a “them”. The “us” is toted as being holy, righteous and good and the “them” is toted as being on a journey straight to hell and guided by the supernatural evil being they call Satan. You are either one or the other, no in between. That is a dangerous way to think. In my opinion, a good example of this is Whitney Houston, who was brought up a “saint” and then, because of not being able to keep up the holier than thou, realized she was then a “sinner” so she might as well do all the things sinners do which are fun or which can wipe away pains and negative feelings, and she ended up dead. If only she could have seen things in shades of gray instead of black and white, sinner or saint she might have lived!
boy you must have been on somthing very high, what was it. acid or vodka
Be careful what you say, insulting someone is not right either. “Be doers of the word and not preachers only”
I don’t mean to be rude, but do you think that you are any better to insult than they are to put down your faith?
I am a believer also, I am a single mom. I was abandoned by my father when I was young. I also was attacked by a bunch of men. I was also raped when I was 5 and when I was 11. When I was 17, I was driving with my best friend and we had a car accident, and she died. She was a believer. Also my sister-like friend, was killed in a car accident 4 years ago. She was 15 almost 16, along with my friends 3 month old baby girl, and a 19 year old guy.
I know what it’s like to not have faith. I know what it’s like to hate God, and ask how he could ‘do stuff’ to ‘innocent’ people, but he’s not. He allows it, he doesn’t do it. He allows it so that in your struggles you can go to Him, and He will carry you through it. He gives people that have faith in Him the strength to go through hard times. He allows hard times to test us and to help us become stronger for when we have to go do His work.
We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. We are not on our own. And God is here, His spirit is here to help and encourage us.
Christians are not to provoke the non-believers, in fact, we are to show them the way by example and by love in our hearts. We are to give up our lives as a living sacrifice to do what God needs us to do. No turning back.
Jesus dies on a Cross to make it so that we could be cleansed through His blood. He took the burden of the whole worlds’ sins, so that we could go to heaven. And that not of our selves, it is the gift of God through faith that we may be saved.
Jesus gave His life as a substitute for us. And He didn’t cry for God to save Him, He asked God if there was any other way, but that if it was God’s will that He would do what God had planned, and that was to die on the cross.
If we accept Jesus’ gift of Salvation, God will allow us to go to heaven. He is not willing that ANY should perish.
He loves you and maybe He doesn’t give people everything that they want, but He sure gives us what we need. But people are selfish and people make mistakes. And that can lead to starvation and leave someone without a home. I am not rich, I am not “in fashion.” I don’t have the money to eat steak and squash every day. I have to work and pray for what I get. I don’t have things handed to me on a silver platter, not on any platter, but with God’s help, I can work to get what I need.
Are you REALLY saying that God kills innocents so that special people like you can be “tested”? How horrible and egocentric! Little children die excruciatingly from lingering cancers just so you (how special you are) can have your faith tested? Shame on you. I can only hope you and YOUR loved ones can serve as a test for someone else’s faith
and wjat were these things we cannot comprehend, what miracles do you speak of
what were these “tongues” you talked in? If you say it was some incoherent babble that is not a recognized language in any culture, I would say YOU are the dumb ass. Was it a recognized language that you can prove was previously unknown to you, such as Russian? If so, my apology. Otherwise you are SUCH A DUMB ASS!!!
Hi:
Let me offer my comments with a bit more kindness and consideration than you have received from some posters.
I see so much information taken out of context to weave your own mistaken and, with all due respect, misguided worldview. Like so many other atheists and agnostics, you cherry-pick Scripture to suit your own needs and self-created worldview. The tone of your posts makes me wonder why you express your thoughts with such animosity toward the Bible and Christianity/Christians unless deep down you truly know and understand Paul’s message in Romans 1:
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images …”
I used to feel the same way as you with the same passion against the Bible and Christianity (I leaned toward Buddhism because of my martial arts training), but I could not deny the mixed feelings I was experiencing deeper down within me. Rather than rest on my prejudices, I decided to take an honest reassessment of my beliefs, and found that my misconceptions, prejudices, and questions could all be answered and addressed by a better understanding of Scripture and a basic understanding of Christian theology. It didn’t happen immediately, but over a period of many months.
There are many mysteries in the Bible, but please consider this: The Bible is a transcendent perspective outside the realm of cause and effect. That’s one reason science, in its zeal to answer all “cause and effect” problems, has trouble with defining or even trying to “prove” the existence of God. The tools of cause and effect don’t work here. We gain knowledge through understanding cause and effect, but we also gain knowledge through revelation.
I find it somewhat amusing that people believe in UFOs from other dimensions, ghosts, and other supernatural entities, but fail to embrace the concept of a supernatural God who lives both inside and outside of our universe. The same people that elevate astrophysicist Stephen Hawking to god-like status for his theories and ideas about what lies outside the universe dismiss the biblical accounts that detail God’s frequent presence in our cause-and-effect world of our dimension from outside of it. It’s all there if you just take the time to read it with your prejudices set aside to understand it.
Ignorance is the lazy man’s comfort zone from which he rarely journeys or sees beyond, but knowledge expands his vista and understanding of a wider world.
Blessings to all…
you go boy, I agree with you one hundred percent. May I also add that it is written:
2 Timothy 4:3…. For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths…….
I dont have theological explanation but all I have is an testimony of my own….
Not everything can be explained in the bible as many things in the world, like why do people waste so much time on trying to explain why the bible is a myth or wrong, when all it does is to encourage people to lead a blameless life.
You would rather waste time and energy on something like this instead of taking the excellent advice given for a successful life. We live in such a corrupt world filled with sin, lust, perversion, murder, greed, selfishness, rape, abuse, drugs, robbery, hatred, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, hurt and the list can go on and on and on and on……………….
The above mentioned are so easily attained, its so much easier for people to cause damage than to do damage control…………
So this might not be a SCIENTIFIC or THEOLOGICAL conclusion, but its easier for people to find reasons to continue to sin than to stop sinning, The day of the Lord is near, so those who continue to sin can follow their master into destruction and note that pride comes before destruction, the wages of sin is death and that will be an eternal death.
NO WONDERFUL EXPLANATION BUT YOUR SIN WILL LEAD YOU TO THE PIT OF HELL. You have the choice to either follow the bible or to continue being distracted by Satan, trying to prove why the bible is a myth…..
I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that your eyes will however be opened and that salvation will become your portion.
My testimony:
been a drug addict, was raped, was a theif, alcoholic, was abandoned, I chose to blame God, hated the Bible until I the life I chose to live led me to a point of no return……
I then humbled myself, asked God to forgive me, I asked him to help change me, my life and all my circumstances. I also promised to follow in the footsteps of his son Jesus Christ.
I can`t explain the entire bible, but I dont have to. I have been way to blessed with all the awesome unseen, God Encounters in my life.
Its not physcical, but is spiritual……………
God Bless All of YA`ALL………………….
and by the way I am only 22 years old, hope you discover the hidden treasures of the bible before its to late…
(Deuteronomy 22:28-29
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
What kind of lunatic would make a rape victim marry her attacker? Answer: God.
You should research who wrote the bible before you decide to slam it. It was not written by the creator of the universe it is simply a compilation of stories. Written stories were not very popular long long ago, so everything was spoken. A commontactic was to add hyperbole to them so people would be interested. It was also common to get simple facts misconstrued. I had to discredit you analysis in the beginning with you first wrong statement. Think it over and come up with something a little more accurate yourself.
Just for the record, you all paraphrase and take what you want form the scripture yourselves, so don’t try to come down on anyone for what you are guilty of yourselves. You do know that the original translations and teachings had no verse or scripture numbers right? That’s something added on so that religious people can pick and choose without feeling like they are cutting up and hacking the full teachings included in these very incomplete texts.
The truth is the bible is full of stories of a supposed god who commands, and commits murder, rape, genocide, human sacrifice, and child abuse.
He commands the deaths of newborn babies, unborn babies, and allows, and condones slavery, including the slavery of one’s own daughters.
It’s a good thing such a deity doesn’t exist. If he did he would make Hitler look like a nice guy.
You can’t dispute this facts, and any person who follows such a religion is immoral, and irresponsible.
But, if your fear of death is so great that you have to believe in a omnipotent magic sky daddy, who has a better place waiting for you when you die, then by all means go ahead and believe in it.
Or better yet, if it’s such a great place then what are you waiting for…….why not kill yourself, and go there know. One less retard on the planet.
The truth is the bible is full of stories of a supposed god who commands, and commits murder, rape, genocide, human sacrifice, and child abuse.
He commands the deaths of newborn babies, unborn babies, and allows, and condones slavery, including the slavery of one’s own daughters.
It’s a good thing such a deity doesn’t exist. If he did he would make Hitler look like a nice guy.
You can’t dispute this facts, and any person who follows such a religion is immoral, and irresponsible.
But, if your fear of death is so great that you have to believe in a omnipotent magic sky daddy, who has a better place waiting for you when you die, then by all means go ahead and believe in it.
Or better yet, if it’s such a great place then what are you waiting for…….why not kill yourself, and go there now. One less retard on the planet.
Another angry, vile post from a so-called atheist. You are not an atheist–you are someone who HATES God and seems to HATE people who believe in God. Now that makes soooo much sense.
You shout out your vile contempt from your position of total ignorance, lies, and absurd statements. Your insane sounding rant makes absolutely no sense at all to those of us who would prefer to engage in a dialogue.
Would you like to engage in a respectful dialogue, or would you prefer to continue to vomit that bile you call an opinion?
Now, I have not resorted to calling you names, but I have characterized your opinion on the subject. Yet, you don’t know me but prefer to hide behind pseudo-philosophical mask so you can hurl insults at me.
Your move, pal….
Words can be harsh,but its defenetely true your comment,I have never read a book that has some many stories of war,mass murder,including children. And yet the same god say that he loves people, so much that he puts the tree of knowledge (death) so close so the innocent man just created can go and sin. Even a crack addict would not leave his o her innocent child on the roof of a building,hoping he wouldn’t go near the edge just becouse is dangerous. If you want to show love to your child you don’t put him deadly traps. The stories perhaps were good 3000 years ago, but now! The whole charade of Christianism
Gloucester51 (and all others) – it is so simple: Why don’t you simply proof the author wrong?
Bronwyn:
No, you have it wrong. By Richard Dawkins’ own admission, atheists make up about 5% of the world’s population, so being in the minority, prove to the majority any validity in your worldview? And so so without invoking any arguments from theology or Christianity–because you can’t argue from an atheistic position by borrowing from Christian theology. You must have your own philosophical foundation from which you promote your worldview…the problem is, you can’t. Even agreeing to debate these issues on the assumption that people are using logic to make their points presumes an ordered universe in which these laws of logic operate–and an ordered universe can’t be a byproduct of a random act that occured out of “nothing.”
I’m all ears.
Gloucester51
Gloucester51 – you believe in a bible where extraordinary claims are being made and you don’t need to give ANY reasons or explanations? I suppose it’s suffice to say: that’s how god made it or it’s the will of god… I hoped you would respond to the original statements of the article…
What purpose would that serve other than to further entrench you in your atheistic worldview? Why do you require me to respond when biblical scholars (Christian and non-Christian alike) have already done so over the centuries for any point of contention you wish to raise? Read them instead…do you want a list of names/books? I would be happy to provide them.
The Bible is a book of history, of poetry, of sociology, of prophecy, of narrative, all of which contain literal and figurative meaning, parables, rhetorical passages, and all types of literary affectations. But to people who have never taken the time to understand how it was written (it is a collection of books, not just “a book”), and why it was written, it will continue to confound them because to delve into it’s meaning and purpose would threaten their man-centered worldviews where each is the center of his or her own universe.
God provides enough evidence in the world to everyone to draw us to him, but not so much evidence to compel us to believe in him…you are free to ignore not only this evidence that is around you, but you are free to ignore the truth of his existence in the depth of your very soul (see Romans 1:20-23 for proof of that).
Regarding my previous post…
Your previous post seems to be an attempted deflection from communicating the atheist argument without borrowing from Christian theology, as I challenged you.
Your rather simplistic assumption about how and what I believe is a common tactic here.
Still waiting to hear about the atheist manifesto that doesn’t borrow from terminology or ideas of Christian theology because if it does, it isn’t atheism: it is simply a hatred of God and of people who believe in God–without knowing anything about the people who express such a belief.
There is a saying to not throw out the baby with the bath water, which is to say when you get rid of the dirt, don’t take away the important aspects. In the Bible, there are myriads of sayings: some are positive, some are negative, some are historical to a point, and some are made up metaphors to use as fables or stories which teach. So, in reading the Bible, you have to take a perspective of discernment and understanding of the cultures of those days. What did they prize? What did they have as mores? What were they trying to get across? Just because someone says the Bible depicts God as being mean, pouting, egotistical doesn’t mean that there is no God at all. It just means that how God is described is disgusting. If this is true, it’s true. However, just because someone says a person is disgusting, that doesn’t mean the person doesn’t exist. There are two choices when you realize the description is incorrect in the Bible. One is to become an atheist and just not believe, and the other is to create in your mind a logical idea of a supreme type of spiritual being which is helpful to you in your life and which is all loving and strengthening, encouraging and which gives you the impetus to adapt to difficult situations. I have chosen not to be an atheist, but to be a believe in my own, individual way. Not religion’s way. There is no anger with me, but just sadness that so much has been done that is inhumane in the name of religion. There are so many wars based on the “us/them” philosophy. It is sadness, not anger.
Ok, no cherrypicking of the Bible here. I am not a scholar nor am I any better than anyone else, however, I have made my own observations about God, Religion, and the Bible. I have a copy of the Bible on the shelf right next to Grimms fairy tales and Aesop’s fables. Each of these books contain stories with life lessons in them. I read all three. I stay away from religion because it and the people who run it scare me for obvious reasons. Now we come to God. If God is there at all he or it does not care what goes on here. If he did things would be vastly different. When people ask God to do things, if they get what they want God is good and when they do not it’s gods will or my favorite” God works in mysterious ways”. Now we come to my least favorite of all religious. These show up on the front porch quite often and seem to not understand the word no and each time, yes the same ones will show up again and again and I will first politely tell them no and this is ignored to the point that I am forced to be rude. I believe there is an energy of some kind out there and you can call it God, Allah, or whatever. For myself, I choose to be a kind and loving person and follow my own path.
Hi Gloucester51,
In fairness to myself, it’s not me that says that the bible is the unmistakable word of the creator of the universe. So it seems to my that if there are mistakes then that refutes that proposition.
You say I am cherry-picking parts of the bible to suit my own needs; well of course I am I am showing you some of the parts that I think are mistakes or I, in some other way, disagree with. I feel the shock is th fact that I am sure you cherry-pick the parts you like.
There are parts of the bible that I am sure you don’t obey I think that is strange because you think that god is great but still justify or ignore the parts of the bible you don’t like. Why is that?
Can you please explain the parts of the bible that I have impugned and why the are not wrong.
Best Wishes,
Rob
Hi Rob and all:
Let me begin by asking some questions: Can you read Greek so that you can determine which passages in the New Testament are erroneous? Have you discovered an error that was missed by hundreds of ancient Greek scholars over the centuries? Can you read Hebrew so that you can determine which passages in the Old Testament are erroneous? Have you discovered an error that was missed by hundreds of ancient Hebrew scholars over the centuries?
Or, is it just your opinion that there are errors/mistakes?
Your citation of the various translations of the inscription placed on the cross of Jesus is not original and has been adequately explained many times in the past. Different eyewitness accounts reveal slight variations in the details of the event. Much like several eyewitnesses to a car accident or bank robbery will differ on the details, but they do provide enough corroborative information to provide an accurate account of the event. It’s also possible that the different authors writing of the account used different Greek variants of the same word, which may translate different in English (I’d have to check that first myself by comparing the Greek with the English).
So, I’d suggest not getting hung up on the minutiae that are not key to the larger picture.
As a Christian, I do not cherry-pick Scripture as you suggest I do. I believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God. Sure, there may be some aspects of the Bible I don’t understand (the book of Revelation, for example), but I don’t confuse my lack of understanding with disagreement. I try to get more clarity so that I can increase my understanding…that removes the roadblock. Just disagreeing with something I don’t understand would be the easy, lazy way out of conceptual challenge.
I don’t ignore any parts of the Bible and there are no parts I don’t “like”. Sure, there are some parts of the Bible that are difficult to follow in our daily lives, but as a Christian, I don’t ignore them or “dislike” them–I do my best as a fallible human being to live the life that’s expected of me as a follower of the teachings of Jesus.
Now, we can go all day swapping claims and refutations about the Bible, and even if you accepted all of my “proofs” and “evidence” for the Bible being the word of God, in the end, those proofs and evidence would have to pass through your worldview filter. If your worldview holds that the Bible isn’t true, then all the evidence and proof in the world–no matter how strong it is–will not change your mind/worldview.
We all wear our worldview all the time–it governs our thoughts, actions, and words. It is the first thing we put “on” in the morning when we open our eyes. My worldview is a Christian one and it dictates how I will operate in the world each and every day. Do I make mistakes? Absolutely–every day, but I get up the next day and start it all over again.
My worldview begins each morning thanking God that I am alive that day to experience what he has in store for me–despite what else may be going on in my life. Some people’s worldview begins each morning wondering where their next drink or fix will come from, and that worldview dictates their thoughts, actions, and words for that day and the next and the next…it stops when the worldview changes.
So, the big question is: Is Christianity (that’s what the Old Testament prophets prophesied about and what the New Testament is all about) reasonable? I believe it is, but unless one makes a thorough investigation of the evidence with an open mind, belief in Christianity may appear problematic. Some people just can’t get past emotional objections (“I hated my Sunday School teacher when I was a kid”), intellectual objections (“I see no proof of God’s existence”); or volitional objections (“I want to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it–and with anyone I choose”).
Because we are human beings, we do not possess the type of knowledge that will provide us with absolute proof of God’s existence or non-existence. We can’t use cause-and-effect thought processes to “prove” the existence of a supernatural God who lives both in and outside of the universe (supernatural = not existing in nature or subject to explanation by natural laws). It is virtually impossible to know everything about a particular topic, and it’s certainly impossible when that topic is an infinite God. So, there has to come a point where you realize you have enough information to come to a conclusion, even if unanswered questions remain.
But that just addresses the evidence and proofs; it’s the worldview that must change–not just the acceptance of the reasonableness of Christianity.
Blessings all..
Gloucester51, do you read ancient Greek or Hebrew fluently? Better still, have you even read the bible? In any language? I am not referring to hand picking a bit here and there. Cover to cover. I give unto you an example. Most christians will claim vehemently that Jesus was born of a virgin. They will even go so far as to ‘claim’ it says so in the bible. Really? Huh. Wow. Too bad christians apparently have no problem playing the part of a fool. Why? Nowhere in the bible does it speak in detail of the virgin birth. Doubt me? Read it. Cover to cover.
Question. Read. Learn.
OK, that SEEMS to be more rational than the other posts which disagree with the myth theory. NONE of you states how the article is wrong, do you? You just come back with the same old, same old, RHETORIC you have been taught in church and are parroting back. I, too, was taught to think as you do. In fact, when you start questioning, there is a HUGE disappointment. So, if you want to stay Christian or whatever sect you are, DO NOT QUESTION anything. For real. Don’t question. Just believe what you want strongly enough and it will become real for you. Can you be happy believing things that are utter nonsense? OF COURSE. Let me give you one scripture that people take literally and see how it plays out. JESUS CHRIST THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER. I asked one person if Jesus came back today, would he still look like he did when he was alive. YES. Would he still wear sandals and a toga. YES. Would he still spit in blind peoples’ eyes to cure their blindness? YES. I said, “Well then, he’d be put into jail, or declared insane and locked up.”
Gloucester51,
How are you? So you say that in order to understand the Bible one has to speak the language it was written in? So there are mistakes in the English version is that what you are saying? There does seem to be some mistakes with the Greek text also read a book called Misquoting Jesus by Bart Erman there is a very good lecture of the same name by Dr Erhman available online too.
So you do like the parts of the Bible that say gay people are an abomination, I assume you like the parts that advocate death penalty for all sorts of things.
You are absolutely right when you say that we cannot know if god exists or not. I admit that; I say there is not enough evidence to make me believe in god ever mind a christian god. Whereas you say that you know god exists, you know what he wants and who his son is.
Hi Rob, why waste your time with narrow-minded people like Gloucester51?
Good morning Robert:
I’ll see if I can put together a coherent response with just one cup of coffee in me this morning 🙂
You make many blanket statements that paint an incorrect picture of how Christianity addresses many issues, so let me try to defuse them.
No, I’m not at all saying there are “mistakes” in the Bible…you are saying that. Since you haven’t responded to my question about whether you know Greek or Hebrew to accurately assess the “mistakes” you claim to have found, I will have to assume you do not have knowledge of either. That’s OK…we can still proceed.
The process of taking ancient Greek NT and Hebrew OT texts and “translating” them into modern English–or any contemporary language for that matter–is a process called “biblical hermaneutics.” Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. If you know anything about Greek or Hebrew, one translated English word can have many multiple variants in those other languages. Translations have to take into account many variables, not the least of which are (1) does this translated passage remain in context with the passage before it and after it?, and (2) does this translated passage remain true to the intent of the original author. Both are daunting tasks, but there are others.
For example, Greek and Hebrew can’t be translated word-by-word; the translater must look at the words, phrases, and sentences that precede and follow the word being translated to be able to grasp the best-possible translation context given the two factors I cited above. Not an easy task, for sure. It is more likely that translators choose different contexts than make outright “mistakes” in translation. After all, the Bible has been translated and researched by hundreds of scholars over the centuries. Probability suggests that actual errors in translation have already been corrected or the ones that remain are inconsequential to the passage.
I’ve read some of Bart Erhman’s work (but not the book you cited) and watched him in a debate with Christian theologian William Lane Craig. Erhman is an admitted athiest yet teaches courses in the Old and New Testament from a literature perspective, not a theological one. If I remember correctly, he’s an admitted atheist. Just because he’s an atheist (if he is) doesn’t mean he can not provide a balanced perspective, but I reserve judgment on that until I have read his book. However, I do not share his worldview which dictates how he thinks and sees the world.
Stating that the Bible says that gay people are an abomination is quite a liberal paraphrase!!The Bible abhors all types of deviant sexual BEHAVIOR. You must separate the behavior from the individual. I have gay friends and coworkers whom I love and respect; they all know of my Christian worldview and lifestyle. I believe and hope that my words, thoughts, and actions toward them is a testimony to my faith and my beliefs. What I do not embrace is their sexual lifestyle based on what Scripture says. I can love the person but not accept the behavior much as I can anyone else. I also realize that many Christians confuse the two and cannot separate them, thereby dismissing gays as people. That’s not scriptural, and it’s not fair to condemn an entire system of beliefs (Christianity) just because a few do not follow the teachings as they are meant to be followed.
Death penalty–I know agnostics and atheists that are also for the death penalty–don’t see the connection here. The Bible mentions “an eye for an eye” and the fact that God is just, serving up justice to those who deserve it (as seen in Old Testament books).
You said “You are absolutely right when you say that we cannot know if god exists or not. I admit that; I say there is not enough evidence to make me believe in god ever mind a christian god.”
That’s a contradiction, Robert. If you agree that we cannot know for certainty (evidence/proof) whether God exists, you cannot make the claim then that “there is not enough evidence to make me believe in God ever mind a christian god.” That just doesn’t make sense.
So, let me ask you: as you look outside to the natural world with all its attendant creatures and wonders, do you think: “Just imagine this all started from nothing, and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically and randomly rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into an infinite variety of self-replicating forms of life…”
That, my friend, is a whole lot more difficult to believe than “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”
If life is just random chance, then nothing really does matter and there is no morality—it’s survival of the fittest. If survival of the fittest means me killing my neighbor to survive, so be it. For years, atheists have said there is no God, but they want to live like God exists. They want to live like their lives have meaning. I think it points man’s natural rebellion against the God he deep down knows exists as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1 (see my previous posting).
I never said I “know” God exists for that would suggest a surety based on evidentiary knowledge arrived at by some cause-and-effect process. Again, you are kinda making blanket statements that don’t accurately reflect my statements. The “knowledge” I have of God is from revelation and study of Scripture. Based on that type of knowledge, the Bible and Jesus’ own words make the claim that he is the son of God and God in the flesh.
This is the difficulty I find with conversing with folks who are agnostics, atheists, and skeptics–they try to describe Christianity without ever having lived it. They think they know about it based on what others have said, what they’ve observed in the news media, or their own limited opinions. It’s like trying to describe what life is like in Paris if you’ve (1) never been to Paris, (2) don’t understand the French language, (3) don’t understand what it is to be “Parisian”, (4) don’t understand the history of Paris, or (5) what makes living in Paris so special.
That’s the difficulty…
Robert, looking forward to more fruitful discussions. Future responses may be delayed…I am off this week due to a company shutdown to control costs, and will be back to work next week..
Blessings…
I am having trouble with what you say re the transliteration of the bible. I completely understand that in the process of translation from one language to another there is scope for inaccuracy that’s my point when I said that the English text version has mistakes. I also do not accept that the original text is inerrant. I recommend Erhman’s book on the topic.
My point on the death penalty was not that only theists believe in it but rather that it is prescribed in the bible for many things and I wonder if you still see it as a viable thing to do for those who transgress the rules as laid out in the bible.
Your points on creation I am not touching as I, with all due respect, think that they are absurd.
Hi Rob:
Can you cite the so-called mistakes you have been referencing in past posts, and substantiate how they are mistakes? Not looking for an opinion here–looking for facts. You continue to confuse “inaccuracy” with translation variants. My point is that the Bible has been translated and checked for accuracy of translation so many times over the intervening centuries, that any remaining errors are inconsequential to the narrative (for a simple example, one translation might say “in the marketplace near the port city” and another might say “at the marketplace on the port city”)–if it’s an error, it’s an inconsequential one. At this point, I’m beginning to think you WANT to believe there are errors and seeing them where none exist (of any significance).
With all due respect, you appear not to have much experience studying the Bible. The Old Testament is a collection of books that describe God’s covenant with ancient Jewish people. I’m simplifying here but the laws laid down in many instances of the OT are prescribed behavior for Jews (such as not eating fish that live on the bottom of lakes or oceans). The Old Testament is referred to as the “old covenant” while the New Testament (with the birth of Jesus) is called the “New Covenant” because it represented a new way for people to relate to God. In the OT, people had the rules to follow in order to be judged by God. So, it was behavior driven. With the ministry of Jesus, it was all about what is one’s heart and not the outward display of pious behavior. Jesus said that God will judge what is in a person’s heart which must direct their outward lives. Outward piety without a heart for God would condemn people.
The 10 Commandments are still valid into the New Testament, but there’s no death penalty for violating them. In a way, the 10 Commandments were created as an ideal–a way for God to show people that no matter how hard they try, they can’t keep all the commandments–that’s not going to get them into heaven. Good works just won’t cut it. Nobody can keep all of them all of the time and God considers the breaking of one commandment as bad as breaking all of them. If you know binary math, it’s either 0 or 1–all or nothing, and the point is that we can’t do it all by ourselves.
What part of the creation points are absurd? Certainly the “something came from nothing and then more complex stuff came about in a random manner” is the most assinine, nonsensical concept for anyone with a modicum of intelligence to accept, let alone scientists to promote.
Now, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is a pretty huge statement. Obviously, we don’t have the details of how all of this came about. You might be surprised to hear this, but my background is in the earth sciences. I have a B.S. degree in Geology/Geophysics and post-graduate study in Planetary Geochemistry, with work done at the Lunar and Planetary Institute of the Johnson Space Center in the early to mid 1980s. I have had more coursework and actual experience working with evolutionary and systematic paleontology (evolution) than most people–including those on this blog.
So, how do I reconcile my belief in a creation and evolution? For me, it wasn’t hard. The deeper I got into my paleontology/evolution classes, the more I saw the evidence for a created world and universe. I just could not accept that everything started from “nothing” and then “randomly” evolved into complex lifeforms. I truly didn’t see a disconnect, though others in my classes did who were skeptics, agnostics, and atheists.
So, if we can agree that the details of how the universe, earth and planets were created are not in the Bible, isn’t it just possible that evolution could be a part of the big plan of a transcendent Creator? Too many people–atheists, agnostics, skeptics, Christians and scientists are stuck on the “either-or” question when it may in fact be more of a “both-and” question.
Don’t forget that the Bible is full of allegory, metaphor, and some of the books are poetic in nature (Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah to name a few); not everything is to be taken literally. There are lots of books that help folks untangle the literal from the figurative.
But meaningful dialogue is an exchange of ideas that lead to better understanding. If people just dig in their heels on their side of the line, nothing ever gets accomplished…(sounds like Congress!)
Blessings…
Christianity is paganism:
(taken from the Biggest Secret)
“Nimrod was represented in
a dual role of God the Father and Ninus, the son of
Semiramis, and her olive branch was symbolic of this
offspring produced through a ‘virgin birth’. Ninus was also
known as Tammuz who was said to have been crucified
with a lamb at his feet and placed in a cave. When a rock
was rolled away from the cave’s entrance three days later,
his body had disappeared. Heard that somewhere before?
This husband-wife-son theme of Nimrod-Semiramis-and
Ninus/Tammuz became the Osiris-Isis-Horus mythology
of the Egyptians with its equivalent in India, Asia, China and elsewhere. Much later it
would be Joseph, Mary and Jesus. When the Babylonians held their Spring rites to mark
the death and resurrection after three days of Tammuz-Ninus, they offered buns
inscribed with a solar cross. Yes, even the hot cross buns of British Easter tradition
come from Babylon. Easter comes from another face of Queen Semiramis – Ishtar -and
it is from this, and possibly another Brotherhood deity, Ashtaroth, that we get the name
of ‘Ashtar’ as in ‘Ashtar Command’, a completely manipulated New Age belief in an
extraterrestrial ‘hero’ who has come to save us. The Babylonian myths and symbolism
provided the foundations for all the major religions, especially Christianity. The Roman
Church was the creation of the Babylonian Brotherhood and the Pope still wears a mitre
shaped like a fish head to symbolise Nimrod. This is also the significance of his
Fisherman’s Ring. The Chair of St Peter in the Vatican was claimed to be a holy relic, but
in 1968 it was exposed by a scientific commission as being no older than the 9th century
More significantly, according to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, is that it is decorated by
twelve plates portraying the twelve labours of Hercules. This same work claims that
Hercules was another name for Nimrod before becoming a deity of the Greeks.9 In 1825,
Pope Leo XII authorised the production of a jubilee medal and it depicted a woman in a
pose that was blatant symbolism of Queen Semiramis. She had a crucifix in her left
hand, a cup in her right and on her head was a seven rayed crown like the one on the
Statue of Liberty, another depiction of Semiramis which was given to New York by
French Freemasons. A contact who has relatives working in high positions in the Vatican
told me how, during the reign of Pope John Paul II, he was given a guided tour of the
place which blew his mind. He was shown the Pope’s solid gold bath which is decorated
with all the astrological symbols and he saw inside the vacuum-sealed vaults which
contain thousands of ancient esoteric books which have been stolen and hoarded over
hundreds of years of religious dictatorship and so taken out of public circulation. The
Roman Church and the Babylonian Brotherhood are one and the same.
Nimrod was also Eannus, the god with two faces, who was later known to the
Romans as Janus. One of the Anunnaki brothers, Enki the ‘serpent god’, was alsoknown as Ea. The Freemasonic eagle with two heads looking left and right, east and
west, is symbolic of Nimrod in the role of Eannus, and I would suggest that the eagle is
symbolic of the winged Draco. Eannus, it was said, held the keys to the doors of heaven
and he was the sole intermediary between God and humanity, therefore any belief not
supported by him was false and should be condemned. This was a wonderful tool for
the Babylonian priesthood to impose their will on the populous and exactly the same
scam has been played by their successors, the Christian priests, the Rabbis and the
priesthoods of Islam, Hinduism and all the rest. The Roman Catholic title of cardinal
comes from the word ‘cardo’ meaning hinge and relates to Nimrod’s role as guardian of
the door to heaven.10 The Babylonian priests even established a governing body they
called the Grand Council of Pontiffs, a name later transferred to the Church of Rome.11
The Babylonian High Priest, who instructed the inner circle initiates, was known as…
Peter, meaning the ‘Great Interpreter’. The feast day of the Christian St Peter was
traditionally celebrated on the day the Sun entered the astrological house of Aquarius,
the very day that Eannus and Janus were honoured!12 The Babylonian religion, like all
the look-alikes that were to follow, consisted of two levels. The masses were
manipulated into believing superstitions and into taking symbolic stories literally, while
the chosen initiates were given the real knowledge on penalty of death if they ever
revealed it.
The Pisos were a bloodline family descended from statesmen, consuls, poets and
historians, and such people would definitely be initiates of the secret society network of
the Roman Empire, a major stepping stone for the reptilian full-bloods and crossbreeds
to the present day. This is why a Roman soldier is the logo of that Brotherhood
operation, American Express. The Piso family claimed to descend from Calpus who,
they said, was the son of Numa Pompilius, the successor to Romulus, the founder of
Rome. These were seriously connected people. Such Roman bloodlines are said to have
come from Troy and we are looking at a family which goes back to the Caucasus and
the Near East. After the destruction of Troy around 1,200 BC, the story goes that a guy
called Aeneas of a ‘royal’ (that is reptilian) bloodline went with the remnants of his
people and settled in Italy. There he married into the royal family of the Latins and
through this bloodline later emerged the Roman Empire. According to many traditions,
the grandson of Aeneas, a man called Brutus, landed in Britain around 1,103 BC with a
group of Trojans, including some from colonies in Spain, to become King of the Britons
and found the city of New Troy – London.
Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the head of the family, was married to the great
granddaughter of Herod the Great. According to Reuchlin’s research, Piso, who used
many pseudonyms, produced his ‘Ur Marcus’, the first version of the Gospel of Mark,
in about 60AD. One of the friends who encouraged him was the famous Roman writer,
Annaeus Seneca, but it seems that both of them were killed by the Emperor Nero in the
year 65. With this, the name Piso disappears from Roman history and doesn’t reappear
Reuchlin says that Anus Calpurnius Piso then wrote three of the Gospels in the
following order: The Gospel of Matthew (70-75 AD); the updated Mark (75-80); and,
with the help of the Roman writer and statesman, Pliny the Younger, the updated Luke
(85-90). The Gospel of John, the work of Anus’s son, Justus, followed in 105.3 As
Reuchlin says, ‘Jesus’ was a composite figure and the stories include elements of the
tales of Joseph in Egypt and other Old Testament characters, plus some Essene writings
and characteristics of various Pagan gods. This is precisely what the evidence I have
documented confirms. The several Josephs in the story are all the creation of Piso and
part of the code. The letters in the name Piso translate in Hebrew as Yud, Vov; Samech,
Fey, and they spell the name, Joseph. Another code Piso used for himself in the stories is
the number 60. Reuchlin points out the many similarities between the Jesus story and the
one of the Old Testament character, Joseph, which Piso used as a foundation: Joseph had
12 brothers, Jesus 12 disciples; Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus for 30
pieces of silver (inflation); brother Judah suggests the sale of Joseph, Judas sells Jesus;
Joseph is in Egypt where the first born are killed, Jesus and family flee to Egypt to avoid
the slaying of male children. Piso uses his four sons as the disciples, John (Julius), James
(Justus), Simon-Peter (Proculus), and Alexander (Andrew).4 Julius, Justus and Proculus,
would go on to write some later New Testament texts. Piso makes Jesus fulfil a number
of Old Testament prophecies, particularly those of Isaiah. Reuchlin says that the Pisos
made changes and additions to some Old Testament texts also, and wrote most of the 14
Old Testament books known as the Apocrypha. These included Esdras, 1 Maccabbees,
Judith, Tobit, Bel and the Dragon.5 The Pisos were Stoics (hence Stoical) and the Stoics
believed that people were motivated by, and controllable through, the use of fear and
hope6 (the very methods of the Babylonian Brotherhood). What better way of describing
the religions which have been spawned by the Old and New Testaments?
Another manifestation of Anus Piso was Flavius Josephus, the writer I have quoted
once or twice. The reason that Piso, as Josephus, and his granddaughter’s husband Pliny
the Younger, do not mention Jesus in their official writings is because at the time it
simply would not have been credible to do so. It was only with the passage of time as
the true origin of ‘Jesus’ was lost that the stories became accepted as ‘fact’. The official
history of Josephus is that he was a Judean descended from Hasmonean royalty. He
fought against the Romans and although his friends committed suicide when the revolt
went pear-shaped, he gave himself up and was spared. More than that, we are told he
was housed in Rome by the emperors for 30 years while he wrote books on Jewish
‘history’ and then married his granddaughter into the Roman aristocracy. Oh, do come
on. Josephus was the Roman aristocrat, Anus Calpurnius Piso, and together with his
sons and Pliny the Younger, they wrote the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament.
Pliny wrote a number of the epistles (letters) under the name St Ignatius, and this
same group, under various names, were the early church ‘fathers’. And who was to turn
this Roman invention into the vast prison-religion it was to become? A Roman emperor
in the same Babylonian Brotherhood as the Pisos, called Constantine the Great. What
was the vehicle for doing this? The Roman Church based in Rome! Geoffrey Higgins in
his epic work, Anacalypsis, shows how Rome was created as a new Babylon. No
wonder Christianity is so awash with Babylonian symbols. The whole thing was a set
up to create yet another religion to entrap the human mind, and the hierarchy of the
Christian Church today know all this! The Church elite have always known this
because they are part of the secret society stream which created the myth called
Christianity. Cynical lies like the Turin Shroud, which has been connected with the
Knights Templar secret society, have been invented to perpetuate the propaganda. The
force which invented Jesus and Christianity is the same force which still controls the
world today. For instance, the Roman College of Architects was a forerunner of today’s
Freemasons, only the name has changed. The Romans used the same symbols of the
square and compass and so on. A temple used by this college in Pompeii was lost under
the eruptions of Vesuvius in 71 AD and excavators have recovered from the temple a
hexagram ‘Star of David’, a skull and a black and white tracing board first used by the
Dionysian Artificers.7 All these symbols are used by today’s Freemasons.
The Judean battle against Rome continued until the final defeat of the Zealots in
74 AD at Masada, the flat-topped mountain stronghold overlooking the Dead Sea. It
was the last bastion of the Essene community who had evacuated their base further
down the coast. As the Judean Zealots were routed by the Romans, many members
of the Nazarene secret society headed into Jordan, Mesopotamia, Syria and Turkey,
as documented by Julius Africanus, who lived in Turkey around 200 AD. Joseph of
Arimathea, the biblical ‘uncle’ of Jesus, is said to have travelled to France to spread
the word. The Vatican librarian, Cardinal Baronius, said that Joseph first arrived in
Marseilles in 35 AD and later went on to Britain.8 ‘Mary Magdalene’ and offspring
of ‘Jesus’ are also said to have headed for the South of France after the ‘crucifixion’.
This is the foundation of the Holy Grail story which claims that the Jesus bloodline
became the Merovingians in France. Well that’s crap because these people didn’t
exist and note the source of this story, the librarian of the Vatican Library of the
Roman Church in Rome. So what was so special suddenly about Provence and the
South of France? Guess where the Piso family had extensive estates? In Gaul and, more
specifically, in… Provence!9 No wonder the ‘vine’ (bloodline/knowledge) can be
identified in this very part of France. Centuries later it became one version of the Holy
Grail story of so much myth and legend. These are the symbolic stories of King Arthur
(another ‘Sun’), and they can also be seen in the tarot cards and the music and art of
Europe for centuries. The Grail has been portrayed as the cup or chalice which held the
blood of Jesus at the crucifixion. But this blood was merely symbolic of the blood
which flowed in the ancient rituals in which lambs were sacrificed at the spring equinox
and, for the more initiated, the bloodlines which go back to the reptilian ‘gods’. In the
early manuscripts of the Grail stories, the ‘Holy Grail’ is called the Sangraal. How close
this is to the Sang Raal, the Old French term meaning blood royal. This royal blood, as
we shall establish, was the bloodlines of the reptilian-human crossbreeds and had
nothing to do with ‘Jesus’.
The Sun god composite, symbolically known as Jesus, was transformed into a
supernatural Son of God by the man we call St Paul, whose original name in the stories
was Saul of Tarsus. Officially, St Paul was born to Judean parents and, like them, became
a Roman citizen, despite being a Pharisee and a strict adherent to the Hebrew religion.
Who else was supposed to be a Judean who became a Roman? Josephus, the pseudonym
for Piso, who wrote the Gospels! St Paul, it is said, encouraged the persecution of the
early Christians, but had a conversion on the road to Damascus when Jesus miraculously
‘appeared’ to him and asked: “Why do you persecute me?” However, Paul had three
versions of his story. In one he heard the voice of Jesus speak to him (Acts 9:7). In
another he saw a great light, but without the voice (Acts 22:9). And in the third, he has
Jesus giving him instructions about his future mission (Acts 26:13). Paul was the creation
of Pliny the Younger (military name, Maximus) and Justus Piso.10 They introduced into
Paul’s story many of their friends and associates, and characters from the family’s history.
For instance, the man called ‘Ananias’ in Acts who cures Paul of blindness was inspired
by Annaeus Seneca who died with father Piso at the hands of Nero.11 And in Romans, you
find the phrase: “Greet Herodion my kinsman”, a code for the Piso family’s connection
with Herod the Great.12 Paul did not spread the Jesus message to Cyprus, Crete,
Macedonia, Asia, Greece and Rome. Pliny and the Pisos did. Between 100 and 105
Justus, his father, and Pliny, together with their family, friends and slaves, went to Asia
Minor (now Turkey), the Greek cities and Alexandria, among many other places, to
‘encourage’ the poor and the slaves into joining their new faith.13 The first churches were
created in Bithynia and Pontus by Pliny. He had visited these places a number of times
from the year 85 AD and this is the origin of the first name of Pontius Pilate. He was only
called Pilate in Matthew and Mark, the first gospels written by the Pisos, but in Luke, the
one Piso wrote with Pliny, Pilate suddenly acquires the name, Pontius. Luke was written
in the very years that Pliny began to visit Pontus.14 Pliny’s letters, written under his own
name, say that Justus Piso was in Bithynia in the years 96 and 98 using the name, Tullius
Justus, and that the Pisos also located in Ephesus, the home of the cult and temple to the
goddess Diana, another version of Isis, Semiramis, Barati, ad infinitum. As theytravelled they claimed to be apostles and bishops, the successors to their inventions,
Peter and Paul. They claimed to be Ignatius (Pliny), Justinus (Justus), Clement of Rome
(Julius), Polycarp (Proculus), and Papias (Julianus, son of Justus).15 By this time, a
Piso, Pompeia Plotina (real name Claudia Phoebe), was the wife of the Roman
Emperor, Trajan, and so they had tremendous support from the highest level for their
manipulation.16 She also appears as ‘our sister Phoebe’ and as ‘Claudia’ and ‘Claudine’
in the texts called Romans, Timothy and Clement.17
The Pisos and Pliny introduced into their stories all the symbols of the Sun religion
and Babylonian Brotherhood myths. They locate their Saul/Paul in Tarsus in Asia
Minor (now Turkey), the chief city of the Cilicians. This just happens to be a major
centre for the Mithra Sun religion and it was the Cilicians who had taken this cult to
Rome, from where it spread throughout the empire. Asia Minor was also a region which
followed the cult of Dionysus. Both were symbolic Sun gods, born on December 25th,
who died so our sins could be forgiven. Everything Christians believe about Jesus, the
Romans and Persians believed about Mithra. Sunday was the sacred day for Mithraists
because he was a Sun God and they called this The Lord’s Day. Dionysus was born to a
virgin mother, and he was known as: the Vine, Our Lord, the Saviour, the Judge of the
Dead, the Deliverer, the Born Again and the only begotten Son of God. Above the head
of Dionysus were the words: “I am Life, Death, and Resurrection, I hold the winged
crown (the Sun).”18 The writer, H. G. Wells, pointed out that many of the phrases used
by Paul for Jesus were the same as those used by the followers of Mithra. The Liturgy
of Mithra is the Liturgy of Jesus. When Paul says: “They drank from the spiritual rock
and that rock was Christ” (I Corinthians 10:4), he was using exactly the same words
found in the scriptures of Mithra. Only the names were changed. In the Gospels, Peter
became the Christian ‘rock’ on whom the new church would be built. The Vatican Hill
in Rome was said to be sacred to Peter, but this place was also claimed, much earlier, to
be sacred to Mithra and many Mithric remains have been found there! The Piso clan
turned Mithra into Myth-ra – Christianity.
All the Popes have claimed to rule as the heirs to Peter, the first Pope. This claim
derives from a sentence in the Bible which has Jesus saying: “Thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church.”19 Only four verses after supposedly making Peter the
‘rock’ on which he would build his church, comes this demolition of him: “But he (Jesus)
turned, and said unto Peter, ‘Get thee behind me Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for
thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men’.”20 The ‘rock’ is
classic mystery school symbolism, as is the ‘corner stone’ associated with Jesus and still
used in Freemasonic symbolism today. Peter is supposed to be the custodian of the keys
to Heaven, but this is just a rerun of the mystery school symbol of the two-faced Janus,
custodian of the key to the Temple of Wisdom and the keys to heaven held by Mithra.
And Janus was Eannus, a title for Nimrod in Babylon. The gold and silver keys of St
Peter’s alleged successor, the Pope, are more symbols of the secret doctrine. The Popes
and those who control them know what all this stuff really means. Gold and silver are the
precious metals used to symbolise the Sun and the Moon. Peter and Paul are both said tohave been killed in Rome during the purge of Christians by the Emperor Nero, but there
is no evidence to confirm this because it didn’t happen. Two other people who were
said to have been killed by Nero, however, were Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the head of
the family, and his friend Annaeus Seneca! As the years passed, the Sun religion and the
esoteric symbolism of the mystery schools, were transformed into a religion based on
the literal translation of symbolic texts.
On this misunderstanding and deceit Christianity was built. We are led to believe
that the Christian Church emerged as one unit, but this is simply not true. There were
many factions across a wide spectrum of views arguing and battling for supremacy as
the holders of ‘the truth’. The fiercest conflict ensued between the followers of the St
Paul version of Jesus as the supernatural Son of God, and the Arians, who believed he
was a man, not God. The Arians were named after Anus, a churchman in Alexandria,
Egypt, who questioned that Jesus could be the same as God. Had not Jehovah said that
he was the only God? How then could God be in three parts as the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit? The ‘trinity’ is a Pagan concept and part of Babylonian and Egyptian belief.
Now if we lived in a world full of mature adults, we would allow people the respect and
freedom to believe anything they like so long as they don’t impose it on others. Just
because we may think it is wrong or a nonsense should not matter. My problem with
Christianity and religion in general is not that anyone believes it, that is their right, what
I challenge is the way it has been imposed upon people through the use of fear, guilt,
violence and the suppression of alternative thought. Unfortunately, allowing people the
right to believe something you don’t, has become a criminal offence and so the Paulines
and the Arians insisted on crushing each other. At this point, enter Constantine the
Great, who, together with the Pisos and Pliny, was the creator of what became known as
Christianity.
Constantine was made Emperor of the Roman Empire in 312 AD. He won a
reputation as a brave and ruthless soldier and served in Britain for a time before being
elected as Caesar of the West. He then began to kill his rivals, including many of their
children, as he sought to be emperor of all. In one of his battles for the Roman
leadership, at Milvian Bridge near Rome, the Christian legend claims that he saw a
vision of a cross in the sky with the words: “By this Conquer”. The next night, so it is
said, he had a vision of Jesus who told him to put the cross on his flag to guarantee
victory over his enemies. Good story, but the word bollocks* is drifting across my
mind. Constantine was said to have been converted to Christianity by his visions, but
there’s one tiny problem with that. He never did become a Christian, except perhaps on
his deathbed as a bit of insurance. He worshipped the Greek god Apollo (the Sun), and
the Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun), and he remained to his death the Pontifex
Maximus of the Pagan Church! As a result, Jesus was given the Sun’s birthday of
December 25th which has remained ever since. Constantine is also responsible for the
great Christian shrine in Jerusalem. His mother, Helena, was dispatched to the city to track down the places and relics of the Christian story. It was she who claimed to have
found the exact locations of the birth of Jesus, the crucifixion, his tomb and where he
ascended into the sky. You can still find them all on the guided tour of Jerusalem!
Constantine built a basilica in 326 AD on the site his mother said the crucifixion took
place and on the same spot today stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which
attracts millions of Christians to see where ‘Jesus died on the cross’. Helena also
claimed to have found the three wooden crosses around 300 years after the event. What
a clever lady she must have been.”
Easy there Hoss. You can’t post such texts willy-nilly. Remember, Christians hate it when reminded that many biblical stories are plagiarised from earlier cultures legends and myths. They generally stick their fingers in their ears and go lalalalalalala!!! Ever hear of the Egyptians? I will speak now of a fellow named Horus.
#1-Horus and Jesus are born from a virgin. Horus’s mother is Isis. Isis was married to Osiris. We do not know for what length of time, but presumably the marriage was consummated. Whether it was or wasn’t doesn’t matter though. After Osiris is killed, Isis puts him back together again (he was hacked into 14 pieces) except for his penis which was tossed in a river or a lake. Iris fashions a substitute penis for him, humps him and here comes Horus. There is nothing virginal about that.
#2-Both Horus and Jesus were born to a Mary and Joseph. (Seb) Isis is Horus’s mother’s name not Mary. In addition, Seb is not Horus’s father, Osiris is. Seb is Osiris’s father. Further, Seb is a distinct name from Joseph. Putting them side by side does not make them synonyms, and that appears to be what was done here.
#3-Both were born of royal descent. This is accurate.
#4-Both births were announced by angels and witnessed by shepherds. Nothing mentions that the birth of Horus was announced by an angel or witnessed by shepherds. I have found that Horus was born in a swamp, which is a pretty unlikely place for shepherds. In addition Acharya mentions that Horus was born in a cave. Massey makes no mention of this, although he does represent that Mithra was born in a cave.
#5-Both were heralded by stars and angels. There is no star that heralded Horus’s birth nor is there any angel announcing it. Archarya in a footnote in The Origins of Christianity indicates that that there are three stars named the three kings in Orion and then relates this to the birth of Jesus. When we look to the stories regarding Horus, we find no star or angel announcing his birth. To the extent that Acharya S relies upon Massey and Massey relies upon what is depicted in the panels at Luxor see (from an atheist) further regarding virgin birth and pronouncement by angels http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/car…
#6-Both had later visitors (Horus-3 deities and Jesus-3 wisemen.)
There is no indication that there ever were 3 wisemen. The bible never mentions the number of wisemen, nor is there any document that reflects 3 deities at the birth of Horus. See the website referenced in Claim #5.
#7-Both had murder plots against them.There is mention that Seth did want to kill Horus, and Herod wanted to kill Jesus. so this is accurate.
#8-Both came of age at 12, were baptized and their baptizers were executed.
There is no indication that Horus was preaching in a temple when he was 12. In fact, Massey indicates that Hours the child was depicted as a “weakling.” That doesn’t jive with story of Jesus preaching in the temple. Again this appears to have been a confabulation from Acharya and repeated by others. Horus was never baptized in any of the Horus stories. In addition, Acharya mentions that John the Baptist is actually Anup the Baptizer. This individual is never mentioned anywhere in any Horus account. There is not even a footnote in Archaya’s on-line work The Origins of Christianity to support this. There is nothing.
#9-Both had 12 disciples. According to the Horus accounts, Horus had four semi-gods that were followers. There is some indication of 16 human followers and an unknown number of blacksmiths that went into battle with him. Horus did not have 12 disciples. Jesus reportedly did. Acharya failed to give a footnote to support this.
Massey points to a mural in the Book of Hades in which there are twelve reapers. Horus is not present in this scene. For Massey to make this connection he goes to a different scene within the same mural. In this scene there is a picture of a god whose name is the Master of Joy. Horus is never depicted although in other murals the artists do depict Horus. Had the artists ascribed 12 reapers in any relation to Horus all they had to do was put Horus at the scene. They did not.
#10-Both walked on water. Horus didn’t, or at least there is no record that I can find that he did. Massey does not maintain that Hours did. Massey uses wild conjecture to connect the story of fish man, Oannes, not Horus, to Jesus. Oannes came out of the sea during the day, and went back into the sea at night. Massey makes the two analogous because by his calculations, Jesus walked on water during the day.As to Acharya, she as usual provides nothing to substantiate this.
#11-Both performed miracles. This is true although the miracles were different in scope and nature.
#12 Both exorcised demons and raised Lazarus. The actual claim is that Horus raised Osiris from the dead and that the name Osiris morphed to Lazarus. It doesn’t matter because Horus did not bring Osiris back to life. There is no mention of this in any document regarding the story. Horus did avenge Osiris’s death, but that did not raise Osiris from the dead
#13-Both held a Sermon on the Mount; both were transfigured on a mountain, died by crucifixion along with two thieves and were buried in tombs where they paid a quick visit to Hell and then rose from the dead after 3 days time, both resurrections were witness by women, and both will supposedly reign for 1,000 years in the Millennium. These are the most damning claims if they were proven true in my opinion. Yet, I can locate none of this. No sermon, no transfiguration, certainly no crucifixion w/ two thieves, no trip to hell and no resurrection. There was an incident in which Horus was torn to pieces and Iris requested the crocodile god to fish him out of the water he was tossed into, which was done, but that’s it. I am at a loss to refute this because I can not find anything to support it. Massey does compares a story about the Autumn Equinox related to Osiris, not Horus, as the symbolic crucifixion. There is no indication that Horus is involved in any way. There is no mention by Massey of any Sermon on the Mount. No mention or any actual crucifixion, no two thieves, no burial in a tomb. Massey does not maintain that anything of the sort occurred with Horus
This. Is. Epic.
I don’t understand why people get so damned defensive because someone doesn’t agree with their religion. I’m a Taoist. Tell me there is no historical proof of Lao Tzu existing. Tell me it’s a silly belief. I’ll turn to that person, smile and say “‘kay.”
Hi Kristen:
I agree. I don’t understand why people get so damned defensive because someone proclaims a Christian worldview–the sword swings both ways here, Kristen.
I believe Lao Tzu probably existed. Some scholars believe his writings may be the work of more than one person, but I believe he was an important Chinese philospher–he is not and was not a religious figure. Same with Confucious–both Taoism and Confucianism are the two major philosophies of China. They are not religions. I studied both Taoism and Confucianism when I was into martial arts years ago, so I know a little about both.
I get frustrated with my nephew who constantly says “I HATE broccoli” even though he’s never tried it; he has friends who have tried it and some of them didn’t like it, so he’s based his decision on what others say and on his own ignorance of what broccoli tastes like.
I see that in discussions throughout this thread.
I know folks can have a meaningful, polite, and insightful discussions here and we can all learn something from each other…maybe even learn to like broccoli by giving it a try.
Blessings,
Donn
Come on some of you, it is so obvious you are victims of either what I refer to as a ‘childhood indoctrination’ or a victim of your own delusions and deep existential loneliness. People often cling to religion simply because it fills in that dark, lonely, miserable void of life’s meaningless. Granted, it is emotionally driven, thus the value of which one would get out of religious belief is based purely on emotions. This is why women are more inclined to be religious as women are driven more by emotions then men are. Emotions cannot always be trusted as they can quite often be misleading and sometimes blinding. In the case of religious belief it is definately blinding. Believers often say that faith cannot be intellectualised as it is a matter of the ‘heart’ and can only be ‘found’ or ‘proven’ through personal revelation, not through science and reason. I don’t think you believers could say it any better, it is precisely right that your faith is determined by your heart because if you attempted to intellectualise it you would be left with no option but to reject it as mere fairytale and quite frankly why would you want to? You’re all having so much fun up in the clouds (Why do heroin when your addicted to God, right?). And interestingly enough athiests like my self reject the Bible (or any other poorly written myth) on the same grounds that you believers validate the Bible – through the heart, through human emotion. So trying to convince us athiests of your ‘truths’ by informing us to just look into our hearts is pointless.
Aside from the irrationality in religion, another major concern is its influence in politics. The United States, supposedly secular (some of the founding fathers would be rolling in their graves), is very influenced by the Religious Right of who, if they could have their own way, kill modern science, control the education system, take away your rights, replace secular law with biblical law – the state of affairs would be of a Christian theocracy. They want to bring the world back to the dark ages. Islamic fundamentalism runs wild in the Middle East, the top half of Africa and in some countries of Asia and they are of course at odds with the western world. Some in fact despise us and wish nothing more then to eradicate us all off the face of the planet – all in the name of Allah. In the name of religion. The irony in all of this is when the fundamentalist Christians in the U.S criticise the fundamentalist Muslims, call them ‘evil’ and so on, but fail to realise they are no different. They both want the world to be dominated by their faiths, they both lie and spread propaganda, they both think everything and anyone who isn’t apart of their faith are ‘evil’ and should be eliminated, I guess the only difference at the moment is that a fair estimate of Muslim fundamentalists are actually murdering and waging war where Christian fundamentalists are not simply because they know they wouldn’t get away with it. Too bad for them that it is not the Spanish Inquisition.
Hear!! Hear!!
Hi Matthew:
I was hoping that this site would produce meaningful dialogue, an exchange of ideas, and informed perspectives. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. You seem to insist on allowing this deep-seated angst and anger about a loving God that you have absolutely no knowledge of to color your postings. You seem to be the one with the “childhood indoctrination” issue you can’t get past which may be why your posts are tinged with such hate and anger.
You continue to generalize through uninformed opinion; and you don’t even understand what it is to be an atheist let alone what being a Christian is all about. You focus on the fringe elements of Christianity rather than the mainstream of Christian believers, you cherry-pick your arguments that really uncover your ignorance, and you make blankent statements that are outright lies to support your own patchwork quilt worldview, which is built on a very shaky foundation. I’ll bet you don’t even know any Christians personally. Christians aren’t perfect people; they just realize how impossible it is but try to lead a life according to the teachings of Jesus (that would be New Testament life). Yes, it’s often the lunatic fringe that gets the attention of the press (not just in Christianity but in all walks of life), yet most people understand it’s not fair or even correct to lump everyone into such a small group. Yet, you seem to relish the idea.
An atheist is someone who believes there is NO God; yet, you constantly put forth weak, unsupported arguments based on your half-baked opinions, likely shaped by the ideas of such tortured souls like Satre, Hume, Nietzsche, (that history has shown them to be an assortment of substance abusers with mental illnesses and debauched lifestyles) and others for why you don’t believe in God. That’s not what being an atheist is all about. Why does someone who claims to be an atheist even try to quote the Bible in his arguments? There is a difference between “believing there is NO God” and “not believing in God.” You claim to be the former, but all your arguments support the latter. You are very confused about what you believe, in fact.
I’m sorry to see that the need for the heat in these discussions hasn’t been turned down, but I suppose that’s what happens when people do not understand how to exchange meaningful ideas that are supported by facts; it’s much easier to spew forth generalities based on media soundbytes than to spend the time learning about the truth.
Don’t even pretend to understand Islam with your CNBC-induced opinions; you are so out of your league on that subject. You have a Fractured Fairy Tale view of history and especially of church history if you think “fundamentalist Christians” are responsible for “waging war.” The Catholic Church (and the grandiose ambitions of some of its Popes and leaders–PEOPLE, not God) was largely responsible for many of the ills associated with Christianity and it has admitted to that fact and apologized for what was done in God’s name throughout history.
Even if you had proof of Jesus’ resurrection–even if you had certifiable proof and evidence that Jesus existed, performed miracles, raised the dead, and healed others–undeniable, uncontested proof–you would still cling to your cobbled together, Frankenstein worldview because even in the face of evidence to contradict it, you cannot let go of your personal opinion because you are so deeply entrenched in it–even in the face of objective fact.
Here’s the one Bible verse (Romans 1: 19-21) I’ll use in this post. It was written by the Apostle Paul, where he is writing to the Christians in Rome about how men purposefully and willingly deny God–even though they know the truth about him:
“19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
That’s enough for me…I am going to end this, my final post, with the realization of what Albert Einstein once wrote: “You cannot reason with an ignorant mind.”
I pray God’s continued blessings for you (all) and your families, because even though you may deny Him, he still loves you.
Donn LeVie
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
-Albert Einstein
So you don’t deny the ‘Christian Agenda’. Not that it can be refuted. Every agnostic and atheist in America knows that Christians dream of controlling everything from the government to our schools. But tell me.. Taoist, Buddhist, and yes even Muslims have both children in Americas schools and our Military. How then do you justify requiring those schoolchildren to say ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance, when their older Non-Christian siblings are fighting and dying to protect you? By the way the Pledge of Allegiance was originally written minus those words. If you doubt, there is even a Porky Pig cartoon, that contains the Pledge pre-under God. Even the Founding Fathers were not of Christian faith or even intended to create a Christian state. Check your history if you doubt.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814:
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own”.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782:
“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity”.
Thomas Paine is quoted to have said in an interview – “Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst”.
Please, please keep your religion out of my schools and my government. In return I shall promise to never show up on your doorstep and try to convert you. Can you return the favor?
By the way, saying it says “All men are created equal by, or under God” in the Declaration of Independence will cut it. As a matter of a fact it doesn’t even say that. Reread the Declaration.
Question. Read. Learn.
Absolutely correct. The founding fathers were diests.
Came across this site by accident and have to agree with what Donn Levie wrote. You completely misunderstand the Great Commission Christians are to follow, which is to spread the Gospel to all reaches of the earth. Now, before anyone rushes to skewer me, please hear me out first.
The Great Commission is not to “convert” people to Christianity because someone convinced to believe something against their will is still a person unconvinced. The Great Commission is a sharing of the Gospel with others–that’s it–nothing in there about “converting” people because people can’t convert other people–only the Holy Spirit can do that. The Great Commission is to share the story of the Fall of Man and redemption through salvation. Now, that may seem like a foreign language to some, but don’t just brush it off because you don’t understand it–investigate it so you can have meaningful discussion about it with others who post here.
You have complete free will to accept or reject the message. Christians who continually try to coerce or force people to become Christians really don’t have an understanding of the Great Commission or even the teachings of Jesus. That’s a shame as it tends to push some Christian “cults” into the limelight and spotlight of CNN cameras and microphones as Don pointed out.
I live my life and teach my kids how to lead honorable lives; to love and worship God, to know there is an absolute truth; to respect and love other people (the first Great Commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul; the Second Great Commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself); to understand right from wrong and to know the consequences for wrong, immoral, or illegal behavior, and to help others less fortunate than themselves.
Here’s the question we all must face: So, when I die, and I’m wrong about it all–so what? What have I really lost in leading a Christian life? But if I’m right–what have you lost avoiding such a life?
What you lost? your character.
Why don’t you chime in when you have something that resembles an argument rather than childish insults?
Here’s a reply. Jesus did say to his disciples to go out and spread the word. This was how many centuries ago?????? LOL
You’re quote from Einstein couldn’t say it better, but you need to apply it to yourself.
You believe in a book that doesn’t have a shread of evidence to support any of it and science has even contradicted many of its claims, the very determining of its value in truth is completely dependent on your faith alone. This I can only describe as irrational and delusional. Who is the ignorant one? I am! Because I rely on evidence for my beliefs! Oh how crazy some people can be, it is absurb! HAHAHAHAHA!
I don’t know what athiesm is? How humble of you to assert oh wise christian, but perhaps you should follow what Jeebus preaches and not judge. Apart from the lack of evidence and the contradictions, must I remind you that there are tens of thousands of religions in the world of whom claim to ‘know’ the truth, but which one is right? They are all based on the same thing – FAITH – so they are all as valid as each other, it is not like one has ‘proof’ over the other one. That being said it is only logical to assume that they are all false and nothing but mere mythology. Mythology no different to what ancient Greeks considered true in their day. This is my reasoning of upholding the athiest position.
I could go into my reasons for why I hate religion and the church, but I am not going to waste my time.
Have fun praying to your little dead jew that hangs from a cross.
Hey! Keep it clean!! Saying, “Have fun praying to your little dead Jew that hangs from a cross”, is totally inappropriate. I am agnostic, and that is way over the line. Let them sling mud. We need to be better than them. As we do not require a god or bible to be good decent people. Every time we cross the line we make ourselves to be no better than them. But I do have to say this. Here is a list of contributions bestowed upon humanity by organized mono-theism-
Contributions such as the repression of women, child molestation, thousands of years of pointless bloodshed. The crusades. The Spanish Inquisition. Most wars. Sept, 11th. Arranged marriage to minors. Fatwas. Ethnic cleansing. Honor rape. Human sacrifice. Burning witches. Suicide bombings. Condoning slavery. Racism. The teaching of intolerance to others of differing beliefs. The Spanish conquest of the new world. Acceptance of rituals and traditions claiming them to be ‘Christian’ when, in fact, said ritual and traditions were pre-existent and absorbed by Judeo-Christianity.
We cannot cross the line, every time we do, we make ourselves no better than those who brought the fore mentioned contributions.
Question. Read. Learn.
To Jessie,
I do not think it is fair that you bring your children up in this world to believe in what you believe in. Why can’t you wait until they are old and wise enough to decide for themselves? Young children believe anything you say to them as truth, they don’t understand the difference between a set of beliefs that are supported by evidence and another set of beliefs of which requires faith.
Religious branding of children is unfair and distubring.
Matthew:
Thanks…your angst-ridden, tortuous, angry, vile reply made my point better than I could in any rebuttle.
Donn
Wrong Donn – He made you angry because you cannot argue against logic can you
Sam
Matthew:
You are free to bring up your own kids the way you want, so who are you to suggest how I raise my kids? What do you suggest–your view of how the world works? Certainly not after reading your posts to Don and others–they are grounded in such disdain for other people who simply believe something different from your “atheistic” one–yet, as Don pointed out–you continue to argue against belief in God.
A true atheist would never engage in such a debate because for him, that question would a moot one because the point of the argument would not be a rational one for him. So, for you to continue your rant, is….irrational on several levels. The more you continue to push this opinion-tainted diatribe, the more irrational you sound, and that’s not on a personal level, but from an epistemological level.
I’ve heard your issues, your claims, and your position many times from students in my philosophy classes…they crank the volume WAY down on it all once they’ve been through lectures, reading assignements, homework, and exams. It’s difficult for people to leave their presuppositions outside the classroom–in fact, it’s impossible. However, I have seen students change their presups (the filters they use through which they view the world) as they understand all points of an argument.
My children are grounded in a Christian upbringing and are old enough to decide for themselves. They are active in church on their own volition, their church friends are honorable, good kids from good Christian homes, and my kids want to got to church on Sunday morning–we don’t make them do anything.
When they do leave home, we hope their Christian upbringing will carry them through college and beyond and guide them in how to live lives that honor God and respect and love others.
Certainly, intelligent people believe that some things lie beyond rational explanation or even an ability to be subjected to empirical evidence. If so, one has to be open to the possibility of the supernatural (“above nature”), however you may want to define it. Some call it God, but with your claim to being an atheist, you can’t have a name for it, because, well….you don’t think God exists. If that’s the case, then you have no room in your outlook for anything that can’t be explained empirically (through “cause and effect” evidence). If you do believe that some things can’t be explained by our present knowledge (because admitting so would allow for the possibility of something outside of the laws of physics), then your claim to being an atheist is indeed a counterfeit one. Perhaps you should do some more investigating on both sides of the argument to better firm up your philosophical foundation.
Atheist Dr. Carl Sagan once wrote: “Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.” That applies to ALL things–not just astrophysics. Even that statement gave away his own unsure position.
Dr. Jessie Douglas
Philosophy Dept. Chair
You need some investigating as well there are evidences that show christianity came directly from paganism and is very similar with paganism.
Religion and the whole idea of it makes me angry, especially when I see intelligent individuals prescribing to such nonesense. So naturally my posts are going to be angry…and ‘vile’, ‘tortured’ and whatever else was said. Perhaps also you are outraged simply because, for some reason, society generally respects the institution of religion (and even occassionally gives special treatment) therefore reading anything critical/anti-religious might seem so horrible and offensive. I even hate it when I hear and read things from athiests saying “Oh I’m not religious, I’m an athiest, but I think it’s a beautiful thing that other people are religious.” The only reason why people are respectful in this sense is because society validates a place for religion, even if its condenscending, society deems religion as an acceptable delusion. These particular athiests view your theistic beliefs as delusions, but respect your right (even enjoy it from afar) to be delusional.
Well I’m not one of these athiests, I don’t think it is okay to believe in fairytales even if it does give you that nice, warm fuzzy feeling.
One only has to open their eyes and realise the bad heavily outweighs the good. Yes there will always be exceptions, but generally speaking I feel that religion and its presence is quite negative.
Just look at the creationists and their ugly war against science, tv evangelicals robbing the gulliable, the KKK, the anti-abortionists who bomb abortion clinics, look at all the wars in the name of religion (even though some wars are seen as direct religious conflicts, it is often the case that leaders know too well the power of religion and use it to fuel the fire of their alterior motives – land rights, money, political control). George W. Bush believed that God spoke to him and told him to go to war with Iraq (wtf!?), one cannot also ignore the mis-treatment and abuse of women within religious circles, the discrimination against gays and the Catholic Church’s internal issues of priest pedophiles, plus all their millions securely stashed within the Vatican of which could make poverty history. Not so long ago the Pope went to Africa and preached to abstain from sex to combat against AIDS! Could the man say something more stupid and irresponsible?
I could go on, but I won’t. Like I said, I know there are exceptions, but when people think of religion this is what comes to mind.
Why should I respect all this madness?
Hear hear!
Hear!! Hear!! But Mathew, I would ask this of you if I may. Do not argue against God (it’s moot really), but argue against organized mono-theism. It cannot be refuted that mono-theism has brought upon the world the most pain, suffering and bloodshed. When was the last time Atheists burned witches at stakes. Or hey remember the Agnostic Inquisition? When was the last time atheists went to war with other atheists because they didn’t believe in the same thing? Or didn’t not believe in the same thing? Or how about the time Agnostics butchered a path to the Middle East in order to reclaim the holy lands for Agnosticism? Never. What do we agnostics do? We have BBQ’s on sunny Saturdays with our Muslim, Taoist, and yes even our Christian neighbors. Me, I’d rather have a burger and a beer than teach my child to hate others because they aren’t christian.
Question. Read. Learn.
The Question will never go away …. For all concerend, It is as vast as what little we know of the universe, closed minds will always create conflict, conflict resolves nothing, but only perpetuates more conflict, and as history has proven again and again man will always default to any and all charades / deciet/manipulations, to prove his point of view, one only needs to look up at the night sky to realize that there is more to all existance than could ever be explained in any book , or remotly understood, earthly evidence has more to offer than any written re-creation of myths or actual events, to me its like a cup that represents knowledge, when the cup is full, any additional knowledge added spills over and out and is wasted, (closed minds) a empty cup can at least gain new knowledge to dwell/ grow and postulate,
so since im still on the planet earth, I wonder how the earth spins …???
It spins on a huge bearing ……… greased with BULLSHIT !
We are mere fodder for a undecernable energy’s amusment.
save ur bullets and realize we are what we are : a spec of temporary energy….
I leave you with this question???
Did God make man ???? O R Did man make God????
studon-
To Jessie,
Yes it is my opinion that bringing up children in a particular religion is negative because, like I said, children are like sponges, they take in everything you say to them and they believe it as truth regardless. Religious indoctrination in particular has a way on a child’s mind that it becomes ‘fixed’ for life into adulthood. No matter the contradictions, the inconsistincies you reveal to them they still believe in something that can only be described as myth – as a delusion. Since when is it okay to delude children into adulthood?
If I ever have children I will bring them up with the knowledge of religion from a historical point of view, not from a religious point of view, explain to them that they are just stories ancient people created to explain the unknown and that science can now answer a lot of what ancient people couldn’t.
No I don’t believe in the supernatural whatsoever, I am not sure if science will be able to answer everything (I doubt humankind will be able to cover everything) but I do believe that the Universe and everything within it is explainable by natural terms.
As a philosopher, how on earth do you justify your christian beliefs?
Hi Matthew:
I don’t undestand why you “hate” people who are religious. That seems to be a rather irrational (there’s that word again) position to take on how you feel about other people, simply because of someone’s personal beliefs. I certainly don’t hate the people who don’t believe as I do, whether they are of a different religion or claim no religion at all.
And hey, guess what…I totally agree with you about George Bush (I don’t know that he said God told him to start the Iraq War), and I totally agree with you about the Pope and his recent proclamations. While I am not Catholic, I do have a pretty good understanding of the significant ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical differences between Catholic and Protestant theologies. But do I “hate” these people? Absolutely not.
Oh, and I agree that fringe groups like the KKK, TV evangelicals (stay away from Benny Hinn, Robert Schuler, Jan and Paul Crouse, and Joel Osteen, to name a few–they do not, if I may, preach the truth of Scripture), and other fringe “cults” and “sects” that marginalize women, and so on.
Do you see a pattern here? These are PEOPLE you hate–these people have falsely claimed to be God’s representatives or have appointed themselves so, and they have left ugly marks on Christianity (other religions also have their self-proclaimed “messengers of God”); these are all imperfect people (like you and me) but who have taken paths for their own self-gratification. I understand your anger toward them for they have defiled the true spirit and nature of Christianity.
Now, if you’re going to be honest, the atheistic worldview and has provided history with Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, Soviet Gulags and mass murder; North Korea regimes that starve their own people; Chinese suppression and mass murder in outlying provinces and in Tibet (1953 invasion); Pol Pot (Khmer Rouge)and the “Killing Fields” of southeast Asia where millions were murdered, tortured, and maimed (48% of the Cambodia’s Christians were murdered). Other atheist states/governments include Cuba, People’s Republic of Mongolia, and Albania (which bans all religions).
Why should <> respect all this madness born out of atheism–a madness that you embrace??
Are there any other sane voices on this forum?
Jessie Douglas
you maybe right but isn’t it the same with disillusionment created by Christianity?
And what disillusionment would that be? That people are disappointed they can’t lie, cheat, steal, murder and still be “OK” in the eyes of God? Or perhaps the disillusionment is the fact that people would rather create their own god that gives them a pass on substance abuse, child abuse, pornography, and so on? The disillusionment, commentator, is that people refuse to be accountable to a higher power for their actions and thoughts.
So Jessie Douglas, are these acts perpetrated by “fringe” groups: The repression of women, child molestation, thousands of years of pointless bloodshed. The crusades. The Spanish Inquisition. Most wars. Sept, 11th, Arranged marriage to minors. Fatwas. Ethnic cleansing. Honor rape. Human sacrifice. Burning witches. Suicide bombings. Condoning slavery. Racism. The teaching of intolerance to others of differing beliefs. The Spanish conquest of the new world. Acceptance of rituals and traditions claiming them to be ‘Christian’ when, in fact, said ritual and traditions were pre-existent and absorbed by Judeo-Christianity.
The simple answer is no, those are acts perpetrated by and condoned by mainstream mono-theism. I’ll admit, Hitler (who actually was christian, so basically his numbers don’t count), Stalin and Po-Pot did put up some impressive numbers. Numbers that were however overshadowed by minor events such Inquisitions, Crusades, the wiping out of entire civilizations by the Spanish who killed the native central and south Americans “In order to save their soul”. Remember Cain and Able? The very first murder was committed by a god fearing man.
So don’t play that game Jessie, organized mono-theism has killed billions more than any atheist or agnostic. Entire civilizations!! How do you sleep at night knowing an organization you support has wiped out entire civilizations?
By they way you are not sane. Not even close.
Question. Read. Learn.
Sorry..that next-to-last sentence should have read:
“Why should I respect all this madness” born out of atheism–a madness that you embrace??
Are there any other sane voices on this forum?
Jessie Douglas
It is neither atheism nor madness but rather common sense and living in reality. I have been to many different churches with many different religions and I have also read the Bible from cover to cover. Let me just say that I have never read any book that contains more evil than that one. It’s all in there from rape to sodomy to murder to mayhem and other evil goings on. I don’t attend church anymore because over the years I have realized that religion is a man made entity which was created as a means of controlling people. God did not ever create religion or church. I have also found that I can have a relationship with a peaceful, loving God that comes from within. I got real tired of being made to feel guilty all of the time because I may or may not have sinned. I do not believe that we were created with a brain so that we could be sheep and not think for ourselves and I also do not believe that we need to feel bad and apologetic for being human. My God makes me feel good about myself and truth be told God is not in a book or on a throne in the clouds. God is already in each of us and all we need to do is notice him.
Hi Matthew:
I’ll answer your last question first then work my way up through your last email.
You ask: “how on earth do I justify my Christian beliefs?” For me, it was quite easy. As an academician, I have studied the world’s philosophies for many years and teach students the precepts of them, along with the flaws. I found nothing in secularism, humanism, existentialism, atheism, pragmatism, relativism, ad nauseum that struck a note with my inner core. The tenets of the Christian philosophy (as a separate form from its theology–which is a rational inquiry into the nature of God and religious truth) appealed to me at all levels–intellectual, philosophical, and personal.
In addition, when I look around at the natural world–what so many with or without a religious bone in their body call “creation” (which implies a “creator”), I see the evidence of a Creator in the incredible diversity of life on the planet, in the amazing physical forces that hold the solar system and the universe together. This “natural revelation” of God is spoken of in Romans 1 by the Apostle Paul (I think Don mentioned it in one of his previous posts).
So, in a nutshell, that’s how I arrived at embracing Christianity.
Did I go to church as a kid? Absolutely and I loved it. Did my parents go to church with me? My father did on a regular (maybe one or Sundays a month); my mother did not. Most of the time, my father just dropped off my brother and me, and picked us up after Sunday School/church. I still maintain contact with many of the people I went to Sunday School with nearly 45 years ago, and they all lead happy and productive Christian lives.
So, my brother and I were not “indoctrinated” as you say in your blanket statement. Families go to church not to indoctrinate the younger members but to worship together as a family.
And NO mainstream (no weird “cults” or “sects”) Christian church ANYWHERE, forces anyone to stay in the faith for the rest of their lives. I know people who are Christians, who abandoned their faith years ago for various reasons, and later returned to it. I know many people (many students over the years as well) who never went to church but nonetheless gravitated toward Christianity (and some to other religions or none at all); but I know more people who have left other religions for Christianity than I know who left Christianity for other religions. That may be just my circle of friends and acquaintances; not sure what the “statistics” would be on a broader scale, though.
Many people misunderstand how “faith” works in people’s lives. When all the evidence for a particular belief is exhausted, faith is what takes us the rest of the way; it is not an abandonment of reason, knowledge, or intellect, but an augmentation or extenstion of them once those tools take us as far as they can.
Sure, there are some Christian folks who discard those tools of reason, knowledge, and intellect, and rely 100% on faith and can’t intelligently defend their beliefs. I don’t hate them as you do; I pray for them that they will acquire knowledge and wisdom to be able to understand their faith more completely and more profoundly, which will add more meaning to their lives. Unfortunately, such people and their outrageous proclamations (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other TV evangelicals) make for great headlines and lead stories on CNN. These personalities don’t speak for the vast majority of Chrisitians.
But that’s my worldview…that’s the consciousness that greets me every single morning the moment I awaken and guides me throughout the day. I can’t rely on emotion or feeling because those change by the hour or with my last meal. I choose to believe that there is a line that separates right from wrong; good from wicked; and so on, and that line is the absolute truth derived from God’s word.
Too many of these other world philosophies have very wide grey areas or recognize no boundaries at all, so that truth is relative. If you and I believe that truth or right/wrong is relative, and I walk in to your home and take your plasma TV, why should you be upset with me? My “truth” that says it’s OK to take it simply is different from “truth”–but if you’re angry with me for taking your plasma TV, it’s because you don’t believe that “it’s right”…and that’s where relativism falls apart as a viable worldview.
Jessie Douglas
Religion really does kill rationality for the intellectual
I find it hard to believe that today in 2010 people still believe in a supreme being.
The bible was written about 400 years after the birth of christ…………….think about it, wouldnt the stories get streched out of proportion after all those years? The Abraham story was a thousand years before that!
I tend to believe in science.
Hey “Just My Opinion”
Are you kidding me? Your opinion is way wrong! And that’s not my opinion. You make the absurd statement that “the Bible was written 400 years after the birth of Jesus”…when IN FACT, books from the New Testament have been dated to the first century A.D….and some as early as 30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion by countless scholars (Greek, Aramaic, archaeological/literary experts). Do you include the books from the Old Testament in your 400 year “opinion”? That’s just such an ignorant position given the evidence against it.
Hey, I believe in science too …I have a masters degree in geochemistry, worked on lunar rocks at the Johnson Space Center, and was a mission specialist candidate for the space shuttle program back in the 1980s. I also have a masters in Christian Apologetics. There’s NOTHING that says you have to either believe in God or believe in science…where do you folks come up with this crazy notion? I believe in both–perhaps the difference is that I attribute all knowledge and knowing as sourced in God, and not man (not Dawkins, not Hitchens, not Einstein, not Hawking).
“Just my opinion”…please at least do your homework before you post. You don’t want to embarrass yourself again like you just did. Opinions are important and contribute to discussions, so long as they are learned and not offered out of ignorance.
And guess why science is possible? Because of the ordered universe and everything in it. Science wouldn’t be possible without God and here’s why. In a universe that came to fruition out of randomness and without purpose, nothing could ever be measured; “facts” could only be understood in isolation and only for an instant ; measurements and experiments couldn’t be repeated, because of the randomness of things!
In a random universe operating without order, nothing could be predicted; there could be no “standards”; there could be no laws of logic; there could be no “laws” of physics or mathematics because things would always be changing to conform to the random model of existence.
There’s no gray area…either you believe in a God-created, orderly, purposeful universe, or you believe in its opposite: an unguided, undirected, purposeless, “something came from nothing” universe.
Need references for anything I’ve stated? I’d be happy to provide them.
Bull***t Jessie. History records Spanish Conquistadors butchering those that refused to convert to Catholicism. So don’t say “And NO mainstream (no weird “cults” or “sects”) Christian church ANYWHERE, forces anyone to stay in the faith for the rest of their lives”. Your words exact. Because they have, and they would if left unchecked.
Question. Read. Learn.
Gloucester 51, you might be interested in blogging on the Chabad.Org sites where they have NUMEROUS questions and ENCOURAGE healthy debate on many issues regarding spirituality, God, the Bible, abuse, etc. They even have these type of questions where people who answer as you do are HIGHLY welcomed! I would LOVE to see you blog on that site! It is great when a scientist can ALSO believe in God. I am wondering, however, just a question… do you equate the Bible with a belief in God? Or, do you separate them in your mind
To Jessie,
I admit you are not a typical person of faith, you are obviously intelligent, but I don’t understand how someone can be highly educated and still consider Christianity to be valid. The only way I can reason this seemingly oxymoron is that people (the majority) will cling onto anything to replace the fear of the unknown, fear of death and the miserable meaningless of life. Humans seem to be naturally inclined to behave irrationally, to behave in a way to allow emotion to over-ride logic, but I suppose having the ability to question reality, to search for truth, to percieve with an abstract mind all while being so emotional is an obvious recipe for disaster. But why are there others out there like my self who don’t exprience this existential loneliness? Why is it that rougly 5.5 billion (possibly more, but can’t say for sure) of the population attribute religious belief to find a purpose, but I am fine with the fact that we are just animals having evolved from primates?
Yes I hate some people of religion, but not every believer, just the obvious canditates like you stated, I more so hate religion it self and its nature. I hate what it does to people, particulary to children who don’t know any better.
I could choose thousands of different religions here, but what is the difference between Christianity and Islam? They are both monotheistic, both incorporate moral law (basically the same), both share the ritual of prey, both have a holy book (with the same storyline), both propose we have a soul and when we die it is either Heaven or Hell, both are faith-based…so my question is, why not Islam?
Chances are if you were born in the Middle East you would be a muslim, if you were born in America (I’m going to assume you are American) you would be a christian, if you were born in India a hindu and so on. Obviously exceptions do arise, but the probability highlights my point.
These nations and despots you mentioned of athiest background, I see the point you are trying to make, but there is a difference. Stalin was a bad guy, but I wouldn’t propose that athiesm caused him to be a bad guy. He was a bad guy because he was a typical megalomaniac. The only thing I remember reading from Stalin quoting on religion was when he said it makes people stupid. You can’t compare Stalin, a communist, to that fat piece of shit Jerry Falwell who committed his crimes in the very name of religion, in the name of Jesus. One is politically motivated and the other religiously. I don’t know of any athiests who have committed crimes or were inspired to do evil because of their lack of a belief in a deity. I do however know of many communists that committed great evils due to their lust for power and corrupt character, much the same about some capitalists.
They both condemned to Damnation those who refuse to embrace their faith the only difference is Christians does it in a subtle level while muslims does it much more aggressively
Matthew:
I find that I cannot have an intelligent conversation with you when you toss about your unsubstantiated opinions, lies, and and distorted facts. You dare to elevate Jerry Falwell over Joseph Stalin as a “criminal”? I’m no defender of Jerry Falwell, but how many people has he been responsible for killing compared to Joseph Stalin, or do you want to just ignore history, facts, and evidence like you’ve done throughout all your postings?
Your anger, delusions, angst, and profane mannerisms color your world. You offer no supporting evidence, only vitriolic and trite rhetoric that has, quite frankly, gotten quite boring.
You seem happy living in this world of yours, so I’ll leave you revel in your darkness.
JD
Yes I am the delusional one, but you believe in a sky daddy who because of his anger towards humanity (his own creation I may add) sent his son down to Earth to be murdered on behalf of humanity and because of this humans now owe it big time to Jesus (how is this not blackmail?). You probably also believe that the same man named Jesus rose from the dead, walked on water and healed the sick through miracles and you also probably believe in talking snakes and that you can communicate to God through talking in your head and that he too can listen and intervene. I’m assuming also that you believe there was a world flood (a claim of which doesn’t have a shread of evidence to support it and has actually been proven to be physically impossible) and the Exodus (which by the way doesn’t have a shred of evidence to support it) and the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve who were the first humans (any educated person knows that this is just absolutely ridicilious) and in order to accept the Bible as ‘truth’ you just believe it to be so, but I am the delusional one here?
You might also be one of those really annoying christians that cannot accept the theory of evolution because it contradicts the story of Genesis, but considering not all christians are this incredibly stupid and ignorant I will assume you are not one of them.
Of course Joseph Stalin was more ‘evil’ then Jerry Falwell, but I cannot accept the view that Stalin murdered people due to his atheism. To say so is a cop out.
Hello:
I am philosophy major and student of Dr. Jessie Douglas, who has provided to her classes posts to this blog from Matthew and others (including her own responses).
Our large class (Historic Survey of World Philosophies) is a large one (150+) and contains a mix of students from different countries and religions. One thing, however, that the class has all pretty much agreed on based on review and discussions on biblical and Christian-based responses on this blog is how hate feeds ignorance (and vice-versa) and how uninformed opinion with that ignorance seems to create in people a psychological need to promote some type of superiority complex. They elevate their own fractured view of reality by putting down others.
Another thing the class saw as blatantly apparent: the use of what Dr. Douglas called “fringe” elements by Matthew and others and claiming such fringe beliefs and individuals represent how “most” Christians think/believe. From a philosophical perspective, that’s not even sophomoric–it’s absurd.
Lastly, the class agreed participating in any dialogue with this blog would be a waste of time as personal attacks, insults, and angry uninformed, unsupported opinion would never yeild to meaningful, substantive discussions (though a few people have tried to do so–Gloucester51 and Don to name a few) that even remotely approach any semblence of philosophy.
I have made no claim to any personal philosophy or religion mysef, but I bet I’ll be on the receiving end of some pretty vile “opinions.”
It is good to know that Dr. Douglas actually cared enough to put some of my posts in some classes, I never would have thought my “vile, hate-ridden opinions” would end up as material in a philosophy class. If only I was there to defend my self.
Kristen,
I totally and completely agree with you. I think what people believe in is their business and im not going to disrespect what they believe in by telling them they’re wrong, but I expect the same respect in return. Now if they bring up the subject then yes I will share my opinion.
Also, if all you guys are christian then why the hell are you even reading this? Does it matter what other people believe? Really? Is it going to change your oppinion? Probably not and ur probably not gonna change his opinion either. So basically you’re just causing unnecessary drama.
I find it interesting that the people who are getting upset about the content of these discussions are not the posters who are Christians, but the people who are not. I’ve been lurking for awhile to get a flavor for the way ideologies develop on this site, and based on what I’ve read, I’d say the Christians make a pretty good case for their arguments. They see to do so in a manner that is far more respectful than the opposite side has taken.
I don’t seen the need for such spiteful, hateful language unless it’s part of what comes with anonymity on the Internet (and that’s not an excuse). The true measure of a person’s integrity and ethical code is who they are when no one is around or looking.
I don’t see them as trying to “change people’s opinions” because, quite frankly, only YOU can change your opinion–no one can do that for you. What others can do, and in my learned opinion, is show you what’s called “the impossibility of the contrary” and leave it to you to either see and accept the flaws in your arguments, or ignore those flaws.
Now, I think that there are intelligent people participating here, but the arguments many offer seem to be based more on heresay, uninformed opinion (as others have brought out), and just plain out-and-out wrong information.
The unnecessary drama, as one poster wrote, seems to be coming from the people whose relativistic worldviews are being threatened–not by others, but by their own internal doubts.
Just my observations from neutral ground…
Geez some of you people are fun to toy with, so serious and sensitive!
Matthew:
Not sure what to make of your comment. Was it in response to mine or others previous? Sorry, couldn’t tell from your post.
Are you intimating that your posts are not for serious discussion?
Just Lurking
Religion is nothing but garbage, people who are religious are only religious because they are insecure and they use religion is a security blanket because they find comfort in religion or it’s because they have been brought up to believe it.
Really though religion is simply nothing but propaganda and dogma that has been used to enslave and control the masses, religious people are no different to the people in North Korea, look at North Korea, the people there are brainwashed and they think there leader Kim Jong Il is a wonderful man with mystical powers that has looked after them and has provided for them when nothing could be further from the truth, Kim Jong Il is really nothing but an evil greedy dispicable tyrant that starves his people and keeps them enslaved and impoverished.
People who are religious are nothing but slaves.
John:
Spoken like a true Marxist.
The uninformed blanket opinion you provide without supportive evidence to your position magnifies your igorance (I’m not calling you ignorant; just your position based on this post). Kim Jong Il is a dictator and atheist–how you equate religion with people living under the rule of an atheist dictator negates your own argument.
Has anyone on this site ever picked up a book on logic and reason, or how to put forth an argument supported by evidence? Doesn’t seem like it from what I’ve seen.
Again, I’m just lurking and commenting in general about the posts. It just seems to me that the people offering arguments for Christianity do a better job of backing up statements with sound reasoning than anyone else on the other side.
Snide remarks and personal attacks only serve to reinforce the philistine mentality that runs rampant on this site. In Latin, it is called “argumentum ad ignorantiam.”
Let me humbly offer this advice to John, Matthew and other angry souls:
“aude sapere.”
Just Lurking
Just lurking, Its so obvious which team you play for, what side your on. Just say what you want to say, dont hide your good faith from us, preach, let it out, we won’t laugh at you.
John and Matthew make so much sense how could you not nod with agreement like I did. Your pompus talk is all for show.
Sam
Hi Sam:
I may lean one way on some issues and am not sure on others. But to think that John and Matthew “make sense” is the height of absurdity when all they offer is hate-inspired or anger-tinged uninformed opinion. There is no “logic” in their arguments at all.
So your nod with agreement to them puts you in the same boat, apparently. I say “apparently” because I haven’t seen enough of your posts to provide an honest assessment of your true position and reasons for it.
And to accuse of me of being “pompus” (it’s spelled “pompous”) talk is quite laughable when you have offered nothing of substance yourself (yet).
I don’t “preach”. I point out the flaws in the arguments of others and then let them decide which path leads to the truth. I can’t make anyone believe anything they don’t want to.
Let me pose this question for anyone: if an atheist is someone who (1) doesn’t believe God exists, or (2) has no belief in God (they are two different things), why does an atheist embrace theistic arguments to try to argue for atheism? Granted, those arguments mostly include cherry-picked Scripture out of context, or include erroneous assumptions, but it seems to me a true atheist who was promulgating atheism/atheology would (1) not have anything to say because he or she doesn’t believe God exists, and (2) wouldn’t be posting anything on this site.
One conclusion that can be drawn from that is that folks here aren’t true atheists, but perhaps had a bad church experience in the past that tained their view of ALL Christianity and ALL Christians.
Don’t make the mistake Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Joshi make by characterizing all of Christianity by the few oddities on the periphery (in statistics, they are called “outliers”–points of data far removed from the normal population)…
No need for anyone here to be incendiary with their comments–it’s too easy to be a jerk using the anonymity of the Internet. I hoping that polite, and insightful dialogue can exist here, but I have my doubts…
Just lurking
At the risk of putting a rather simplistic viewpoint into this discussion, let me try to provide a small bit of illumination. Let’s begin with some of the stories in the Bible such as, Noah’s Ark, Soddom and Gommorah, etc… Yes, if taken literally, these stories are, fantastical to say the least. However, these were not meant to be taken literally any more than say, Aaesop’s fables. These stories, have a moral value just the same. Only a nut job would actually take them literally. That said, we come to the stonings, sacrifices, and other equally horrendous practices mentioned in the Bible. Let me just say right from the start that these accounts were written way, way, back when all of these things were a part of the way things were done. Personally, I don’t believe that these things were any more horrendous than the prime examples of man’s inhumanity to man in present day society. I have a real hard time understanding why someone who obviously believes that the Bible is such a horrible book spends so much time looking through it and critiquing it. I also wonder why it is so important to you what others believe. I really do thank God each and every day for the freedom to believe as I wish without fear.
Kris:
I doubt many people on this site spend much time–if any at all–looking through the Bible to critique it in a constructive way. If you scroll through most of the commentary, it is mostly tinged with vitriol and personal (unsupported) opinion. None of the anger, hate, and outrageous claims are new; the Apostle Paul wrote about it over 2,000 years ago in Romans 3:11-18:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away , they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
One question that is often asked of Christians by non-Christians is: “Do you really believe the Bible is literally true?” The nature of the question—and perhaps a Christian’s response to it—may reveal a lack of knowledge to its essence. Such a question exposes the biblical (and perhaps literary) illiteracy of the questioner; but is it possible that our Christian response can reveal the same in us?
Before blurting out a reply, Christians should have an understanding of the literary structure of the Bible. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., editor of the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, wrote that “The Bible is a central book to our culture…Far from being illegal or undesirable, teaching about the Bible is not only consistent with our Constitution, it is essential to our literacy.”
Many non-religious universities and colleges offer courses in “The Bible as Literature” or “The Literary Structure of the Bible.” The Bible is not a book—it is a collection of books that are historical, poetic, prophetic, and doctrinal in nature and each literary style has a specific intent; some more obvious than others.
For example, when Jesus speaks in parables, we know he is using a parable, so we don’t take the face value of the story as literal; it is a figurative device that illustrates a lesson behind it.
The Bible, like so many other great works of literature, contains many types of figurative language, whether in “poetry or prose, gospel or epistle.” The difficulty that sometimes accompanies biblical interpretation is partly attributable to the use of literary devices that are not common in everyday prose. Besides the general reasons for use of literary devices, there are particular reasons for their use. When we encounter them in a passage, we must consider the specific purpose(s) that the writer (inspired by the Holy Spirit) chose to use a particular means of expression. Figurative language often helps us understand a passage more deeply, and it can do so in several ways by:
-Presenting descriptive truth, rather than propositional truth
-Presenting more concrete imagery (not just abstract and theoretical)
-Efficiently consolidating the presentation of ideas
-Engaging the emotions
-Making passages easier to recall
For example, Psalm 57:1 (and Psalm 91:4) describes how our soul seeks refuge in the shadow of God’s wings, much the same way a hen protects her chicks. Obviously, this hen image is not to be taken literally—that God is some type of large bird with an enormous wingspan to shelter us. Instead, it conveys important truths about God in a descriptive poetic fashion, rather than in prose, as straightforward propositional truth. It illustrates an abstract theological concept by presenting a concrete image we all understand. It communicates God’s love, comfort, and protection to us with simple, vivid imagery that enhances its recall, engages the emotions, and is more compact than a paragraph after paragraph of prosaic exposition would be on the same theme. Such language engages us not only spiritually, but on emotional and intellectual dimensions as well.
So it really should be no “revelation” that the Bible contains much beautiful language that is not only aesthetically pleasant, but speaks to our entire being—spiritual, intellectual, and emotional by using literal and figurative language together.
Therefore, my response to the non-Christian’s question of whether I believe the Bible is literally true is: “Yes and no.”
Donn LeVie, Jr.
Author of It’s All About HYMN: Essays on Reclaiming Sacred and Traditional Music for Worship (Kings Crown Publishing)
It is obvious that Christianity – and others alike such as Judaism and Islam are nothing more then myths.
Their so called holy books make such big and bold claims without a shred of evidence to justify any of it. They not only lack evidence for their claims, the claims themselves ride in the face of modern science.
If a book was to ever make such wild claims, one would have to expect – if true – that it wouldn’t fail miserably as it does.
Another point I could make is that religion depends on faith – believing something to be true for the sake of wanting to believe it as true – which of course exposes a great weakness.
Think about it, if your religion was really true, would you need faith in order to deem it as true?
The fact that religion requires a leap of faith is a sure sign of its flimsy basis. You don’t need to be a genius to realise this.
I not only believe that religion is innately false, it is of course naturally wicked also, but that is a different argument altogether.
Wormwood:
Obvious to whom? Everyone, or just people like you? With all due respect, your opinion reveals that you do not know what you are talking about. You have presented no argument for your statements. You speak/write out of false assumptions.
Judging by what you have written, it seems apparent you have little or no experience with or knowledge of the Bible, Christian theology, or how historical archeology has confirmed many hundreds of events, locations, and people mentioned in the Bible (OT and NT).
And yes, I can cite the sources if you like, but I fear that such evidence or proof will do little to alter your presuppositions because in the face of such things, it is easier to hold on to our false assumptions than it is to admit we were mistaken. That’s part of a fallen human nature.
I write this with no malice in my voice or hand as I believe you have been misinformed by others.
Yes, for many Christians, we just shake our heads when people like Pat Robertson blame the earthquake in Haiti on the “pact with the devil” the Haitians made when they defeated the French back in the early 1800s. That’s not biblical teaching; in fact, Rev. Robertson’s remarks conflict with the teachings of Jesus.
One person cannot “convert” anyone to embrace Christianity. There’s a higher force at work that performs that work. What I can do is show you through what’s called “the impossibility of the contrary” that your position is false.
In fact, if all other positions and presumptions can be shown to be false, then what remains standing–no matter how incredulous or absurd sounding–must be the truth.
I invite you to read the postings at my blog at mythofneutrality.wordpress.com for more insight into this position.
Kindly,
Donn LeVie, Jr.
Let’s cut to the chase…
The 10 Commandments prove that no man is without sin. Nobody can say they have kept all 10 Commandments, therefore all men have sin.
Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again to prove he was the son of God. He also stated that only those who believe in him will go to Heaven. Everything else is just clutter… you can argue points like this for the rest of your life, but where will you be when your life is over. Trust in Christ. He is the only way!
And if you don’t believe there’s a heaven or hell, then why bother wasting your time arguing about it? Seems to me you’re wasting what life you have being angry at something you don’t believe in.
I extend my thanks to the author of this article. I think it is important for the evolution of our species to continue to shed light on the myths and legends perpetually presented and accepted as historical fact with no evidence existing outside of religious text. I for one do believe in something beyond us, but belief in religious rhetoric and dogma has accomplished nothing but to hold humanity back. Religious belief is responsible for some of the greatest atrocities ever committed by humankind. It is elitist and divisive, and the sad fact is that most people claiming to be Christian today have never even read the Bible. Of course, if they are reading it in English, they won’t get the real story anyway. There are numerous mistranslations and misinterpretations. I don’t care how careful you are, mistakes are going to made, and even one or two letters can make a huge difference. Think the difference between celibate and celebrate. Even if you can read Hebrew and Greek, you need to know what the word meant at the time it was written as word meanings change over time. For instance the word adultery did not mean then what it means now. But what I truly do not understand is why anyone would want to believe in or serve this god. Christians claim that they worship a loving god, but most of the Bible as it is presented by the church today describes a god who is narcissistic, sadistic, and cruel. It condemns people for being things they did not ask for and cannot change, or worse, asks them to deny who and what they are to live a life of dissatisfaction and misery. Many of today’s churches also teach that breaking god’s law will result in eternal torment in hell with no chance for redemption. Again, what masochistic person would want to follow this? Oh, and a comment for some of the previous posters, it seriously lowers your credibility when you can’t spell or write proper English.
Cheryl, I love your posting. You are so correct. Please ignore the guy below who puts you down. Keep up the good work, and I think your logic is impeccable.
Cheryl:
I just finished reading your post and came away quite amazed at the amount of misinformation and misinformed and –with all due respect–assinine opinions it contained. You repeat the same old boring unsupported statements atheists have been tossing out over the centuries without any substantiation. For example:
1. “Religious belief is responsible for some of the greatest atrocities ever committed by humankind.” Oh, I guess you failed to consider the tens of millions of people who have died at the hands of atheist regimes in the former Soviet Union (Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev), China (Chairman Mao), North Korea (Kim Jong Il), and Cambodia during the Khymer Rouge (Pol Pot’s regime).
It has been estimated that in less than the past 100 years, governments under the banner of communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 to 259,432,000 human lives.
Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel’s mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987. Atheist “hero” Richard Dawkins has attempted to engage in historical revisionism concerning atheist atrocities and Dawkins was shown to be in gross error.
Where are your numbers for the number of deaths caused by religious belief? Again, another blatantly incorrect and uninformed opinion from fans of this site.
2. “It is elitist and divisive, and the sad fact is that most people claiming to be Christian today have never even read the Bible.”
What a ludicrous claim…unless you have numbers/evidence to back up such a preposterous claim! Your “religion” of atheism–which really has no doctrine whatsoever–is also elitist and divisive, as seen in many of the posts at this site.
3. “Of course, if they are reading it in English, they won’t get the real story anyway. There are numerous mistranslations and misinterpretations. I don’t care how careful you are, mistakes are going to made, and even one or two letters can make a huge difference..”
Oh really??? And you have studied biblical hermaneutics, Greek, and Hebrew to make this blanket statement? The Bible has been translated from the Greek and Hebrew so many times over the centuries that most scholars now believe that any errors in translation have been insignificant and have not changed at all the underlying themes of salvation and redemption. There’s so much evidence that negates your naive statement.
4.”For instance the word adultery did not mean then what it means now.”
Really? What did it mean then, and what does it mean now? Back up your statements with some evidence or at the very least, some logical analysis.
5. “most of the Bible as it is presented by the church today describes a god who is narcissistic, sadistic, and cruel.”
Exactly how is God narcissistic, sadistic, and cruel? Can you provide specific examples? Do not confuse God’s judgement on a people (Old Testament Jewish people) who repeatedly disobeyed Him when they turned their backs on Him and refused to embrace his promises. God is just and a just God dispenses justice. Find some examples that support your rather inane statements. That would require that you actually find a Bible and open it…
6. “Many of today’s churches also teach that breaking god’s law will result in eternal torment in hell with no chance for redemption.”
Which churches teach that? I know of no church that teaches such a thing. You obviously are not familiar with the theme of the New Testament about how it is impossible to live up to all the laws and that God’s grace, through Jesus Christ, is the redemption we all receive for our transgressions. Read the Bible, please so you know what you are talking about.
7. “it seriously lowers your credibility when you can’t spell or write proper English.”
NOT TRUE. What most seriously lowers YOUR credibility is your inability to provide evidentiary, logical basis for your statements. You parrot what others have said on this site, failing to add anything of value to the conversations, and you fail at being able to put together premises to support your arguments.
THAT, more then misspelled words, is what lowers your credibility more than anything else.
Cheryl, you obviously have some negative baggage about God or perhaps a bad church experience when you were younger, I don’t know.
Yes, Christians lie, steal, murder, are pedophiles and adulterers, but so are non-Christians. But the actions of people only reflect the weakness of their character, not the teachings of Jesus or the Christian religion. We are all sinners (sin = separation from God through words, thoughts, and actions) and in need of redemption for our transgressions. If a politician confesses to an adulterous affair, does that mean that all politicians are adulterers? Does that mean that that person’s political philosophy (Republican, Democrat, whatever) is bankrupt because he slipped up in another area of his or her life? Absolutely not, yet this is what many atheists do in their rants against Christians.
Seek out knowledge first, which will enable you to put forth informed opinion (people may not agree with it); avoid re-using the emotional rantings of people with a grudge against God for something that has happened to them in the past for which they blame God.
Donn, everything I have stated is a matter of scientific and historical record. Try reading something outside biblical text for a change. The history of the crusades and the medieval witch hunts offer just a couple of examples of how millions of people were tortured and killed because they refused to follow the beliefs of the ruling party. Then there are all the so-called heretics like Joan of Arc, also tortured and put to death, not by political officials, but by the church. Oh, and by the way, I said religious belief, not just Christian. Today we have terrorists, those who kill in the name of a misunderstanding of the Muslim tradition. And if you want specific evidence for that, turn on the evening news or read a newspaper. Now where is your specific evidence of a loving god which you continually claim exists? Where is your evidence that the Bible is the inspired word of god and not just a mythical story like the Odyssey? The fact that some of it has been proven to be historical is not proof, because many of the ancient myths make references to actual places, people, and events. You make blanket statements with no evidence the same as you keep accusing everyone else. I have read and studied the Bible, and though I do not speak Greek or Hebrew myself, I have researched with those who do. I have also studied with religious scholars and linguistics experts, which is where my assertion that the meaning of words has changed comes from. I do not rely on one opinion or one source. Unlike you, I do seek knowledge. I double and triple check facts with many different sources. The Bible, even in its oldest context, is full of contradictions as to the nature of god. In one breath it claims god loves all his creations, in another he is destroying entire cities or torturing a man like Job just to test his faith. The same goes for Jesus. You stated in one of your posts that the Old Testament was the old contract with the Jews, and the New Testament is the new contract. But according to the Bible, Jesus endorsed the “old contract” as someone else already pointed out. And I am NOT an atheist; I simply do not believe in any of the religious versions of god.
It’s really a great idea for the people quoting the bible to study the history of it first and then enter conversations about it.His name was not Jesus…he died a Jewish young man.He was a Jew.
Christianity was not a religion yet…English was not even a language.The letter J wasn’t invented yet…his name was Yeshua.
Maybe there is a God…maybe there isn’t.But it’s pretty obvious he’s not from the Holy Book you guys and gals salivate over.
Check out Moses…I wouldn’t want him near any of my kids…
Exodus 2:11-15 11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out
to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He
saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that
and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
And who tries to threaten someone so they would have a sabbath??Do or die??
Exodus 31
“14 Ye shall keep the
sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it
shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that
… soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days may work be done; but
in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever
doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.”
And seriously….most of the “famous” religions can be traced back to within 2500 to 3000 years..started by a man or 2 with dreams he/they pulled out his/their ass.
Women gave birth to them ALL and there’s no huge contribution by women to any??Stupidity.
The atheist cannot quote barbaric passages but a Christian can act like they aren’t there??No way Jose.
More unsupported caustic personal opinion and Scripture taken out of context without the benefit of understanding the story woven throughout the Old Testament. Here’s a brief lesson: Old Testament = old convenant God made with the Hebrews; New Testament = new convenant with God made through Jesus with all humanity.
It is impossible to speak to the kernel of any issue if you don’t understand (not necessarily agree with) the fundamentals of that issue, yet that goes on here all the time.
I’ll stick to one of my previous posts that most people commenting here don’t understand how to logically organize their thoughts in a manner that supports their position. But that doesn’t matter; no amount of archeological or historical proof or corroborative documentation will change your minds because you don’t want to change your minds. You presuppositions blind you to any reliable, valid data, information, or logic that might have you reconsider your position. That’s where the “bollocks” are found–when folks insist on maintaining their position in the face of contrary information.
After reading posts here, I have come to the conclusion that there really isn’t such a thing as an atheist because whenever an atheist tries to explain what atheism is all about, he or she resorts to slamming Christianity (sometimes other religions), so it seems “atheism” is a euphemism for “God hating.”
In fact, it seems it can’t be anything else than that because apparently there is no “doctrine” of atheism that anyone can speak to without denigrating Christianity. An atheist can’t really “believe” in anything…not believing in God is not “atheism” because in so doing, you have hijacked a theistic concept (God), which means you have unwittingly included a concept you are philsophically opposed to. Oops.
But who will you cry out to in your darkest moment of need or hurt? Who do you speak to when you’ve reached bottom and you are by yourself? Who will hear you in your pain? God will, because he is relentless in his pursuit of us–(as Scripture says) despite the things people say or think about him.
Study both sides of arguments so you have a better understanding of your own position and those of others. Unlearned personal opinions are like belly buttons–everyone has one and some smell worse than others.
Here again you do the same thing you keep accusing other posters of doing. You state your own opinion with nothing to back it up but your word, and you give no evidence for your statements. And not everyone here is “slamming” Christianity. We simply disagree with it. And many of us here, despite your protestations to the contrary, understand it just fine.
Please read my later posting on how I have created for myself my own idea of who and what God is. THAT God I totally love, have faith in, and incorporate into my life, heart and soul. That God I created for myself is my source of strength during trials, and is what keeps me going when I have no more courage of my own to continue on in life. “Religious” people would CALL me an atheist because I don’t believe in the God as presented in the Bible. However, I VERY MUCH believe in my God. My God is good, wonderful, ever present with me, and NEVER would have caused floods, mass killings, or ordered wars to be fought saying, “and kill every man, woman, child and animal in the land you go”. All religions seem to be very based on old, old, old, old ways of life and thinking, and old, old, old, old ignorance of science. I don’t believe, however, we should throw out the baby with the dirty bath water, however. So, I totally believe in science, but also see no contradiction with the existence of God, since the God I know of is within all scientific phenomenon and discoveries that are positive. I don’t believe He created floods IN ORDER TO kill a bunch of people. I just think that God, as energy, has been around forever, and has NO human motives that we can attribute to Him. Not anger, not revenge. Love? I kind of like the love idea, so I choose to attribute LOVE to God. God is love. Love is God. Hmm. Kind of nice idea!!!!
What is our purpose here in life? It is to worship Allah(swt). The bible is easy to pick apart with all of it’s mistakes, contradictions, scientific absurdities, etc. because it has been corrupted by the hands of men.
This is why the Koran was revealed. As a mercy for us. It has zero errors. Zero contradictions. It is over 1400 years old and describes in detail many things about our universe that science only recently discovered.
If all the books in the world were destroyed today there would remain only one in it’s entirety tomorrow. That would be Noble Koran because millions of people have it memorized word for word in their hearts.
There is a god and his name is Allah. I invite you to the light. May Allah open your hearts and guide us all.
Sorry. It is dangerous to debate this with you, since anyone speaking against the prophet Mohammed will have a bounty on his head to be killed. You probably won’t be getting any responses. Nor will you be getting any converts based on how you presented your religion. You have written emotionally, without any facts to back up your suppositions and positions.
People try to disclaim the Bible, always have, and always will. Bible says that God says that anyone who does not believe it is a fool. Too many scientist, non-christian alike, agree that there is no way our planet, universe and life happened by chance. the human DNA alone can testify to that. Just one thought tho. something to ponder on: if the devil is not real, and people don’t believe, and Christianity is nothing more than an ancient religion, THEN why is the #1 cuss word on the planet either “goddamn” or “Jesus H Christ”? It’s never “budda dammit” or anything like that. AND here’s another one for everyone: remember back to your earliest memory(kindgartin, preschool, etc etc….)—snap your fingers and it was yesterday. no measurement of time. you’re gonna snap your fingers again and EVERYONE will know…………about God. I’ll take my chances with the sacrifice at the cross. I’d rather die “thinking” I knew Jesus Christ, and be wrong, than die ‘thinking’ there was no God, and be wrong.
Hello Cheryl:
No, I’m afraid you and most people on this blog don’t understand Christianity at all. You parrot the same misunderstandings by atheists and agnostics that have been promulgated since the Enlightenment. I challenged you to support your statements because you first offered the unsupported arguments; like most others who have difficulty backing up unsupported opinion, you dodge the issue by challenging me. That’s a pretty transparent sidestep that debaters are taught to watch out for early on.
Look, I’m not trying to convince you to believe as I do–that’s not how Christianity works. In fact, Christianity is not a religion to be ascended; it is a lifestyle to be lived, and yes–some pretty vocal and visible Christians have failed miserably at that. But let’s not confuse the practice with the practitioner–that would be like saying baseball sucks because your favorite player on your favorite team struck out with the bases loaded.
Since you state you are not an atheist, I’ll take you at your word, but your criticisms smack of the same arguments tossed about by others who post on this blog. So, I would respectfully suggest to you that you investigate more fully the truth claims of Christianity before making a decision. No one can make you believe something you don’t understand. That has to come from a change of heart, and a change of mind that you allow to happen.
May I suggest a couple of books that may help:
1. Basic Christianity, by John Stott (a short book that contains the essentials of the teachings)
2. Hard Questions, Real Answers, by William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig’s book responds to issues on doubt, unanswered prayer, failure, suffering and evil, abortion, homosexuality, and other topics.
3. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Normal Geisler and Frank Turek. Don’t be disarmed by the title…it makes more sense when you read through the first one or two chapters. Lots of historical, philosophical, and scientific evidence (from real, world-renowned scientists).
That said, you should know that I have a B.S. degree in Geology/Geophysics, worked as a research geological oceanographer for NOAA, petroleum geologist/geophysicist for Phillips Petroleum, worked with the moon rocks at the Johnson Space Center, and nearly completed my M.S. in Geochemistry (Planetary) with the University of Houston during the mid 1980s. So, I know a little about science.
I am finishing up a Master’s in Christian Apologetics from Biola University in the next few months. I also know a little about Christian theology, philosophy, and other world religions; I have explored the deep end of the Christian theological pool and have come away convinced even more of my beliefs.
And is see no collision of my Christian faith and science; I do have a more profound understanding of how the two work together. So, pitting faith VS. science is setting up the wrong argument altogether. In the words of the great Christian philosopher and theologian Cornelius Van Til:
I didn’t stand on the sideline and shout my proclamations without knowledge; I entered that world to discover for myself.
The important takeaway here is that we all answer to our presuppositions; our worldviews. What makes us think our thoughts, choose our words and actions all revolve around how we see the world. I can list all the evidence in the world to support the claims of Christianity but evidence isn’t going to change your mind because it’s (fallen) human nature to cling to our preferences–however right or wrong they may be–of how we want the world to work. We don’t want an authority figure to report to, yet authority figures control our world. We want autonomy, and that is man’s greatest delusion–that he is autonomous. As one Christian philosopher and theologian Cornelius Van Til wrote: “The revelation of a self-sufficient God can have no meaning for a mind that thinks of itself as ultimately autonomous. If man is not himself revelatoinal in the internal structure of his being, he can receive no revelation [another way of acquiring knowledge] that comes to him from without.”
The natural man wants to use empiricism to measure the evidence for God, so that he can therefore “judge” whether God exists; “how tall is God?” “How many teeth does God have?” are empirical measures the natural man uses. If I cannot use my senses to evaluate it, to meaure it, to ascertain its nature, then it does not exist,” says the natural, autonomous man.
What about the laws of logic? Can they be measured empirically? Following autonomous man’s understanding, the laws of logic cannot exist. And when the tools prove to be inadequate, he descends to the conclusion that “God therefore doesn’t exist.” That’s lame logic that denies the falsity of his own methodology.
There is one truth that no one can run away from no matter how intense (or as seen on this blog, how profane and insulting) to the contrary the protests may be.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:20-21: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
I’ll probably endure many more insults from others for that posting, but you know what: they just continue to prove the validity of Paul’s statement above the louder they shout.
No, as I’ve said, I’m not trying to convince anyone to believe as I do. At a minimum, intelligent people should make every effort to understand that which they argue against.
But perhaps I assume too much of them…
God Bless All.
Donn LeVie, Jr.
Hi,
My point is in the following terms: if anyone says that the Bible is the inerrant word of the creator of the Universe then they must be able to demonstrate or settle a number of things.
In my opinion the first issue that needs to be done before all others is that the original words need to be found. Can anyone show me an original copy?
Can anyone show prove to me that any of the copies we have are exactly the same of the originals?
Can anyone show me which of the copies we have are most accurate?
Can anyone explain why certain passages were added to the Bible that are not in the earliest manuscripts e.g. Jesus and the ‘let he who is without sin’ remain in the Bible and how do we know that they were in the original?
Prove this without reference to faith arguments.
Robert:
No evidence of any kind will convince you of God’s existence because you are blind to that evidence that already presents itself, as I mentioned in my previous post (or just read Romans 1:20-25–Google it as you probably don’t own a Bible).
John Calvin wrote that every man has a sense of deity within him. Men have “in their own persons a factory where innumerable operations of God carried on.” This is revelation within men. Man has round about him the clearest possible evidence of the power and divinity of God, and Calvin continues:
“In attestation of his wondrous wisdom both the heavens and the earth present us with innumerable proofs, not only of those more recondite proofs which astronomy, medicine, and all the natural sciences, are designed to illustrate, but proofs which forces themselves on the notice of the most illiterate peasant, who cannot open his eyes without beholding them.”
Your error lies in your presupposition that man is the ultimate authority in the universe. No amount of “evidence” anyone provides will ever satisfy you because that evidence cannot fit into your worldview.
Responding to such questions is a wasted effort because no amount of evidence of Christianity can push aside the natural man’s “logic” of autonomy as master of the universe. You cannot allow any valid historical, archeological, or hermaneutic proof or evidence to usurp your mistaken belief that the very idea of pure factuality or chance is the best guarantee that no true authority, such as that of God as the Creator and Judge of men, will ever confront man.
So, your questions are to many Christians the equivalent of you screaming into the vacuum of irrational space–no one can hear you because your words make no sound where premises and arguments are combined in an illogical fashion.
What’s your source for the claim that the statement by Jesus, “let he who is without sin” was later added to the manuscripts?
Donn LeVie Jr.
Donn,
You are wrong to say no amount of evidence could convince me that God or gods exist. If I was presented with the evidence than I would have to accept it, even if I wish it weren’t true.
I am not convinced by personal revelation as a type of evidence there are too many reasons why; such as what if the personal feeling of God that you attribute to Jesus was in fact the Devil from another religion trying to stop you believing in that God. There are lots of other reasons why this isn’t evidence.
Again you are wrong to say that no amount of evidence will convince me.
You seem to say that the God is beyond evidence. Is that what you are saying? If so then you may be right that does not mean that therefore I should believe in him/her.
On the issue of the added Biblical account of Jesus and the adulterous read a book called ‘Misquoting Jesus’ by Bart Erhman it is a fascinating look at textual analysis of the Bible. Here is a link to a lecture of his that you might like to watch: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=397006836098752165#
Hi Robert:
I appreciate your reply. Thanks for the link to Erhman. I have read many of his books and have listened to a few of his lectures on the Old Testament. Let me just say that he has unconventional takes on both the Old and New Testament, quite askance from nearly all other OT and NT scholars however. I have heard him debate William Lane Craig and thought he came out on the losing end of that engagement. I’m not doubting he’s an intelligent individual; I consider his position among the fringe elements on the periphery.
While each of us may say that if we are presented with evidence to the contrary we would change our beliefs, it simply cannot happen. Individual tit-for-tat “factoids” are not what change beliefs–it’s an entire replacement of a worldview that does that (which involves a change of heart and mind).
It’s like a drug addict who understands the evidence that drugs are bad for the health, family relationships, keeping and holding a job, or owning a car or home (in many instances), the evidence isn’t enough to get them to change their beliefs about who and what they are. Intervention programs don’t just focus on all the evidence against drug use because it’s more than a physical addiction. It’s a worldview that focuses on the individual’s pleasure, and the individual’s unyielding attempt to get high at any cost–and the false belief that they can control the addiction or quit at any time.
A perfect example of man’s self-deception about his autonomy.
What kind of proof are people looking for with regard to God? Is not the evidence that surrounds them enough (called “natural revelation”)?
People either believe that all creation is the result of a creative, purposeful act by a supreme entity, or they believe all creation came about in a random, purposeless manner. And if all of creation is the result of a random, purposeless process, and nothing in fact truly matters in the end (because everything that happens is without cause or purpose), why are people having these conversations on this and similar blogs?
The furvor with which they argue and protest betrays their conscious suppression of the knowledge of God each and every person has in their hearts. The louder they shout, the harder they try to bury that knowledge within them.
There are so many levels on which to have conversations about God, Christianity, and the Bible and I think conversations can quickly become focused on exploring minutiae that miss the fundamental principles that create such a schism. There are two fundamental world philosophies/worldviews: a theo-centric (God-centered) worldview and a homo-centric (man-centered) worldview. Except for the theocentric position, all other various philosophies are built upon the man-centered universe. Either one believes in a higher authority and functions within such a reality–or one believes in man being the ultimate source of authority in the universe (automony), having to report to no one but himself.
Taking Bible verses out of context, people putting their own spin on the meaning of verses (without any clue to the original intent of the author or the intent of the context–poetic, historical, prophetic, and so on) only serves up ignorance on both sides of the argument.
The truth I think is that no matter how much evidence is offered up to support the reliability of the Bible, it will never be enough to satisfy people. I can’t make anyone believe as I do; I can offer my knowledge or answer questions, but a worldview change happens because someone has a change of head and heart as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible does detail how this works.
For an excellent presentation on worldviews in conflict, allow me to recommend this series by the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=greg+bahnsen+worldviews&aq=6
God bless,
Donn LeVie Jr.
Most do believe in a supreme being. Although how does a rational person with a loving heart and sound mind read the bible and actually say this is the word of God? I have read all the bibles to include thousands of other books and the Christian bible is an absurd book. As a child growing up in a Catholic school my whole life I always thought are these people serious? What am I reading? The book has always been and always be borderline creepy. For all of you that would kill in the name of it and you do, wake up. You are such fearful sheep. Easily lead and manipulated. There’s a God but throw your crazy book aside and act as though that God is inside of you and not some ridiculous book, some specially designed building collecting money, your contemptible speech, arrogant writings, judgmental thoughts and holier than though attitudes. There is nothing holy in anything anybody has written in that book or what has been posted here.
Hello David:
You post seems to reveal several things:
1. You obviously had some negative experiences with your Catholic church upbringing. I’m not surprised as the Catholic church takes a different approach to ultimate authority and man’s place in the universe than does the Protestant church (way too deep and extensive to get into here).
2. Your seething anger and emotion are simply copy-cat postings from countless others before you (same old Old-Testament generalizations taken out of context and respun to fit your worldview); there’s nothing new here.
3. You lump all Christians into one box and that’s clearly in irrational, non-logical assumption to make. Not all Christians belong to that wacko church in Kansas that protest at U.S. veteran servicemen’s funerals. Your accusations
4. You fail to be specific in your accusations about the things you find offensive.
5. You post reveals a misunderstanding of the message of the Gospel (you seemed to have focused on the Old Testament, which chronicles the history of the Jewish people and sets the stage for all that the New Testament is about). However, I can understand how perhaps your Catholic upbringing may have had some influence.
No one can make you believe how they believe–that’s a fallacy. But you can be shown the fallacies and false assumptions of your position (worldview) so that you can use discernment and reason to fully understand the false foundation you have built for yourself.
Keep searching, and keep an open mind (and heart).
Blessings,
Donn LeVie Jr.
It’s fantastic…
If we’re all god’s children……..What’s so special about jesus?
Nothing, particularly since most of the stories about Jesus are skewed by people who hated Jews, and because the words of the Bible were mistranslated. For example, the word “virgin” was an incorrect translation. The actual word was “young girl” (in Hebrew, there is one word for both meanings). Also, the birth story is wrong, as was the death story. Anyone knows who can count that from Friday evening (Good Friday) to Sunday morning (resurrection) is NOT three days and three nights. So, that is a blatant lie. There is also contradiction in WHEN the Holy Spirit came. So, was it when it landed on John, on Jesus, or in Acts 2:38 in the upper room? Here is something to think about, also. When Jesus was “talking in the temple” as a boy, he was actually having his bar-mitzvah, so it was NOT UNUSUAL for this to happen to ANY boy. All boys were encouraged to question the rabbis and speak their minds. That was the culture. OK, and here is another conundrum. If the Gentiles want to claim they are branches which have been grafted onto the tree (to become like the Jews), then why denigrate the tree? Why try to convert Jews into not being Jews? If you get rid of the Jews, you get rid of the trunk of the tree, if that metaphor is being used. Here is another thing I don’t appreciate…gentiles saying “I’m so GLAD I don’t have to follow all those HORRIBLE laws ANY MORE.” What? When did they ever have to? Gentiles were never under the law, so why rejoice about being “free” from it? Here is another lie…that if you break one sin you have broken them all. That is not in the bible. Also, you die from sins, so Jesus died for you? First, not all sins had a death penalty. They had sacrifices such as giving a bag of wheat or something. Second, one man can not die for the sins of another. That is not in the bible.
THE 93 PEOPLE THAT SAID YOU THIS YOU NOT RIGHT YOU HAVE TO GO TO http://WWW.HBCMARYSTOWN.COM
Don’t you people know that the bible is not the word of god, it’s the word of man? Created to contol the masses, the dumb masses. The Roman’s took Christianity’s basic context and incorporated a lot of their Pagan believes and symbols, about three to four hundred years after Jesus’s death. And they produced basicly the same bible we have today, after several translations. But there were quite a few gospels that they didn’t include in the bible because the Roman’s knew that if they used them, that they might lead to the truth about Jesus. Which was, that he was just a man like everyone else and not the son of God.
Peter, what you say is true. Read 101 Myths of the Bible, and you’ll see where ALL the stories originate. Every single story had its basis in older mythology, and many of the stories can’t even be substantiated by historical fact. Some of the Pharoahs didn’t exist, some of the kings didn’t exist, etc. The old testament even uses the word LEVIATHON, which is a mythical sea creature. I know many Christians like to put down Catholicism because the Catholic church incorporated the idol gods into their worship and gave them saint names. However, the Christians would be shocked to know how many myths there actually are in the Bible.
The reason that many “non-Christians” are upset about the belief system referenced in your bible is that this doctrine is constantly forced upon us, whether we want it to hear about it or not. It’s in our schools, our shopping malls, our sports, our government, our workplaces and even our holidays.
Why is everything closed on Easter (a pagan holiday originally celebrating just the spring equinox)? Why are there crosses and mangers and menorahs and guilt and judgment all over the place? And Passover? Forget it. Yes, I do have a problem with celebrating the death of children. The sad part is that most people do not know what this celebration is about. It is about death. It is about one people’s god killing the children of another people’s god while the killer god’s followers sit idly by, listening to the screams of the dying.
In modern times, the words, “under god” have been added to the pledge of allegiance (1954). This was suggested by the Knights of Columbus and signed into law by Eisenhower (a former Jehovah’s Witness). Most of us were forced to recite this altered version as school children. As a side note, I lived in Toronto growing up and we were “required” each morning to cite the lord’s prayer. I always thought it was wrong that the non-christians in the room had to go into the hallway until we were finished because their belief systems would not allow for this recital. For me, it was just some random words with no meaning.
Our country’s motto used to be “e pluribus unum” which translated loosely to “out of many, one.” Now, it’s “in god we trust.” This change was adopted in 1956, shortly after “under god” was added to the pledge. It’s on all of our currency, too.
Why should I or my children have to recite these things and why should I have to pay for my goods and services using this message? Why can’t we just say, “don’t kill people and don’t steal because it is just not right?” It doesn’t take an ancient belief system to come up with those tenets, does it?
And it’s not about OT versus NT. The OT is extremely prevalent in the current Christian belief structure. Should we really put the 10 Commandments in our schools? This is an ongoing request from many community and government leaders. Sorry, but I don’t want my children or our educational institutions to validate these archaic forms of law. Should we still have slaves, too? Can I still rape someone and then marry her after paying the family fifty bucks? Most of these rules don’t make sense today and some sound like the mad rantings of an egotistical madman. “No other gods before me” and no “craven images,” etc. The premise that you could actually “die” for picking up sticks on the sabbath? That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? Let alone that the sabbath is supposed to be “Saturday,” right? We’re ALL doomed if that is the case.
And it’s great that NT supposedly changed all this for Christians (though not for Orthodox Jews and others). Then again, Christ is Jewish, right? (Does he know that his beliefs have been co-opted for these purposes?). But still, why would anyone want to put these old writings up in a school or courtroom today? And let’s not forget that the 10 Commandments are the tip of the iceberg. Mosaic law has not been limited to those 10 lines — there are actually over 600 rules. Here are a few others:
* No interfaith marriages
* A eunuch shall not marry a daughter of Israel
* A bridegroom shall be exempt for a whole year from taking part in any public labor, such as military service
* A widow whose husband died childless must not be married to anyone but her deceased husband’s brother
* Not to commit sodomy with one’s father
* Not to surrender a slave, who has fled to the land of Israel, to his owner who lives outside Palestine
* Not to tattoo the body like the idolaters
* To slay the inhabitants of a city that has become idolatrous and burn that city
* That a menstruating woman is unclean and defiles others
* Not to keep alive any individual of the seven Canaanite nations
* To deal with a beautiful woman taken captive in war in the manner prescribed in the Torah
* If a woman is unmarried and not betrothed and a man forces himself upon her, he must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and marry her, and he is never permitted to divorce her
* Not to prophesy falsely
* To destroy the seed of Amalek
Most of these laws come from Deuteronomy, the 5th book of the OT. This scroll was “conveniently” found next to the “ark” during King Josiah’s reign in Judah and it re-established certain laws. The high places (outlying temples) were destroyed. All animal sacrifices now had to be brought to the temple priests in Jerusalem for proper slaughter. Priests made money doing this and the temple priests were allied closely with Josiah. Many scholars believe that “Deuteronomy” was written for the king by a scribe named “Baruch,” for the political purpose of centralizing religion in Jerusalem. The people would surely fall in line behind holy scripture, even if it was made up. Not much has changed since then, from a process perspective. The modern “Patriot Act” is a good example of this type of governmental manipulation. It sounds like one thing but has another purpose — in our case, it was the restriction of many freedoms. At least we are somewhat literate today with our average 8th-grade reading abilities. Most people in the time of the old testament could not read at all. They simply believed what they were told by their “educated” religious leaders.
And it may be true today, as several posters have pointed out, that you are free NOT to convert to Christianity (though you certainly cannot escape its influence). In any case, that “choice” certainly was not available when westerners colonized the Americas and forced many of the indigenous peoples to either convert to Christianity (to be saved) or die.
This was not OT, it was only a couple of hundred years ago. And there are still places in the world where you can be killed for not believing in a particular god. Perhaps Christian violence has mellowed since the OT, but we are in a holy war, now, in the Middle East. Will it ever end?
We should always challenge the intent of an organization that kills or rapes people as part of its belief system, be it present or past. History does count. Communist, Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish — it does not matter. Killing is wrong. Rape is wrong. Does any religious entity adhere to its own laws?
And an institution that looks the other way while grown men have their way with little boys should be closed. Let me put it another way. Any group, entity, organization, person, people or religious infrastructure that advocates the sodomy of little children should be SHUT DOWN. Period. Game over. If you are associated with such a group, you really need to question your role. I know that I do.
The same can be said for any group that advocates the beheading of “unbelievers,” the killing of a person for picking up sticks on the sabbath, the killing a first born child in Egypt, the killing of someone who is uncircumcised, the killing of someone who worships a different god and the killing of someone who writes a book or draws a cartoon questioning these same beliefs.
In summary, here is a parable. In spite of his atrocities, Hitler was a decent artist. He inadvertently put on one of the best art shows the world has ever seen (degenerate art exhibition, Munich, 1937). It included Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Kurt Schwitters and a host of other famous artists. In other words, he actually had a positive quality. Some have wondered that if Hitler had not been denied entry into the Vienna Institute of Art, he might not have become the dictator that killed millions of Jews during World War II.
In any event, if I started espousing Hitler’s positive viewpoints while at the same time basing my belief system on teachings from his version of the “Communist Manifesto,” some people might have a problem with that. Modern religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam and sure, even Atheism) have all been tarnished by past behavior.
Once I see that the people who belong to these groups are actually living by the creed and beliefs that their religion(s) supposedly purport, then I will take a second look. I really don’t care what system you believe in, as long as it does not negatively another person’s life.
Please don’t ask me to believe that something is good and holy when it is riddled with historical inaccuracies, scientific fantasies, contradictions, absolutely murderous intentions and oppressive tendencies.
###
Thank you Andrews for saying the things I cannot compile coherently. I agree completely. Although I would disagree with you on one tiny point. Jesus’s mother was Palestinian was she not? Then it seems to me that Jesus was half Palestinian. Not Jewish. And in my personal opinion, he was also half Roman, as I believe that Mary was actually raped and impregnated by a Roman Centurion. A moot point really, something for the nutcases to argue amongst themselves.
Again, thank you for shining the spotlight of reason, where before only the flickering candle of superstition barely glowed.
Okay, wow. Why do you live in the US again? Plus, why do you think that Christianity is pushed on other people? Can you name a time where Christians have performed a violent act towards others? Besides the Crusades. Which was over 100 years ago by the way.
First of all, religion is man made. So, there you go. Thats why it sucks.
Islam and Christianity are 2 different things.
Oh and read the Bible before you make nasty remarks about it. You have no idea what it says. I’m sure you pulled off all this information off another website that claims to be real.
Plus, all the “past wrongdoings” you’re talking about are all done by the Muslims. Christians have never done those things.
You just need to clam down, and not worry so much about religion. You obviously are searching for one, namely Christianity. Most likely you entered a church, sat through a service, didn’t feel the right “feelings” and left. Now, Christianity sucks according to you.
I would say that you should stop insulting the Christian religion, and grow up. You should just accept that you’re wrong and move on.
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I have so much fun at the Chabad.com website, because I love to debate, and they let me. I told them that I don’t believe in the same sadistic God they do, but I wanted a god to worship, so I decided to make up my God. My God is total love, goodness and strength within me. My God lives inside me, and does not tell me what to do or where to go to worship because my daily life has to be worshipping the goodness within me and the positive outlook that gives me hope for a better tomorrow. My God is, I suppose, my inner being and self, but I look at this inside as being separate from me. In this way, there are actually two of me and so I am never alone. I always walk with God. The bible, the ten commandments, the 613 other commandments, I take with a grain of salt, picking and choosing which ones I want to incorporate into my mental being. For example, I like the one about Tikkun Olam, which is “Go and heal the world” (help people). I look for the positive ones which help me in my life. There are a few I don’t want to get rid of just because all the stories and “facts” are untrue myths. I like some of the poetry, such as “God is my rock” (my inner strength), and totally deny that God would turn a woman into a pillar of salt because she looks behind her. I think some of the stories are TERRIBLE, horrible and disgusting. Cute, I suppose, for kids, but I’d rather expose kids to Star Wars type movies. They have more relevance to reality.
So, what you’re telling me is that you’re schizophrenic?
Here is how the Chassidic and Orthodox see the Bible…The first five books (Torah) are the only important ones, and there are scriptures that pose predicaments and problems. Therefore, SCRIBES or very educated men have in the past discussed each issue and have written their own books about what the scriptures imply. One book is called the Tanya and one is the Mishnah. What I find really quite shocking is that each book creates more laws to describe the old ones. Thus, such things as “In clothing, never wear anything that combines wool with cotton”, and tells when you can and can’t wear leather. For the Sabbath laws, some items were added and some lessened in severity. For example, when automobiles came along, they added you can’t drive on the Sabbath; yet, they also added that saving or healing a human life is more important than the driving rule, so you can drive to save a life. With the advent of electricity, new laws were made about not turning switches on or off, etc. Instead of saying something in the Torah was just plain wrong, they give it a spin, and say, “Well, it REALLY meant….(so and so)”. A note to the Christians reading this blog site, you ask why Jews didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. 1) Their idea of a messiah is that he will be a human person who becomes the king in the new temple which will be built in Jerusalem. He will NOT be God. 2) They believe when the Messiah comes, there will be peace on earth. That has not ever, ever happened. 3) According to the New Testament, Jesus’s birth was traced through his mother to King David, and he had no earthly father. However, in tracing lineage for the priestly tribe (Kohanim), it MUST be done through the father and not, as is traditional for regular Jews through the mother. Since Jesus did not supposedly have an earthly father according to the story, his lineage could not be traced back to King David. So, Jesus did not fulfill the prophesies, no matter how Christians try to spin the words in the Old Testament. So, please, people, if you are Christians, leave the Jews alone and stop trying to change them to be like you, think like you, believe like you, and talk like you. That is very mean, bossy, intrusive, and disrespectful!!!!!! You do not need to “save their souls” and they are not all “going to Hell” for not believing in Jesus. Just stop it. Stop.
EVERYTHING in the Original post has already been addressed.
Since we have a TRANSLATED copy in English there ARE translation issues as mentioned in the above post…
BUT THE ORIGINAL TEXTS HAVE THE CORRECT ACCURACY.
for example of the first of the OP:
http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/joshua-esther/how-old-was-ahaziah-when-he-began-rule-over-jerusalem
Others are just a LACK of reading the whole Bible and misunderstanding of the original text and how languages differ…
Did Jesus pray to The Father to prevent the crucifixion?
The answer is YES Jesus did, however, he also submitted his human will to the Father’s Will, sometimes Christians in praying we identify our problem and point out what WE want but also while praying we realize WE dont know everything and God does.
EXAMPLE:
Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
To assume that EVERY prayer Jesus prayed was answered with a YES… shows a lack of understanding.
While Jesus HAD NO SIN he STILL WAS HUMAN, AND NOT PERFECT … HE Had Feelings and FREE WILL and made mistakes and learned. SINLESS but NOT ABSOLUTE PERFECTION.
SO ,the scriptures identified in the OP show that Jesus chose FREELY against his HUMAN NATURE to go to the Cross for Your sins and mine and the INTERNAL HUMAN CONFLICT as well as the SUBMITION to Gods will.
Hmm. This still leaves the question of COULD Jesus have died for ANYONE’S sins, since in the old testament, this was UNHEARD of and would be AGAINST G-d, since Judaism did away with human sacrifice. The cut off on that was the story of when Abraham was torn between doing human sacrifice, thinking that is what God wanted, and then God telling Abraham not to harm his child. God gave animals in place of humans for sacrifices. That is, if you believe the idea that God does animal cruelty. One person can NOT pay for the sins of another and for sure, can not pay a DEATH penalty for anyone else’s sins. It is against the law in Judaism. As for the death penalty itself, I was told it was EXTREMELY hard to get that judgement because of all the witnesses it would take for a PARTICULAR sin. Not all sins got the death penalty. Another difference is that in Judaism, babies are not born into sin or of sin. They are considered holy and pure. Sex is not a sin in Judaism (but Orthodoxy is against some kinds of sex and also against homosexuality and self-stimulation). Since Jesus was Jewish, by the way, IF HE WAS A RABBI, he HAD TO HAVE BEEN MARRIED and had LOTS of babies! A rabbi who is not married is LOOKED DOWN ON. Did you know that? So, I have to ask, WHAT salvation? FROM what? Sin? WHAT SIN? Can you specify? Can Christianity PROVE the gospel according to the old testament? No, they just pick and choose scriptures which APPEAR to point to Jesus. Then, the ones that contradict their stories, they just say, “Well, it means for the SECOND coming of Jesus”, and poo-poo the disconnect. If you want to be a Christian, do so. But, do NOT say that Christianity is BETTER or more complete than Judaism. In doing so, you put down a whole group of people. Also, by saying the words, “The Jews” and then putting a negative comment afterwards in the New Testament, whole groups of non-Jewish people get a WRONG opinion of Jewish people. There has been SO MUCH discrimination BECAUSE of the wording in the New Testament. So much hatred! So many rejections socially and in the world of business. So many atrocities.
The biggest argument we have with all of this is that the Bible itself is NOT an authoritative text. You can say that the copies were inspired by the originals, but we don’t have the originals. No one does. We are talking about copies of copies of copies of copies of stories that were handed down thousands of years ago through an oral tradition and eventually written down by man. You can quote it all day long, but you are not quoting anything close to source material. Even if you had the original source material, it would be difficult to verify its historical authenticity, much like ancient mythology. These early stories are colored with knowledge that simply was not advanced enough to properly understand the workings of science and nature. Most people could not even read. Translations, revisions and copyist bias/errors aside, the stories in the Bible are a fantastical collection of fables, nothing more. They were necessary to keep law and order during a time of early civilization and to explain things that were unknown. If you have some actual proof of a god, I would love to see it or hear it or experience it in some way. There are plenty of examples of god appearing to people in the Bible, so why would that suddenly stop? Why are there no new stories? Why does it all just end? If you don’t have any tangible evidence, please stop citing the Bible as proof that there is or was a god. It is not acceptable, and it never will be.
Inerrant or not, divinely inspired or not the Bible is, there will always be arguments on both sides. Life on earth is fragile so people turn to gods/goddesses/God and they need a being who is bigger, stronger, mighty, etc to whom they can rely on. I think that’s the whole point of having a religion.
But I have questions like these:
Was Jesus a Christian himself? Wasn’t he a devout Jew and what he thought is Judaism and believed and worshipped the Jewish God?
GOD is the same for the Jews< Muslims, Christians
Christianity only came about when Jesus started to telll ppl the way to the Lord is thru him
Yeah, no.
Read the book of Mormon, and then the Koran and then tell me they are the same.
Jesus in the book of Mormon:
1. Brother of Lucifer(Satan)
2. Elohim(God the Father) slept with Mary to create Jesus. No virgin birth.
3. Was one of the “spirit babies” that Elohim had, which not only makes him less of a God, and more like a man. Has his on body, where God is spirit.
Etc.
Jesus in the Koran:
1. He was only a prophet where He was about to die on the cross, but angels came and rescued him. No sacrifice for sins.
Jesus in the Bible:
1. the ONLY son of God.
2. Died on the cross for our sins.
3. Resurrected on the 3rd day, and then ascended into heaven 40 days later.
As you can see, there are so many differences between all those religions, its kinda crazy.
Do your research people, its really not that hard to come to the conclusion that Jesus is a real person and has saved us all.
I wrote this with hopes that ppl won’t get lead a stray by their questions
and the deceitful answers that the devil would love you to believe.
This is all my personal understanding of the Lord, Jesus and the bible no influence from pastors or whoever
the whole bible which i haven’t even completed reading yet. just started with the first few books of the new testament and some of the old testament which is what you are recommended to start reading gives you and understanding of why Jesus came.
Jesus is the Embodiment of God’s love and compassion, without Jesus the Lord is a stern and fourth right Judge. that is why the laws of the old testament were so vulgar.
When Jesus came he came to change the peoples approach to his Religion. And yes he was a Jew. God of the Jews is also God of the christians, and the muslim are the same. everyone found there own prophets and it lead them to go their own separate ways.
The bible isn’t mythical, it just has topics some humans can’t comprehend.
and theirs ppl in the world that will never comprehend, the parable of the mustard seed is what Jesus would have pointed out to you if he was still around, so if you ever read the bible with the wrong intention you will never come to true understanding
and God doesn’t wanna just prove everything he says is correct and proper, cause then belief and worship would be solely based off of fact and the more than likely plausibility of God which would lead to ppl to become christians just for the rewards . Instead of your willingness to believe and sole love of God nd his Grace.
come on if God is as powerful as he is don’t you think he could make the world in 6 days
I would love to hear your responses, cause i’m not stuck in my ways. just strong in my faith.
Ok, so you’re just starting to be a Christian. My advice is to learn the ways of FEELING and THINKING which are peaceful and bring you calm into your life. The rest, take with a grain of salt. The first things they taught you were, “the laws of the old testament were so vulgar”, but when you read the New Testament, you will see Jesus said not one jot or tittle will be done away with. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Obviously, Jesus did NOT think the laws were VULGAR. He said they were all wrapped up in Love God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. They weren’t done away with. They were SUMMARIZED. Interesting that in the very beginning of your introductions to Christianity, you learn a very negative impression of Jews and Jewish law. Here is another question. IF Judaism is so terrible, then why would anyone want to be “drafted onto the tree” as a branch? You’ll find that the more questions you ask, the more doubt you’ll have. Therefore, in order to be a “good Christian”, you have to just accept what they say and DO NOT try to make it make sense. Religion, itself, does not make sense. It’s all about faith, believing blindly, and following the leader. That doesn’t make it WRONG. In fact, many people NEED this structure. Some people who have terrible addictions are HEALED through beliefs of ANY kind. The same with physical ailments. Should you give up on Christianity? No, in fact, Judaism says ALL people can be righteous people. They are called Noahide gentiles, and are only required to follow the seven laws of Noahide (look it up online). They think that all righteous people are God’s children, not just the Jews. I have just one request, however. Whatever you hear in church about Jews, take it with a grain of salt and realize that those words are very hurtful to a whole group of people, and have caused much suffering down through the years.
Okay I am in the middle of a research paper and ended up on this site. Wow what a coincidence to read such strong opinions about the one being that can take every last one of us out in a second. Well I believe in God and I believe what is written. Regardless of who wrote it, translated it, interprets it, it is really up to the individual himself to believe. One thing about God is that he does not force anything upon anyone. For those that want it, embrace Him and for those who reject Him, keep the negativity to yourself. It is so offensive and rude to make fun of one’s belief. Yeah we have a freedom of speech and we also have the right to remain silent… so for all yall negative people, do us all a favor and remain silent. In conclusions, casualties happen everyday in some form or another. Yeah God see and He knows, so the lives that are spared should be thankful they still have time to make peace with God the people on Earth.
Yes. All religion is myth. So? What I like about Chabad.Org is that they are extremely into the myths, but ENCOURAGE debate. They actually call it “holy debating”. People from all over the world and in all religions are encouraged to write in and express opinions on all sorts of subjects. I also like the feeling of believing in God. Of course, I made up MY OWN IDEA of who and what God is in my own heart. He/she would be all that is good, positive, encouraging and healthy. He/she is the strength within me to overcome calamities. I like the idea of talking to God within me, because talking to myself sounds neurotic, but talking to God within sounds more healthy. To the person who said we should all BE SILENT and keep our opinions to ourselves, that person should realize he is the product of brainwashing. Too bad.
Actually, the Bible is a very old book created by numerous people who wanted to be philosophers and wanted to make sense out of nonsense. There are always people who want to envision Utopia and have ideas about how to reach it. These people just went farther and wrote their ideas into a book. It’s just more philosophy.
We are not negative people. We are THINKING people. Big dif.
Okay clearly I did not say that anyone was negative, I say the comments were and if anyone that does not have anything good to say should be quiet. By all means if you or anyone was offended by me saying be quiet then I apologize because my whole argument was on not offending anyone’s belief.
It’s kind of hard to disagree with the Bible without using negative wording, or without pointing out inconsistencies. The positive things in the bible are the encouraging scriptures and the beautiful ones. You have to agree that telling people to go to war and kill all men, women, children and animals is pretty negative. No? How about the story of Lot doing incest with his daughters and then blaming them for getting him drunk? You thin k it is possible to discuss that without using negative terminology? Should we HIDE those type of stories and statements and ignore them? What do YOU think we should do?
ok some may actually get it ,, and good and some may not ever get it , good for them too! The point being there has never been any real proof , and most likly there will never be any !! ideally we should keep as much harmony in our lives as possible and disturb others , except in the name of freedom and safety, for ourselves family and loved ones , if challenged unjustly, then in the name of protection let em have with ferocity and vengence with relentless disregard…….If you have ever looked up into the night sky
you must realize we are so miniscule that our existence is at best sacrifical, and there are no physical rewards to be gained for any of our actions good or bad… self preservation is the best we can do ….after that this form will never be able to asertain the value of our existence as we we be something of a higher energy most likely, and all of this will be meaningless a truly higher energy would not be concerned with ego ….learn to enjoy share and create good feelings/ times, as we are a blip in the annals of time, when you debate the existence of something unprovable to elevate your EGO then you have just proven your worthlessness………..we are all universal and yet we know so little about the vast universe, religon is for profit and control and ego ,,,
strip your mind of ego and realize the present ! this land is on the verge of facisism (not too good at spelling sometimes ) start paying attention to the now and here , otherwise we all will nonexistant ….. go in harmony !! find a great partner and make some noise !!! that is as close to God as you’ll ever get ..
some may get it ………………….
correction:” and NOT disturb others”
there are a few typos in the above article but mostly evident
i want to start by saying that i am a Christian, and that i am really really sorry for the impression you get from a lot of Christians. I realize that we as Christians all have tarnished our reputation, and we do not make ourselves any different from the world and therefore we deserve no credit in our ability to “tell you off”. For that i really, really, really am sorry. If Christians were the only reason for believing in God, I would probably spit in our faces as well. I also want you to know I am not a genius, I do not know everything, and I am a poor defender. I am not attempting to argue, or provoke any anger. I do have a few opinions, however, that i would love to share with you.
I am an eighteen year old born and raised Christian. I noticed that many of your points (which do seem well researched and thought out) mostly point out the old testament. while i do not believe that the Old Testament is inaccurate, I want you to know that the Old Testament was based on works and discipline and obedience, and did not always rely on mercy. It is important to know that God is not only love. He is love, but he is also more.
God is loving, yes, just as all who are Christians believe, but many people leave out the fact that he is also a Just and Paternal God. Like a parent, he punishes and gives people what they deserve. Out of his love for us, he does not condemn us all, but gives us the chance to receive grace. However, if we decline, then all of the poor sinful choices (which, lets face it, are NOT accidents) we have made throughout life are punished when we die. God does say that slaves are at the mercy of their owners, and that if a slave is going to be beaten within an inch of his life, then he should still love his owner. However, he also tells the slave owner to treat his slave how his Master (God) would treat him. Love. This gives no right to mistreat a slave. This is just one example of how the Bible can be misconstrued.
I do not have all the answers. and i believe you are a VERY intelligent person. I by no means am telling you that you are acting too smart for the bible: that would be telling you that the Bible is for dummies and it is not so. I am just telling you that if you try to look at not only the possibility for the Bible’s incorrectness but also at its saving grace, you may actually find that you are surprised. If you have any questions or anything you want to talk about I would love to discuss it (and i wont beat you over the head or insult you).
I can only say what God has done in my life. He has proved Himself more than worthy to me and I have seen myself less and less worthy as I get older for the mercy i have been given. I have watched people miserably searching for joy in so many different places, but for the people actively seeking God, all that i can say is that God is evident in them. Please do not believe false witnesses that are off-putting, or believe that all people who believe in God or claim to be Christians know the true meaning of the love of Christ. I pray that you seek new answers and I know you wont come up short if you really try.
must look at this for more with confident
I have just finished reading everyone’s opinions on the Bible from both sides of the fence. I honestly don’t know what to think so I guess I must not be on either side. I do however have a couple of points to make. First, if, as it clearly states in the Bible, God created the world and the first people in it, why then have scientists discovered human and animal remains which have been dated back to way before God was supposed to have accomplished his amazing feat. Also if you look at the human skeletons that have been found and look at them in order you can clearly see the progression to where we are today. As I said I am not siding with anyone, I am merely making my own points. Here’s what I think. If the religious people of the world wish to have the rest of us believe as they do it might be a good idea if they were to stop judging people, which the bible says do not do. Stop telling the poor, who by the way, can barely get by that God wants their money. Stop saying one thing and doing another. And stop trying to shove your beliefs down our throats. And, yes, I know, not all of you do this but a large number of you do and you know who you are. There should be no judging at all because we all have a right to believe as we wish. I have one more thing to say. This is to whoever said they were amused by UFO’s and ghosts and the fact that we believe in them and not God. WELL, WE’VE SEEN THEM!!!
One question that is often asked of Christians by others is: “Do you really believe the Bible is literally true?” The nature of the question—and perhaps our response to it—may reveal a lack of knowledge to its essence. Such a question exposes the biblical (and perhaps literary) illiteracy of the questioner; but is it possible that our response can reveal the same in us?
First of all, to the non-Christian, our response to the question–no matter how grounded in logic and reason–will be rejected because of their presuppositions. In effect, their question is posed as more of a rhetorical one, completely devoid of any honest interest in our response. Their minds are already made up. Given that, we can proceed.
Before blurting out a reply, we should all have an understanding of the literary structure of the Bible. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., editor of the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, wrote that “The Bible is a central book to our culture…Far from being illegal or undesirable, teaching about the Bible is not only consistent with our Constitution, it is essential to our literacy.” Many non-religious universities and colleges offer courses in “The Bible as Literature” or “The Literary Structure of the Bible.” The Bible is not a book—it is a collection of sixty-six books that are historical, poetic, prophetic, and doctrinal in nature and each literary style has a specific intent; some more obvious than others. Even staunch atheists such as Bart Ehrmann teach courses (and write books) on the Old and New Testament from a literary perspective, but deny any theological value or import.
The literary forms most commonly recognized in the Bible include legal, historical, prophetic, apocalyptic, ancient biographical, epistolary, wisdom, poetic, dramatic. Others less frequently mentioned (and some considered sub-categories of the previous list) but present include allegory, diatribe, epic, etiology, farewell discourse, hortatory (paraenesis), hymn, legend, and others. Each of these literary devices serves a particular purpose in communicating information to the reader, which is received at different levels within the mind’s cognitive structure.
For example, when Jesus speaks in parables, we know he is using a parable, so we don’t take the face value of the story as literal; it is a figurative device that illustrates a lesson behind it.
The Bible, like so many other great works of literature, contains many types of figurative language, whether in poetry or prose, gospel or epistle. The difficulty that sometimes accompanies biblical interpretation is partly attributable to the use of literary devices that are not common in everyday prose. Besides the general reasons for use of literary devices, there are particular reasons for their use. When we encounter them in a passage, we must consider the specific purpose(s) that the writer (inspired by the Holy Spirit) chose to use a particular means of expression. Figurative language often helps us understand a passage more deeply, and it can do so in several ways by:
— Presenting descriptive truth, rather than propositional truth
— Presenting more concrete imagery (not just abstract and theoretical)
— Efficiently consolidating the presentation of ideas
— Engaging the emotions
— Making passages easier to recall
For example, Psalm 57:1 (and Psalm 91:4) describes how our soul seeks refuge in the shadow of God’s wings, much the same way a hen protects her chicks. Obviously, this hen image is not to be taken literally—that God is some type of large bird with an enormous wingspan to shelter us. Instead, it conveys important truths about God in a descriptive poetic fashion, rather than in prose, as straightforward propositional truth. It illustrates an abstract theological concept by presenting a concrete image we all understand. The literary purpose is that it communicates God’s love, comfort, and protection to us with simple, vivid imagery that enhances its recall, engages the emotions, and is more compact than a paragraph after paragraph of prosaic exposition would be on the same theme. Such language engages us not only spiritually, but on emotional and intellectual dimensions as well.
So it really should be no “revelation” that the Bible contains much beautiful language that is not only aesthetically pleasant, but speaks to our entire being—spiritual, intellectual, and emotional by using literal and figurative language together.
Oh, and when you demand that people stop judging others, you are yourself engaging in judgmental behavior. When you demand that people stop “shoving their beliefs down your throat” (I seriously doubt that is happening), are you not also engaged in shoving YOUR belief down the throats of others? That’s the major problem with relativist thinking…you are blind to the double-edge sword you are wielding against others.
If you engage in logical thinking, or in intelligent discourse with anyone, or even from time to time wonder how man is self-aware, then my friend, you are living living functionally as a Christian. If you cry at weddings, or weep for joy at the birth of your children or your grandchildren, or carry a heavy heart at funerals, you are living functionally as a Christian.
Because in a atheistic universe, without purpose, without design, without cause, none of these matters as they are simple byproducts of random chance. There is no such thing as an atheist because it is metaphysically, epistemologically, and ethically impossible to live a life as an “atheist” despite what you claim to believe.
first of all most skeletons found dating back before God created the world are bogus. LOOK it up, you will see that it’s true. There is no missing link because we are not related to monkeys. If evolution was true then where are the skeletal remains of the inbetween stages, say as a fish to a creature that walked upon land… there are none. And just because God created this world does not mean HE did not create another “EARTH.” As a matter of fact, where did Jesus go after HE turned 12? He journeyed for 18+ years before resurfacing. I place NO judgment upon others, if you knew me you’d call me the biggest hypocrite on the face of the planet. I am so flawed but I know FOR A FACT there is a GOD! I will like to share a word of HIm to you if you’d like
you speak of man evolving from basically a monkey. Explain why then if this farce were true, why is there a missing link? Don’t know? Let me tell you, there is no “link.” man did not evolve from a monkey, true fact. Also, have you TRULY seen a ufo other than on TV? I’d like to see the pics. Shoving our beliefs down YOUR throat? Why all I see from your blinded posts is you preaching your beliefs down everyone else’s throats….. Oh and those so called religious people who judge others are not Christians, they are blasphemers. Do not get the two confused. God gave man free will and gave us the will to make up our own minds. Do not listen to those who sell God, rather listen to those who speak of God with love and kindness. One last thing, I believe in God by choice, not brainwashing. I was bourn a Catholic, but do not follow all Catholic traditions, I don’t believe in most of them. As for carbon testing animal and human bones, these are only estimates. Scientists cannot tell the difference between an object being 2,000 years old to one being over 10,000 years old. Did you know that the more scientists research our planet, the more they believe that it was created by an “Intelligent Designer?” Did you also know that one out of three scientists are converted to Christianity the more they try to disprove God?
Kris, sorry about the he instead of she. BTW, Michael Clark exemplifies what I said. Instead of giving logical answers, he resorts to name calling. When I asked questions in a fundamentalist church, an elderly lady told me I had 7 demons in me, and said I should name them. She then punched me in the stomach to get the demons out of me. So much for faith and belief, right?
Andrew Blanchard, are you calling God a child killer? Why would God kill a child? Child sacrifices were pagan. They were outlawed in the old testament. Each man had to pay for his own sins. No man could pay the penalty for another man’s sins. The sacrifices mentioned in the old testament were FOOD sacrifices, or a way of making amends for having done something wrong to your fellow man. No where does it say there will be a messiah who will be killed and that would take away the sins of all mankind. There were very few instances where the death penalty was meted out, even though it is written as being ok according to law. When it said an eye for an eye, it didn’t even mean that literally; it meant that justice should be fair, according to the crime. So, tell me, what crime did Jesus do to get the death penalty? What crime did any of you do from which you would have to be “saved”?
this comment is for Tom. I disagree when you say that by telling religious people to stop judging I am also judging. No. I am simply asking them to stop judging everyone. I am not judging anyone. I believe that we all have a right to believe as we wish and nobody has a right to judge anybody. Also I am not shoving my beliefs down anyone’s throat. I am merely stating them. Not once have I ever passed out literature, shown up on your doorstep. asked you to come to my church,or passed you a collection plate.
Then who do you think wrote the Bible? Is it just a fictional story book? The greatest novel ever written?
You’re a complete dumb ass. I looked up every verse you quoted, and you quoted all of them out of context. Haven’t you ever heard of reading the whole entire piece of literature and then making critiques? You obviously have never taken a English class. Plus, have you ever heard of spell check? Because, dude, there are so many spelling mistakes in this blog. I think you should reread everything you have wrote here and rewrite it, because you obviously have it all wrong.
– The smart one that uses their brain, and spell check.
dude the planet and universe existed long bnefore this wriiten word ….
true pure intelligence is always non judgemental….free in thought never defensive and most certainly never accusetory spell check is for close minded zealots lo just joking the new language is coming and and will contractions of the current languages
Studon,
Are you on acid? Because you’re full of crap.
Bro, how could you read past the first paragraph? KUDOS to you my friend. I could not stomach anything beyond that… this dude is obviously trying to but doubt in others hearts who are seeking hope. It’s the atheists’ job to try and debunk GOD. Afer all misery loves company
I think a couple of points, warrant insertion here. First, rather than arguing back and forth about “God or not god”, take a moment to consider some things that are factual. The Bible has hundreds upon thousands of references to “God” intervening in peoples lives, making wonderful things happen for various people. Lets assume this is the truth, factual, undeniable for a moment. Now, lets consider events occuring in the last 50 years, that are facts, undeniable. Young children are repeatedly raped, sold, beaten, and in numerous cases, the abuse goes on for many years before they are finally killed. Now ask yourself “Is this a god I want to worship, be associated with, whether this god is real or imaginary”? Now keep reading your bible, and keep thinking about how much pure and complete hell innocent children, women, and men have endured for such long periods of time. Would a loving, all powerful god REALLY intervene in a mans life to help him defeat 1 enemy, and then completely turn his back on a woman who is raped, molested, and sold as property for 30 years before finally being beaten to death? Is this REALLY the god you want on your side? I believe we have a spirit, no question, I simply cannot accept such a rediculous story book as truth. Come on folks, close your eyes, think for a moment, and go out and do somthing good for another person, animal, whatever. You will find you are getting a whole lot closer to God.
Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
Man created the ‘biblical god’ in his own image, intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent.
If by ‘god’ one means the physical laws which govern the universe and beyond, that mankind can be in awe of, then there is a ‘god’, but one that doesn’t require worship or killing or dying for.
well you are certainly on track …….
i have always been amazed how hippocrites and criminals , and political
has beens, control, big business banks etc for greed,,.!? the general public is so consumed by these distractions;(TV NEWS and Political ads ) they forget what this country was founded for !! [{freedom}] as the mentality of said corrupt heirachy is so skewed with ego and agendas for self weath mechanisms that the general public is lost ,,consider these mechanisms ; zealotry, power and absolute, corruption, manipulation, now ad mega wall street greed , and you have a unstoppable rocket aimed at the elimination of major populations through enginered foods, drug companies whom own the food industry AMA ,FDA, who continually create harmful fatal remedies
that the political judical system enriches themselves through a defense system that ultimatly serves both side …its a bad bowl of soup!!!
rotten, diseased,toxic, corrupt , criminal, leaders enriching them selves under the guise of good heath………….while countless minions watch dancing with the stars ……
someone once said there three types of people
)1 some people talk themselves
)2 some people talk about others
)3 some people talk about ideas ……
which one are YOU !
revoloution is the only way !
Johnny, My husband and I think that you are a genious. Well said!!
Kris
worshiping, yes. after all HE is the creator. killing or dying for? No. However I am quite sure GOD dislikes homosexuals, it was even preached against. But your concept of “god” is twisted and has no room next to the CHRISTIAN GOD. How much of the bible did you actually read? If you say you read it all, then you are a LIAR! For one most people have not read the Catholic bible and they claim they read NKJV, or the NIV, in their entirety. but the Catholic was the very first written
Blunt but very true article. However, the Bible was never meant to be taken literal. The modern pharisees called fundamentalists perpetuate this myth.
I do, however, feel that the bible has much to teach us when we see the spiritual and allegoricak meanings insread of thinking about it literally.
I disagree, the writings in the Bible were meant to be taken seriously and were for hundreds of years. Sadly, there are many crackpots who still believe much or all of it to be the word of God.
Of course, the Bible, being invented by man and interpreted by mankind, is mostly not taken literally now and so you have a myriad of different religions, cults, sects etc based on the Abrahamic God. I can’t remember the exact quote but it goes “a good knowledge of the Bible is the best argument for atheism”
don’t be fooled or blind. if what you say is true then the bible was written for naught
the author of this piece is a liar and full of crap himself. Someon order him a TALL glass of shut the fuq up! Explain why if the world was not flooded you can find sea shells on the highest mountain in the world. Don’t try to explain about the plates pushing the earth upwards, that’s just rubbish! All you people who don’t believe in GOD are FOOLS! There are too many indication that HE exists. Scientists of today are finally coming out and admitting that the Earth and universe was indeed created by an,”INtelligent Designer.” They cannot say God because it would debunk their entire beliefs based on hypothesis, estimates, and word of mouths. Speaking of SCIENCE, GOD created that, too. As for the bible, it was written by man, yes of course, but these men were prophets. You atheists don’t have a SHRED of evidence backing up your statements. You people should kindly shut up, stop spreading poison to others and destroying hope in somewho need it. If Christ were not the SON of GOD then why did so many try to kill HIM? Why were CHRISTIANS burned at the stake, beheaded, tortured, maimed for speaking about the LOVE of JESUS CHRIST? Why would so many people die in vain just to spread a lie about a God who loves His people? You atheists make me hurl. And as for the virgin Mary, it was already fortold about her pregnancy before she was bourn. Yes the author of this satire is a NUT JOB himself, he’s trying to spread lies to many people out there who are searching for God. Yea, buddy repent now so you don’t have to face satan in the afterlife. I have so much information for those who are seeking answers regarding being a Christian,respond to my post and we can talk. But whatever you do, DO NOT take advise from those who want to destroy, as the author of this dim-witted article obviously like to do. Yes, I sound judgmental and I have NO right to judge; however in a world that has fallen astray to the “dark side” of things, why listen to those who cause the darkness to thicken when there is always a light on somewhere?
I do believe in God/Creator. However, I don’t believe the bible is totally true. It’s a book that probably has some historical facts, but is mostly fiction. I also don’t believe in “Hell”.
There’s nothing like fear to keep the sheeple in line.
If there is a God and Heaven, then surely there is a Hell and a devil. Remember that many stories came from biblical facts and now because sheeple, as you put it fear much, the whole idea of Jesus being God has been distorted and stories like Moses, or the burning bush have become nothing but Aesop fables. Do not be fooled by those who want to lead you astray from the narrow path of righteousness. You believe in God and believe He is the Almighty creator and that my friend, is a huge step toward the right direction.
God cannot possibly exist as He has no referents as Creator and so forth as we atheologians take each off one by one with our arguments [ Lamberth’s the teleonomic does however remove al,l by finding no divine intent exists, so He’d have no intent as Creator and so forth] and He has contradictory, incoherent attributes that make Him no more than a square circle or married bachelor! Google the ignostic-Ockham and ignosticism to see fuller explanations.
The Aquinas-Shelley superfluity argument boomerangs on Aquinas’ five ways; Percy Bysshe Shelley puts it thus:” To suppose that some existence beyond or above them [ the descriptions- laws- of Nature,S.K.] is to invent a second and superfluous hypothesis to account for what is already there.” And no, that is no metaphysical category mistake, because to aver that begs the question thereof.
The Flew-Lamberth the presumption of naturalism requires theists to provide evidence to overcome this presumption that natural causes and explanations themselves are efficient, necessary, primary and sufficient- the sufficient reason.
Those three arguments do reveal the sterility of using Him as any kind of explanation. Atheologian, Keith Parsons states:” Occult power wielded by a transcendent being in an inscrutable way for unfathomable purposes does not seem to be any kind of a good explanation.” Indeed.
God is that grand Mystery, surrounded by still more mysteries, purported to be the Ultimate Explanation but in the end amounts to theological double – talk. Why, Prof. Irwin Corey makes more sense!
For fuller discussions Google Skeptic Griggsy and Lamberth’s naturalist arguments against God.
We naturalists have many more arguments!
what a bunch of jibber-jabber. Seriously, if you were a writer, I’d have you fired. And the best you have is… “Go look it up on the internet.” You and I both know that one CANNOT believe 75% of the crap on the web and your farce is among that crap. You want real answers? You need to go read ancient books. You are the type of person who goes around shooting off his mouth before fact digging. Do everyone a favour and just simply keep your mouth shut
Reblogged this on The Buy-bull and commented:
What is your take on all this?
Please subscribe to WEIT and to Unreasonable Faith.
Religion has business interest and has political interest in its followers and in the world as long as their doctrine is followed to the letter. The bible encourages and discourages people beliefs this is the bibles life throughout history. Every religion would not survive if discussions like this over their context never happen. My curiosity is there are so many denominations of religion in the world and it seems in books most of these religions have had bad history and good history. Religions across the world need, contradictory, followers, monetary compensation, and politics to survive….and boy do they get it.
Could you imagine what would happen in the catholic church if their was not a pope? I heard some people was shocked a pope could retire…people thought it was a life appointment. But, they voted another cardinal to pope within matter of days and the wheel keeps rolling. The historical doctrine of these religions over time dictates these events whether true or false in beliefs these things have to happen. I feel a religion will always have bias and unbiased individuals within the religion itself, and outside the religion about that particular religion it is a necessary evil that has to happen to validate that religion. It is amazing how something so simple could cause wars, and tumble kingdoms of man.
I just say live life and try to be as successful as possible in any of your future endeavors…Godspeed. And never stop learning I am astounded at some of the dialogue I completed enjoyed the dialogue. I am a history major (freshman at KU…Go Jayhawks) I am open to learning more about religious history.
I do not attend a church nor do I have a religion of any kind. I have my own personal relationship with God, the force, whatever you wish to call it. Religion is a man made entity created to control people. Don’t believe me? Look it up. God did not create religion! I believe in the right of all to live and believe as they wish. This is as it should be and nobody has the right to judge anyone else, be they believers or not. I noticed that whenever the subject of religion pops up everyone starts arguing over who is right. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong since God has given us free will, a mind to reason with and the right to choose. Stop judging each other and start loving each other instead.
Anyone who beleives in the bible is not an idiot, just very easily influenced. We’re human, and anyone can be convinced of something if it is widely accepted, especially after long periods of time. Several religions are backed up further than can actually be dated with specific information/stories that can usually be interpreted as the same exact background as the bible, just different characters. If thats proof enough, then I’m forced to believe in all of them, but then that would be against most of them. Perhaps none of it is true. Imagine that. In some ways, I could actually respect someone who is strong enough to live by christian guideline, but can’t say I’ve ever met anyone that actually does within their own human potential – just the bare minimum to satisfy the eyes of those that physically witness them. I can appreciate anything that brings good out of anyone, but that isn’t limited to christianity or any religion for that matter. Most people don’t actually beleive the contradicting nonsense that comes from any of the many variations of this story, but will preach it like a parrot after their last visit to church. Too many times people site the same specific quotes from the bible, because they were the ones they heard in church, though they don’t usually even know what came before those words and most times would realize how out of context they were if they actually put the whole story together. Even then, it is a man written story constantly changed and twisted by those in power to satisfy themselves and scare populations into allowing order. 9 out of 10 christians limit their religious education to church visits anyway because they care too much about what their fellow churchgoers may think of them and feel they have at least that to prove. Well, those fellow people are probably in the same boat in their own head as well. About any christian would laugh (maybe not out loud) if they heard someone claim that they physically met or had an audible conversation with any biblical character or someone from heaven or hell. Though these things are supposed to exist, hardly any christian could accept that someone truly witnessed any of it. Someone like myself is many times looked at as rediculous because, well, the story just has to be true, doesn’t it?…just because it is so popular. It is about as rediculous as a person’s pride for the United States. Many people think one is crazy for not being proud of our country. Our country is a joke mostly full of the laziest, violent people, only dragging the rest of us down, as our government takes advantage of these masses that are too ignorant to see what is going on. They even make a mockery of christians as they claim, “IN GOD WE TRUST”, though laws promote freedom of religion (most religions). If america wasn’t based on so much immigration and free religion, the bible would probably get revised every time we get a new president and christians would have to believe every word of it. Why? Because it is the bible, and if you don’t believe it, God will allow you to burn in hell for eternity with absolutely no exceptions, though anyone that actually reads the bible (not just HEARING it at church) would find that God has a specific capacity on what we percieve as heaven (not the heaven on Earth that christians disregard or haven’t been told about), unless you are “saved”, that is. In that case, you are immune and can commit sin like its going out of style as those who truly try to make peace and live with good morals go to hell forever because they chose logic over the tooth fairy. If heaven is real, I’m sure that capacity has already been met due to all the people that have been saved before anyone alive today. Too many gray areas to say something is certain. Also, most people are too lazy or afraid to shed the light needed to eliminate some of the gray area due to the controversy or contradiction it may create. I am as open minded as any christian, non christian, or agnostic. That is why I consider the christian idea of God just as possible as my toothbrush being God or a god. That was not a negative comment either, just an example. I’m not saying either couldn’t be any kind of god, but I don’t think anyone should spend their lives pretending that they know. Having faith isn’t knowing. Anything is possible, so that leaves too many possibilities, so its truly unnecessary to jump into the conclusions of the bible (any bible), though that isn’t to say one can’t find good purpose in reading it.
damn, your so full of yourself aren;t you? I believe in the bible but I am not gullible in the least as you accuse of all bible readers. you are wrong and bleak and your morals are absent
I saw it, loved it,&will try to remember it
Wow, only men who feel threatened by the truth of the Bible will try to deface its obvious purpose in this world. The sheer volume of this argument should cause one to realize, “this must be the book I should be reading”.
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All those who have expressed their opinion seems to be anti christian.
I am a Christian but do not take the whole Bible literally for example some people are born Gay and I believe God created them that way. Hence I do not think homosexuality is a sin.
then you are not a true Christian. homosexuality is an abomination and if you do not think queerdom is a sin then you believe murder is not a sin, prostitution is not a sin, stealing, lying, cheating, profanity, etc. WAKE UP!
i looked up all of these and u are completely wrong in every way. Please do some more research.
Dear Alexandria, the bible is more mistery than history.
My God lives on the pages of those scriptures that the main reason faith dogmatically termed her ‘holy bible’ i will advise u to go read up postscript of dan Browns ‘davinci codes’ and study bible historian FLAVIUS JOSEPHUSE for an indept analysis on the creation and morden science and the theory of the magi on virgin birth.
U claimed you are intelligent but you find it difficult to deffrenciate between RELIGION, FAITH, WISDOM , AND CHURCH……….
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hello there bro you just help me with my assessment in religion and i think that this is the most awesomest everz
This was a very interesting read from a wide range of people with great variation of what the Bible is and why it was written. The 66 books of the bible are the inspired word of God. God actually has a name that in English is YHWH in Hebrew and Jehovah translated in English. The 66 books of the bible are used to educate humanity on our evolving application of the scriptures from a rule and law based application of scriptures outlined in the old testament to those of principles outlined in the new testament. In the old testament Israel was a group of people part of a single national known as “God’s chosen ones” whereas in the new testament the New Israel is that of a global nation that lives their life based upon the loving and moral principles of outlined within. True Christians do not engage in War of any kind, love their fellow man regardless of race and ethnicity and work to share the Good News of God’s Kingdom and most importantly understand that Jesus’s ransom sacrifice was necessary to enable our original sin to be paid for. A perfect man, the son of GOD to give his life willingly to provide a means of returning to God’s original intent and path for humanity which is to live on a paradise earth for eternity. Needless to say today we are in the Last Days of what is far from a paradise earth but in time we will experience the Great Tribulation where the Sheep and Goats will be judged and separated as well as the Wheat and the Weeds separated with the wheat being stored and the weeds being distorted. Then comes Judgement day of 1000 years where all those have died prior to the Great Tribulation are resurrected as they have paid for their sin through death and those who survived the Great Tribulation and deemed to have a Heart Condition that is worthy as judge by Christ have this period to accept the principles of God and or join Satan who will be released at the end of the 1000 years period of peace for one more shot at humanity at which time he, his angels and any followers will be cast into the Abyss. This is not Hell as there is no such place as hell mentioned in the literal translation of Bible but rather this is a man made myth to scare humanity. We should be frightened instead of failing to live consistent with God’s Principles which are found in the Bible with expectation of doing so. Some think that there is material inconsistency between the Old Testament and the New Testament when the purpose of these two parts of the Bible are to illustrate that Man ability to live by rules became more than man could handle and lost their intent and with the New Testament and the Principles within life became much easier to make good and bad choices vs. did you or did you not break the law.
The summary of all of this is for a Global Humanity to love, appreciate and honor one another and work together to make the world a better place and care for one another while living the best life we can based upon those loving principles in the Bible.
Before you pick apart and jump all over what i have written consider this. Judge not least you be judged and love thy neighbor as thy self.
if you choose to judge then you have missed the very basis of the Bible’s intent – to share love and defer Judgement to a higher power of God. To love other as you should love yourself as you are a creation of God image. The translation which the Bible refers to God as Our Father is literally our Creator.
Last I will leave you with the Model Prayer from the Sermon on the Mount outlined in Mathew 6 9-13.
– Our Creator in the Heavens,
– Let thy name be sanctified
– Let your Kingdom come.
– Let your will take place as in heaven, also upon the earth.
– Give us our daily bread for this day;
– and forgive us our debts as we have also forgive our debtors.
– But lead us not into the temptation but delivery us from the wicked one one (Satin)
You will note in Mathew 6:14-15 the bible makes it clear that you can only be forgiven for the sins you have committed by God if you forgive others for the sins they have been committed.
This is just a model prayer an example as your Prayers should be heartfelt as meaningful vs. repetitive in nature – you are engaging in the most meaningful activity of your life as Jehovah God is the hearer of all prayers and when you are speaking the creator of the universe and of all things you might want to be genuine about it.
The above is not my opinion it is from the Bible and those inspired by God and his active force the Holy spirit to create 66 books to learn from and liver our lives from while accepting Christ Jesus as God’s only begotten Son and first creation who he sacrificed on behalf of ALL of humankind.
let me ask all of the believers a question. If every day (not most days but everyone) for eternity you burned in hell, what would make this event mean anything to you? if it happened every moment would this not be the norm to you? the same question can be said about heaven. and in your belief are you so blind as to not understand that whether true or not the bible as we know it was written by the hand of men. Can you also ignore the fact that most is written in the favor of men and against women. Are you so ignorant that you would think something as monumental as the son of god and his legacies would have been as lost as they are today, not even Egyptian pharos could pull that off, and believe me they tried to wipe the physical evidence away of anything they didn’t like away. do most of you know that Christianity or Judaism isn’t even the first monotheistic religion? Zoroastrianism was the first and just like your religion the had a prophet and their god taught almost the same values and teachings you do. are not the wise men that brought three gifts referred to as Magi, and did you know that in that time that the Zoroastrian priests were called Magi, so could Jesus not have been their prophet. what about the fact that the religions that have formed and collectively call them selves Christians all originated from one religion, would this not be the true religion you should be following. and lastly in the biblical times how many people were truly educated, as in could read and write, understood things of the world, knew math and science? Lets say you placed a man or woman into that time that was a genius by todays standards and a slight of hand on par with Chris angle or David blain, lets say they knew how to manipulate people like Charles manson (just the manipulation part) what do you think these uneducated peoples of that time would think of them, they would become demi gods if not gods in the eyes of those people.
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The Bible is the inspired word of God. Humans, beings that are prone to mistakes, wrote the Bible because God inspired them to. God didn’t just make a bible and hand it to us, people wrote it. He also didn’t tell them exactly what to write. God wasn’t looking down on the writers of the Bible dictating to them word for word what he wanted to go in his Holy Book. In fact, if I recall correctly, God didn’t tell his people to write it. He told them the basic rules and how they should live, and He did help them along the way, but He never told humans to write what they did. There are also many different literary styles the Bible was written in: stories, hymns, parables, letters, and prophetical texts to name a few. In many cases the Bible should not be interpreted literally. A great example of this is the book of Revelations. John the apostle, also the writer of the gospel entitled John, is thought to have written this book and had to use a code almost to write Revelation because if he said outright what he wanted to say, then the Romans would have put him in prison and executed him. There is a lot of numerology in Revelation and many symbols as well. They only meant something to his audience. For example, chapter 12 of Revelation cannot be interpreted literally. Mary never really appeared in the sky, and the devil never really tried to eat her son, Jesus,as she was giving birth. This only symbolizes that he devil is working against Jesus and God, trying to destroy the faithful. If you read the whole chapter, the entire situation of this site is represented. I will let you read it and interpret for yourself what it means. I would just like to add one last thing before I end my rant. Mary was and still is a virgin. She conceived Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. It would make even less sense for her to have had him the regular way and lie about it than through the power of the Holy Spirit. God chose a woman who was pure, without sin, to have his divine and pure son. How can you explain all of the miracles Jesus performed if he didn’t come from a divine birth? He couldn’t have come from Mary and Joseph because they are just humans. He was born through a divine conception because he is divine, but he is also human. That’s Mary’s role. I hope this helped to perhaps change your perspective about the Bible, but if it didn’t I still needed to explain the Christian side of the story. God bless.
Clara, you are free to believe what you want. The Hebrew word for Virgin was YOUNG GIRL. I would love to explain to you the truth about more of the biblical lies, but it might take away that faith you so strongly lean on to get through the tragedies of life. If believing the moon is made of cheese makes you happy, then when you say that, it makes you even happier. If Jesus was here today, spitting into a blind man’s eyes to make him see, he would be put into jail. Etc. If you asked him if he were Christian,, he’d say no, he is Jewish. Here is a question for you to ponder. Just ponder, because if you ask your pastor, he may say something rude to you. The question is this: If Jesus died to save us, (from what sin, by the way? The Old Testament does not say you die from sin in general), then why is it necessary for humans to believe he did? That part was added later, remember? Also, why, if the Bible says WHATEVER you ask in Jesus’s name you will receive, does this not happen? It sometimes does and sometimes not. What makes God decide which things we ask will be answered? We can say, “Only by the grace of God I was saved from that crash” or whatever, but what about the ones who weren’t saved and who died? The word WHATEVER means whatever. You can not “it was not meant to be” the word whatever. It is a plain statement. Now, here is another question. Who is holy enough to pick and choose which scriptures were included in the bible, when we know many documents were written but only some were included? There are some beautiful affirmations in the bible, Honey, but the facts are like the children’s game, “Telephone”. One person says something and whispers it to someone else, and by the time the last person hears it, it has become something entirely different. Here is another question, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, then if he appeared to humanity in human form, would you even recognize him? If he looked the same as he was depicted, he’d again,, probably be locked away in jail or in a mental institution. A little fact for you is this: the messiah mentioned in the old testament was NEVER going to be a human god. Only a wise person who reigns again in the temple. Jewish people would never, ever worship a human being as a god. There are so many inconsistencies, it takes a whole lot of brainwashing to make people be able to see and read words, and then have to believe those words mean something entirely different.
To Karen Kleinman: First, end your blasphemy and stop telling Christians how “BRAINWASHED” they are because of what we CHOOSE to believe in. NOBODY brainwashed me as I am quite certain that NO ONE whitewashed Cara. It is people like YOURSELF who go around spewing your vile waste by telling others how stupid they are for having faith. You are obviously lost and seeking attention. One other thing, JESUS would not say He’s a Jew, but that He is the SON of GOD. Your words are meaningless as your presence on this website. I urge you to seek God and find your place of peace, love and faith. And for those that have these qualities, do not forsake them because they are happy, instead, rejoice with them, maybe your Grinch heart will grow three sizes on that day
Jesus never said he was the son of god. What he said was I am my father’s son. Even when questioned by the authorities this is what he said. And in Karen’s defense let me just say that it is people like YOURSELF who run around with the belief that because you believe that you are the only ones good enough to get into heaven. What arrogance. Pure hogwash. Jesus said this: believe in me and love your neighbor. That’s it. I am not religious, nor do I attend church. These things are of man and not of god. I do however believe in god and love my neighbor so I guess I stand as much chance of getting in as you. I have all of the qualities of which you speak just without all of the crap that is not necessary.
Thank you, Kris. If you notice, when people try to call me names and so forth, they never answer the questions I posed. They aren’t able, so they get angry at me for asking. Smile.
By the way, “Pure, without sin”? Are you guys saying sex is a sin? And, if Jesus died to save us from our sin, which sin is that? Can you even specify?
Also, in the NT, it says the OT says, “if you have broken one law, you’ve broken them all”. Pray tell, WHERE does it say that? It does not. It is a lie!
You know Karen, what I find funny is that I have a copy of Aesop’s Fables and also Grimm’s fairy tales. Guess what? In both of them you will find the same life lessons as those found in the bible.
Kris, I did my stint in Christianity, but was very chewed out for “not having enough faith” when I asked questions about the contradictions and inconsistencies in the Bible. They tried to say it was demons in me asking those questions. I do not want to live in fear, and am tired of being threatened with dire consequences of not “fitting in” with the rest of them, all of “one mind”. So, I stopped. Actually, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when the pastor’s wife asked what sin I had done to make god give me breast cancer. That is when I turned my head and walked away, and said she and I obviously don’t worship the same god. My god (love) does not cause calamities, but helps me get through bad situations. With strong love in my heart, I can have faith through the most difficult circumstances. I don’t wonder if I will be with God when I die, because the God I know is with me right now as I live. I made him up, and choose to believe in it. I have personified LOVE. So, it is sort of like “self talk” or affirmations.
and guess where Aesop got his life messages from
I give up, Dark Wolf. Where did Aesop get his fables from?
I would not, however, put Aesop and Grimm in the same category, as Grimm’s fairy tales were originally porn erotica, and then changed into kids’ stories.
And by the way, Dark Wolf, Jesus may not ever say that he was a Jew but he was of the Jewish faith. Instead of parroting that which you have been told, why not try a little research. You may be amazed at all of the things they don’t tell you. Example, Moses did not go get the ten commandments from God on a mountain. The ten commandments were actually around way before Moses even existed and were known as the CODE of Maharabi. It really makes no difference to me what you choose to believe, as for myself, I am a rational person and I enjoy the ability and freedom that comes with thinking for myself rather than taking the word of others. I research things and look them up. I think you should try it. You just might learn something.
Siprico, look at the questions I have asked, also. You’ll see that in place of answers, we get name calling. So much for intelligent discussion. Kris, did you find any intelligent responses by “believers”? BTW, I have formed my own idea of God not so much based on the bible. It is based on the strength of character within me, and my faith on positive thinking and pleasant attitudes. I believe God is equivalent to the word LOVE. So, God is the love within me that keeps me going, the faith that helps me through tragedies. I believe love is what makes humans be able to connect with other humans when complete strangers have a need, and we are able to help them with their needs in some positive way. I do not believe in the childish personification of a god in the sky rolling dice to see who will be in a crash, who will survive, etc.
kris you are a liar and a deceiver. As for searching and researching, I have my fair share says my diploma upon the wall. But what you are preaching is contradictory to your statements. It’s good you have your opinions, however FACTS trump opinions from ANY source.
Michael Clark, what did Kris say that is a lie or an opinion? He was stating facts.
Thank you ChayaFradle. All of what I said is verifiable and with very little research. And wow Michael Clark, at least I didn’t resort to name calling. Also, a diploma on the wall does not mean you are smarter than anyone else. I have personally known several people in my lifetime with diplomas on the wall who didn’t have a lick of sense and I’ve known of others who were highly educated and followed people because they were convinced by these people that was the right thing to do. A very well known example was Jim Jones and Jones town. Quite a few of his followers were highly educated Lawyers, Doctors, etc..They are dead. This is just one example of the dangers of blindly following anything just because others claim it’s real. Here’s how I see it. God gave me free will, and a brain to think with and the ability to LOOK THINGS UP!! I, for one, intend to use them judiciously in the pursuit of truth. If God had meant us to be sheep, he would not have created us with a mind to think with. Also, just so that everyone knows I am not a he, I am a she. LOL
kris and chays: are you reading my replies entirely??? no, I believe not and your nonsensical replies have no merit for further debating, especially when you resort in speaking in circles, often repeating yourselves and not fully taking in consideration of other’s beliefs; you believe in what you have the right to and if others do not agree you simply bash them; therefore our conversation has taken its course and no longer carries any merit in continuing. The both of you are obviously blinded by what you think is true, and not educated enough to grasp the concept of actual truth. Seek and you shall find. Find and you will learn. Learn so you may teach. Teach so that others may find…
Dark Wolf, I fully understand your frustration. It really hurts, when you believe so strongly in the Emperor’s New Clothes along with the crowd, and then a little child says, “But he’s naked!”. It’s like, you NEED to believe, or you think you will fall apart. Many people NEED this for both their sense of strength and sense of belonging to a “clean” or righteous group of people. Sociologically, there is a deep need to belong to a group. I remember when my dreams were first shattered. It was like, OMG, it can’t be. But, there it was, right in front of my eyes. So, what is left, when the bright promises and cliches begin to show up as being tarnished and old? What is left is the real God. The God of love. Remember, there is a bit of wisdom hidden in the scripture that says, “See I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil, therefore CHOOSE life that you may live.” Think about that scripture, and THEN read the stories. Not every scripture is as has been explained by your preachers. Above all, get wisdom. Does that ring a bell?
As I have said before, you are a round a bout speaker, all you do is repeat what you believe is fact and bash those who actually have faith. You darling are what people call “LOST.” Perhaps you were burned by someone of a “holy stature” and now you believe that all preachers are liars and now you want to punish anyone who walks on the narrow path in hopes of tripping them up so they might indulge in your self pity and selfishness; after all, misery has a strong passion for company.
Jodi, who do YOU think wrote the Bible? It was written by MEN. Period. It was written AFTER the fact, compiled of orally handed down stories and gatherings of letters, and then flipping through the various manuscripts to pick and choose which ones fit a version of the story those men choose. Many things were left out if they didn’t paint the picture desired by those men. Grammar changes, word meaning changes, incorrect transcriptions and incorrect translations are what comprises the bible. Ask yourself when the word Christmas and the word Easter were invented. All these are traditions based on pagan holidays but twisted into forming holidays that could somehow be combined with the Christian belief systems. Is Santa Claus in the Bible? Is a Bunny which lays eggs in the Bible? Yet, these are some of the most HOLY of holidays. Also, holidays where adults LIE to children the most. I posit that most religions are just that. Avenues in which lying to kids becomes legitimate. To me, the belief in whom or what I consider to be God (love), is totally different from religion or the bible. BTW, you know if college made your child buy an OUTDATED book, you would rage and be up in arms that they were force-feeding such antiquated sources of “knowledge” to your child.
Getting back to Clara who said “Mary was and still is a virgin”, I hate to be the one to tell you this, my dear, but Mary had sex with Joseph, and is now dead. Being a virgin with the English meaning of the word (again, the Hebrew meaning is “young girl”), is not a symbol of purity, because sex with her husband was not a sin. Also, where in any historical biography of Jesus does it say he did not ever have sex? It may say he was without sin, and what does that mean? Can anyone specify? Again, sex, in and of itself, is NOT a sin. In fact, it is possible Jesus DID marry and did have children. There is no proof he was celibate. Only Paul, I believe, said he wished all people could be like him and be celibate. Why didn’t he say he wished all people could be like Jesus and be celibate? Think about it. think…. THINK.
Michael Andrew, HOW do you come up with the CATHOLIC BIBLE is the first one written? The Jewish people wrote the Holy Scriptures (the Bible) long before the Catholic versions were created.
first CHRISTIAN bible
And for those of you who don’t know this, Jesus was, indeed, Jewish. He even had a bar mitzvah. Speaking in the temple is what ALL young boys do who are educated in Jewish tradition. They have to give a “sermon” from the first five books of the bible (Torah), and expand on it to give it meaning. Jesus wanted NOT TO TAKE AWAY any of the commands and traditions; he wanted to CLEAN THEM UP by making sure that if people said they believed it, they were not hypocrites. The “two greatest” commandments he mentioned as posited by the New Testament are not new. They were both in the Old Testament. He was, in fact, a reform Rabbi. In those days, there was no Reform Judaism. So, that did make him a rebel. But, he was a JEWISH rebel. They didn’t call people Christians until MUCH later!!!!!!!!!! As far as calling himself the son of god, he said he is the son of God the SAME as we are all sons of God.
What I don’t get is how people can follow any book which paints any nationality of people in a bad light or calls them names. If you took the word “Jew” out of the new Testament and put the word “African American” or “Mexican” or “Asian” in its place, people would be HORRIFIED. The New Testament is not kind to Jewish people. That is discrimination and prejudice.
and what bible are you reading? there is no discriminating of Jews in the bible. As a matter of fact, the Jews are God’s chosen. Either you are receiving your information from someone else, or you are watching too much TV. You have not read a bible, please stop spreading hateful lies, thank you
Although, come to think of it, most religions are an “us/them” ideology. God likes us best and hates them. In wars, if we win, that means God is on our side. The other side says the same about themselves. I choose to live my life WITHOUT the us/them favoritism.
Above all, get wisdom. Some people are searching in this and that church, or this and that temple, and never finding it. Some people skim their various bibles, and never find it in the words. Others hear, believe with blind faith, then parrot back the words, not realizing they mean nothing.,. What does it mean, you will get extra stars in your crown if you “get someone saved”? When I was in church, people were fighting over who would get the “stars” because they “saved” a Jewish girl (Jews earned them more stars than non Jews in conversion). They just KNEW the end of the world was coming because a Jew became a Christian, and that THEY would get extra benefits because they had me. Is that wise? Tell me, everyone. Is that even logical or nice or kind? Or, loving?
Manoj, you think none of us have read the bible? You have got to be kidding. Really. I read the bible over and over and over from Genesis to Revelations, and been to almost every kind of bible class and study that exists. I am telling you this now, and I dare you to dispute it by facts. The Bible was written long, long, long ago. That makes the information in it old, and much of it, obsolete. Some of it is beautiful poetry, some of it is inspiring. That is all. Much of it is HORRIBLE. Just terrible stories. Gory, X rated, abusive, warring. For those who said in the blogs above that Christians never fought or went to war, OMG, how untrue. What were the Crusades? A lie of the history books?
The promises are all LIES. If you do what God says, he’ll send good weather and you won’t have any problems in life? OMG. That is a lie. Ask and you shall receive? That is a lie. You don’t always get what you ask for. Ask in Jesus’s name and that will make it sure that you will get what you ask for? Another lie.
The word of GOD states “the promises of GOD are yea and AMEN.” GOD is not just going to give you everything you ask for and the things he gives you are according to his will. GOD has 3 answers that he may give to your request Yes, No, or Wait. I serve GOD not for what he can give me but for Who HE is. Check your heart!!
About asking… you may ask God for a rose but instead, receive a carnation. and you ask Him why when your brothers and sisters all received roses. but the very rose that was to be yours had a poisonous thorn on it that your body had no immunity for and God knew this, so in turn gave you a carnation, a personal favorite of His and by doing so, blessed you more than all your brothers and sisters combined. Or you may ask for a butterfly and God gave you a caterpillar instead. He trusted in you to tend to the creepy crawler and its outcome depended on your raising… hypethetical speaking of course.
On what planet do you live?
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There is something I have though about the other day. If God is the creater then he create man but man went on to create the bible. As the bible was not written directly by God but by man then it cannot be considered straight from God.
The God in the bible could also be considered created by a man because it is a character of a book like you have in many other story books. The God of the bible would perform acts according to the author specifications and often has the opinions of the author. The author can if he wants to have God perform barbaric acts or behave like a tyrant that causes death to millions
I found that in order to seek the true God of love it is best to turn away from the Bible or religious books in general and think of the traits of what a good God of love is like.
Just think about it. Where do we receive the energy of love. It is certainly not from the Bible. It is something that happens in the real world we are living now, the universe in which we live. This love is found from within ourselves. It cannot be found in any book. After all books like the bible are made of dead wood from trees.
A true Christian follows guidelines, guidelines usually come in book form. The bible is considered the word of God for it does contain words directly from God. When you speak of love from self, you are talking about worldly love, which is dangerous for God is NOT of this World. There is a big difference between worldly and ungodly love versus Agape love, (love in purest form) which can only come from God. please do not misconstrue the two. if you care to converse, I could share more.
All books are man made, the characters whatever they are called are man made. The God in a book or any book is a man made creation. The myths in the books are man made and are fictional. The God that is real and not man made can only happen in the universe we live in and is found within ourselves.
The Word was written by men of the cloth . I truly believe in a Supreme Being. Be it The Lord God Almighty, Buddah Allah, Krishna and so forth. They all have parables (stories) about their God. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t believe, but I know my God is a forgiving God. I am NOT a bible thumper nor do I go to church every Sunday either, but I do say my prayers at night and where ever I am, I know that God is with me. “Forgive them , Father, they know not what they do”
I am only a college pre-law student, have faith in Bible. You are so literal and low. My opinion. 🙂
I think all of you should read jeremiah chapter 8 verse 8 and you all stop yapping
Belief in God and particularly the teachings of the bible requires blind faith.
Blind faith is what all the religions of the world depend on.
If this were not true then any doubt or scientific “proof” of an alternate explanation would be debated and disproven.
I haven’t yet heard any viable argument that disproves modern findings about the evolution of mankind. All I’ve found are discussions or debates that end with the premise that God exists, he created everything, and you should simply believe that.
It is often said that you should ask no proof that God exists… He should not have to prove his existence…
However it seems that scientific facts can disprove the existance of God – or rather disprove the “facts” quoted by mainstream religions.
I cannot (while using the brain “God” gave me) simply accept what the various religions tell me is fact when the brain (that “God” gave me) tells me that they are so obviously full of holes that a child with today’s knowledge would be more likely to continue his or belief in Santa Clause above that of a belief in God – or Gods (described in the religious literature available).
Faith does not overturn fact.
If there is an All knowing, all powerful God then how do we answer the following question…
If anyone truly knows the future then he is powerless to change it…
If he has the power to change it then he can’t be said to know it…
So… either “All knowing” or “All powerful”… the two are logically mutually exclusive.
I am genuinely interested in any reply that doesn’t contain comments like “We are incapable of understanding HIS methods/reasons”
or
“We should not question HIM”
I could say… “I’m a Wizard, but I’m not going to prove it”
I know believers may say that I’m just being ridiculous and childish but that statement seems to me to hold as much proof as that of God or Jesus… I just don’t have as many followers.
I’m not aiming to offend, I’m simply trying to compare like for like. I have no proof that I’m a Wizard and I’ve seen no proof that there is any realistic possibility of a being that created the universe and all that live in it.
I don’t for one minute think that we are the highest form of life…
There could be someone who has accidentally created this universe in a test tube in his or her school lab in another much larger universe… who really knows ? Is that possibility any more bizarre than thinking that one individual exists outside of time and space and that he created (for whatever reason) our entire reality ?
You cannot simply understand God, otherwise you are God
Close your eyes, what do you see?
No, you do not see nothing, you see the dark, you see the color black. You see many many things.
This is something. You can never see nothing. You can never answer some things and that’s the way it is. That’s why most of us are told to be patient. To wait because when the time the end comes then we can finally have our answers. Read Matthew, he tells you to repent for the end, he says the coming of the Lord is near. If you are at the end of his gospel and you don’t understand what he’s talking about then you’re god be with you. Do you know how many scientists that have gone LITERALLY MENTAL and have disorders because they try to understand the Lord. So so many. So please, don’t give up on God because trust me he hasn’t given up on you. This is coming from a 14 year old Australian girl.
Yeah…. that’s just the kind of response I expected… quote “You can never answer some things and that’s the way it is.”…
I can’t answer or prove/disprove the fact that we were all made by a hyper evolved Venutian… but if I believe it (which I don’t) and convince others to do the same does that make it fact ? Can I just say “It’s true… don’t question it… wait and see”
Isn’t that what Christians are doing ?
Please explain to me the difference
Here’s something to peruse….
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ
Not only are historians proving how we came about (while religions offer no proof whatsoever), they are also proving – by uncovering facts about our past – that the stories told in the bible are highly unlikely to be true and in a lot of cases (some may say the majority) are actually not credible at all.
This means that the bible is, at best, a means of coercing people to behave how the church (or the “flesh and blood” leaders of the church) believe we should – often to their own benefit. How many high ranking religious leaders live in poverty and squalor ?
I’m not saying that the message delivered (about how we should treat our fellow man/woman) is invalid – far from it, I’m saying that certain individuals/movements/religions are trying to force that message on us by distorting reality… and surely forcing anyone to behave in a particular way goes against the fundamental principals of any religion. Doesn’t it ?
No “believer” has anything else to offer ?
I’d love to hear something that could offer a factual alternative to that which science offers us.
I’m not committed to conforming to modern scientific “facts” but I still haven’t heard anything that would convince me to disbelieve them either.
Does anyone out there have anything to contribute ?
1 Thessalonians 5:21 – Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
So the Bible tells us to “Prove All Things”…
…but today we are told to “Have Faith”…
Where is the Proof of God that the Bible tells us to find ? And why are we now told that proof is NOT required, and should not be sought… and that Faith is all we need… ONLY Faith, and that it is wrong to seek Proof of God.
There is proof that God exists; however every person who is a believer may have a different “proof.” Look at every living thing: plant, animal, organism. Each contain their own unique blueprint or design and look at the FACT there is no missing link and the fact that evolution is a farce. There is NO true evidence that supports evolution. Take a moment to yourself. A walk through the woods or an open field, where there are no people, no noise except for the sounds of a nearby bird or distant howl of a wolf, maybe a calm and gentle breeze. Ask God to reveal Himself to you, ask Him not to prove Himself to you but what you can do to believe. Your answer may not come right away, or it could be spontaneous, as was mine. I cannot tell you what my experience was and even if I did, would you believe me? You must seek out for your own answers, they will come if you are truly earnest about learning and believing.
While you are walking through the woods or in the field look at the many species of wildlife. Ask yourself, how can all of this be an “accident?” In creation we are taught that everything comes from something. Everything is set in place where it should be; only people mislead others into believing otherwise. They are perhaps too afraid to come to grips that there is an Almighty Father, creator of all. Even some atheists believe in a creator, just not in God.
In an acorn nut, there is a design that is programmed to grow into an oak tree, with the proper conditions, just as the sperm of a human man can only fertilize a human woman’s egg to create another human being. You cannot take the sperm of say a horse to fertilize the egg from a cow. it will not work. It’s not in the design, it is out of what was planned ahead of time….
I could go on and on, but please give me more of your input. my email: shadows_uv_nod at yahoo. I will have answers for some of your questions.
Michael
You say there is proof, but your reply provides no proof, no facts. As far as I am aware there has never been proof ever provided as to the existence of a god.
Your statement that there is no true evidence to support evolution is I’m afraid (and I’m not meaning to be rude) laughable.
I can’t quote to you scientific examples because I’m not a scientist. However one measurable and provable example of evolution I can give you concerns us humans and our consumption of milk. The milk our species needed to survive and grow used to be only HUMAN milk. Since we became farmers we have consumed bovine milk and over time we have evolved to not only tolerate but benefit from this milk. We have changed at a genetic level. We have EVOLVED. Conversely there are places in the world where cows milk has rarely been consumed and the people inhabiting these ares do not have the gene required to digest cows milk advantageously. They have not evolved in the same way. This is measurable, proven and fact.
Regarding your comments about different species being unable to breed, this is not due to a decision made by a “creator” It is down to a mis-match of genetic material. Over millions of years – as creatures evolve – they become different from their distant ancestors. If you travel back far enough in time you would find that species currently alive would be unable to breed with the creatures they descended from. Their genes have changed through breeding and adaptation to their environment (much as we have changed to benefit from cows milk), so much so that they have now become different species.
It is incredibly naive to think that our environment would not – over many thousands of years – make changes to our genetics, chemistry even appearance.
The facts (FACTS, not beliefs) do not preclude the existence of a god. What they do do though – or rather the fact that many religious people try to negate them does – is make anything else that religions preach to us far less believable. Hence the need for proof.
Not only does science put forward logical attempts to explain everything it can, it also tries (and in many cases, succeeds) to PROOVE them. Religions, on the other hand, often put forward illogical explanations and no proof – i.e. no FACTS that can show their stories to be true.
Can you can point me to any literature that shows any religion putting a similar amount of effort, to that of scientists, into proving (with facts) the existence of a god – or disproving that which science has already proved?
Your tale of walking through nature and the thoughts you have, describes a “State of mind” not a revelation of facts (by this I mean FACTS that have been revealed as opposed to “having a revelation”).
I appreciate your reply, and the time you put into it, but find its validity more than questionable.
Not a state of mind. Revelations to some are a direct link to God. It’s how He speaks to us. Your milk story doesn’t say much. If evolution were true, we as humans then, are still evolving? Did you know that some people actually believe that one day we will evolve into beings with gills and wings? Other evolutionists believe the lie we will become alien-like, with huge heads and wide eyes. If evolution was true snakes would one day sprout legs.
You cannot prove to me evolution exists, the milk story in fact is not a case. But I can prove the fact of God’s existence or an “intelligent designer” as some scientists call Him. As I mentioned in my last note, there is a “blue print in every single living organism, plant, animal. A bird will always be a bird; a paramecium will never evolve into a fish that evolves into a salamander, into a monkey into man, that is ridiculous nonsense. An African violet, no matter what you do to it will never become a Venus Fly trap or pitcher plant.
Living things adapt to their surroundings, they do not become a different species. Darwin’s theory has been debunked; he was a mindless madman high on opiates.
If you were to seek God you will find Him. I do not remember which tree seed it is, perhaps the Yew, as it is sacred in the bible, or it could be gopher-wood. But if you take the seed of this special tree and split it in half you will find the tree’s pattern inside. You will see what the tree would have looked like. Each seed has a slightly different pattern. No man, no mistake or evolution design can ever perform this feat. Do I stake my proclamation of the existence of God on this fact? Not alone. There are more.
without humans the world would be a better place. experiment gone wrong.
yes but how would you know? you wouldn’t be there. All the past and present makes up the world we live in today, humans rely on earth and the earth relies on humans to give meaning.
the comment section is longer than the info on website itself -_-
The idea that ANY group of writings was created by a supreme being has no scientific basis. The Bible and other ancient writings used by various religions is essentially nothing more and nothing less than a collection of old myths that can effectively be ignored.
The same could be done with your nonsense words. Just jobber jabber that mean nothing and in the way.