Religion — Page 32

One may argue about the nature of the man called Jesus of Nazareth, but virtually every historian agrees that such a man existed.

Yeah, there's very little debate about pre-resurrection Jesus.

The evidence for Jesus is about as reliable as King Arthur it's more of an impact crater than of an actual historical object but that doesn't rule out the possibility of an actual historical Jesus either it just means there is next to no evidence.

John the Baptist however is highly documented.

There is a lot of evidence that Jesus is Buddha.

Asoka sent out Buddhist missions around the world.

They are recorded in Greece and in Egypt and were very influential.

The Essenes had their "Teacher Of Righteousness" much of his life matches accounts of the life of Buddha and Jesus and fits in the gap between the two.

John the Baptist (a man we know to be real) and by extension some of the reported disciples of Jesus were connected to the Essenes.

So either the actions attributed to Jesus were the acts of someone highly influenced by Buddhism or they were Buddhist stories transferred to Judea.

The nearest historical references to Jesus are to reports of a follower of a teacher many years after Jesus' death.

If there was a man there is nothing to connect him to the so called Q document, this could have been a collection of sermons held by the Essenes and preached by the man who died mixed with his identity. 

The parallels between the words of Jesus and his reported biography are astonishingly similar to Buddha (only 300 years later in another place).

The thing about Buddhism is it's a religious overlay.

You can be a Hindu and a Buddhist and there are lots of Christian Buddhists so it's possible that Christianity started as a Kabbalistic merge with Buddhism and took on a unique identity when it collided with Saturn, Horus and Mithras worship in Rome.

Does it really matter?

One reason why there are now Jedi cults devoted to Yoda is because he is a lovable character (and the best introduction to Tao I've ever listened to).

His OT incarnation has a strong ethical and moral code which is challenging.

He doesn't have to be real to be a real inspiration and possibly a saviour if someone is in a bad way if his words put them back on the right track.

^Historical Jesus

"While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus, the portraits of Jesus constructed in these quests have often differed from each other, and from the dogmatic image portrayed in the gospel accounts."

There are indeed interesting ties to the Essenes.  I've not read enough about ties with Buddhism.  There are a number of interesting theories about religious history and a number of books which forcefully advocate certain theories like an expose', but there is much to debate with them and their framework.  It honestly goes to show just how murky the waters of history really are and how easily one can argue for a certain perspective with great force when picking and choosing which information to include or exclude when writing such books.  I don't mean to be a downer on the theory that you seem to give some credence, but "[t]he majority of modern scholars who have studied both Buddhism and Christianity hold that there is no historical evidence of any influence by Buddhism on early Christianity."  Don't worry, I won't mock you simply because you may accept something that many disagree with, historically speaking.

I will say that I am not offended by your boredom with the Book of Mormon.  Truthfully (and isn't this heretical of the Mormon to say?), I prefer reading the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants/accompanying church history--not because I believe it to be untrue, but because I find the others more interesting.  In all seriousness, have you read the book?  Many say they have, when really they've simply sampled from some online source, usually couched in some lovely (read: unflattering and potentially inaccurate) commentary.  If so, I'm impressed with your well-rounded reading.

Let me address several things that keep nagging me from previous comments.  First, you may make fun of me.  You may make fun of the Book of Mormon or Bible.  You may make fun of Joseph Smith or Thomas S. Monson.  You may make fun of Mormon culture or Christian culture or Western Civilization.  You may not exactly endear yourself to me with such comments, but whatever (speaking of whatever, can I get a taco?).  When a person speaks against a God they don't understand, or especially against Christ who was very clear in his message (i.e. "by the blood of his hands he condemns us all to hell."), I will be offended, and I feel such is justifiable.  If he is your Buddha, treat him like the exemplar you feel he is, even if you do not believe him to be anyone's Savior.

Another point I wish to make: there are parts of the Bible I do find offensive, especially by today's standards.  Why did God command some of these things?  I certainly don't know...but I certainly do know that a number of the strict commands of the Old Testament are clearly no longer in place.  To me, comparing the Bible as a whole to Mein Kampf would be like comparing the US Constitution to the same autobiography.  Sure, some evils were enshrined in the early document, but the document was good then, and has since drastically improved (at least in that area, though I would argue some other areas were a backslide).  Like you said earlier, you shouldn't throw out the whole baby with the bathwater.

CP3S mentions things that he finds offensive as well, and then in a preemptive point mentions God's omnipotent power and preventing such vile things to enter into the book.  Let me provide a hypothetical scenario.  Let's assume God is real for a moment.  Let's assume that a modern-day Moses exists and the whole world knew this man was a prophet of God.  Let's go on and imagine that God provided commandments that were completely consistent with our way of thinking in the year 2013.  Let's then imagine that we wrote down these commandments and preserved them for 2,000 years.  Let's then say with great certainty that the people of 2,000 years in the future would look at our society, our people, and our values as a bunch of idiotic baloney.  Then they look at our scriptures that match our values, and decide that the God (which we already are assuming exists) must be false simply because he spoke to a more primitive people in a way that they would understand.  You don't have to believe the Bible is true, and you may give a number of reasons why you think that way.  But if you think God is false because he was working with a primitive people, you're kinda expecting a little much from him.  Do you honestly expect that any deity communicating with any people would immediately instruct them in the ways of democratically electing a president, order them all to join a center-left political party, and provide them with the technology to build a rocket to travel to Mars?  This might be useful.

Okay, since we're discussing homosexuality, and we still haven't fully opened this can of worms, let me provide an explanation why Warbler and I may not approve of homosexuality without condemning any homosexual to Hell, considering them an evil or inferior person, or intending to offend.  I'm sure this will raise a big stink with lots of pitchforks and all, but bear in mind that you all did ask for reasons and not just 'cause God said so:

God is the Creator.  He is in charge of how life comes into this world and leaves it.  He said, "Thou shalt not kill," and "Multiply and replenish the earth."  When someone inappropriately takes these powers into his or her own hands, God is displeased.  Ergo murder=sin; fornication=sin; adultery=sin; abortion=sin.  Likewise, using the power of procreation in a manner that is clearly impossible for procreation is not part of God's plan.  Therefore, homosexuality=sin.  Am I equating all these?  No.  Am I aware of the argument about couples who cannot have children: yes.  They are at least engaging in the process God intended, even if it does not work properly.  Am I aware that murder or adultery are choices, while homosexuality is not?  Yes.  I will be honest, if there is one particular topic that I struggle with most, it is the topic of homosexuality.  But you asked for a reason.  There it is: take it or leave it (or use it to tear into me, as I imagine will be done by Bingo, C3PX, Puggo, and Frink).

Don't think me hateful.  I don't approve of CP3S sleeping with various girls, some of whom he had little feelings for.  Am I horrible for not approving of his sins either?  I don't approve of Frink's advocacy for abortion.  Am I judgmental?  I don't approve of the fact that a not too distant relative of mine cheated on his/her spouse.  Am I a horrible bigot?  After all, in a sense each of these people is in fact doing what their nature may incline them to do.  But I don't judge them.  I don't even approve of my own sins!

Have I investigated other religions?  More than you know.  Have I read their material?  Well, certainly not everything, but I have a number of documents and scriptures from other religions, including Mormon splinter groups (e.g. The Book of the Law of the Lord), other Christian branches (e.g. creeds/confessions, Catholic and Orthodox catechisms, various translations of the Bible), and non-Christian scriptures (Qu'ran, Bhagavad Gita, Kitab al-Aqdas), and that's just for starters.  I've at least sampled most of them, though I admit to having not finished many.  I have attended many other church services and engaged in conversations with members of other faiths.

This took a while to type, but I have much more to address.  I'll try to get to it soon.

CP3S said:

Phew, this thread has been lively lately! Took me a while to dig this up.

 

darth_ender said:

Well, I do find that the NIV actually seems to drive home a different point, that being that prophets did not privately interpret the revelation as it proceeded from God, while the others seem to emphasize that the readers of scripture are not to privately interpret the revelations of God as they've come through the prophet.  The NIV seems to preclude my theory that prophets' revelations aren't word-for-word dictations while the others seem to allow for it.

Hmm, I still feel all translations are explicitly claiming that the words written were from God himself and not from men.wikipedia link to, is no such thing. It merely explains the process I am about to explain. 

Even if it wasn't just via visions, there were still only a very small handful of men who are claimed to have ever seen them.

If you were determined enough, you could go see the Dead Sea scrolls (they toured their way through America a few years ago), or any other set of fragments you wanted for yourself.

Your argument here is not very clear.  Let me point out that every book of scripture that claims to contain God's word also has its own style.  In fact scholars often use this style to argue for or against the authorship of the presumed author (for example, most argue that Paul did not write the Epistle to the Hebrews).  I don't think any Christian would deny that even the many "Thus sayeth the Lord"s of the Old Testament are stylistically different from each other, depending on the prophet who wrote them.  My point is that God used the human vessel to provide his revelation, and that there are limitations to what that human vessel can comprehend and put into words.  If God were revealing something to Ezekiel, he wouldn't be providing a parable about about semiconductors.  He also would provide the revelation in a cultural context and in wording that Ezekiel and his audience could understand--thus, the human fingerprints.  If Ezekiel and his people were unable to understand ideas we modern humans can, how fruitful would it be for God to give it to them?

There isn't even one shred of tangible evidence that the source material for any of the Mormon scriptures ever existed. All evidence points to The Book of Mormon being authored by Joseph Smith (though it could have been someone else), and its original language to have been English.

Ooh, this could be a fun discussion.  If we do proceed down this road, I will definitely move my responses to the Mormon thread.  But for now, I will offer you this outdated article:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

Wordprint is an extremely questionable method. It is far from conclusive, and really determines nothing. 

Usually, translated works by different authors but the same translator are shown to be of the same author by the wordprint method, but not always. The inconsistency there goes along way in telling us that, ultimately, this study on the Mormon books really tells us nothing.

We even have the "Book of Abraham" (that's the one, right?) written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, that has no correlation whatsoever to what Smith claims to have translated from that same piece of papyri. This is the point where you start talking about the necessity of faith, which would be an obvious requirement.

Yes, this would be worth discussion as well.  Perhaps I will address in the Mormon thread.

We actually discussed it a bit last time.

I still feel that the Book of Abraham and the revelation that it is nothing of the sort, should have been the end of Mormonism.

To his credit as well, he spent relatively little time working on the Book of Mormon, approximately two months of actual reading with transcribers.

That is hardly unreasonable. With people to do the transcription work, this would be very doable.

Choose your own adventure!  If you wish to continue this discussion, head on over to the Interrogate the Mormon thread!

The variations of the Septuagint and Vulgate are not inconsequential, as they were based on different Hebrew source material than we have before us.  If they were modern translations, it would make little difference.  But they are ancient translations, taken from a less standardized source, and thus offering their own unique perspective.  It's obvious you are knowledgeable on this topic, more than I, but I am at least aware that they are translations of a source different from the Masoretic, making the textual differences valuable for scholars.  The Dead Sea Scrolls link I provided above demonstrates such to be true for at least the LXX, and the Vulgate would still contain some similar value.

I didn't mean to claim that they were not inconsequential at all, they are very useful tools. But through the very nature of translation, they are undeniably altered from the get go. Also ancient translation focused more on ensuring meaning was intact, rather than focusing on a literal representation of the document being translated.

The LXX is the one I am most familiar with, since it was Greek that I studied. Many of the variations are found in poetry, a few extended books, and the addition of several books. The Apocrypha, which many Christians use and consider canonical, contain these extra books and the "deleted scenes" from other books.

I have nothing to argue with you about in this last section.

I read it.

It does have the ring of a then contemporary pastiche of a King James style translation of a stories in the Old Testament manner, to my ears (I whisper out loud when I read which must be annoying as hell).

I can imagine it being made into a rather stage like set of movies directed by King Vidor.

I read LDS lit very young as a school pal was eager to convert me and gave me some free books with astonishing illustrations the most European Middle-Easterns on the planet.

All I got from the Jehovah's Witness crowd was a collection of rather floppy pamphlets but these were proper hard cover books in full colour. I kept them for ages.

Bhagavad Gita on the other hand is Herman Wouk meets Tsui Hark. Family Soap opera with flying cities shooting laser beams and giant Japanese style monsters and robots popping up every so often. Crazy stuff but good crazy, like the PT only done really well.

darth_ender said:

I don't approve of Frink's advocacy for abortion.

Um, okay.  I'm sorry that your understanding of God precludes the idea that he (she, whatever) would understand and, lord help you, approve.

There's also a debate about the moon landing. ;-)

All the sources are long after the event and refer to his followers not to the man.

Like I said an impact crater.

If you follow the ripples you get to a point where there seems to be an event only the event isn't there (unlike John The Baptist or Paul where the paper trail leads right to the foot a flesh and blood man).

The same is true with King Arthur. Everything was written long after the event but what connects points to a possible Romano-Brit in Wales uniting local chiefs against Northern invaders or a distorted memory of Carausius. But everything else comes from other myths and legends from all over Europe. 

Of Jesus and Buddha.

* Born as an incarnate god. 
* Born from a virgin mother. 
* Birth claimed as a divine event and prophesied as the same. 
* Birth attended by singing angels. 
* Birth attended by wise men bearing gifts. 
* Prodigious childhood. 
* As a child astounded teachers with knowledge. 
* Fasted in the wilderness for forty days. 
* Tempted while alone by the Tempter/Mara. 
* Resisted the Tempter/Mara successfully. 
* After the Tempter/Mara left, supernatural events occurred.  
* Began ministry at thirty years of age. 
* Attract large following mostly from lower classes. 
* Attracted disciples who traveled with him. 
* Attracted one disciple who was treacherous. 
* Changed disciples' names. 
* Encouraged celibacy for their disciples. 
* Consecrated in a holy river. 
* Itinerant ministry instead of at a fixed place. 
* Performed miracles such as curing blindness. 
* Renounced worldly riches and required the same of their disciples. 
* Ministered to outcasts. 
* Advocated universal love and peace. 
* Taught mostly through use of parables. 
* Triumphal entries (in Jerusalem and Rajagripa). 
* Gave major sermon from a mound. 
* Disregarded by the dominant religious elite (Pharisees and Brahmans). 
* Just before death dispatched disciples to preach in other areas. 
* Death accompanied by supernatural event. 

Both Jesus and Buddha issued moral commandments that prohibited killing, stealing, adultery, false witness, and coveting. Both emphasized the same moral themes: advocate peace, not war; avoid the corruption of wealth; help the poor; abolish slavery and caste systems; abandon self and selfishness; and love your neighbour, even your enemy. Many statements by Jesus resembled those by Buddha, as presented below. 

JESUS: "A foolish man, which built his house on sand." 
BUDDHA: "Perishable is a city built on sand." 
JESUS: "Therefore confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed." 
BUDDHA: "Confess before the world the sins you have committed." 
JESUS: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the foregiveness of sins." 
BUDDHA: "Let all sins that were committed in this world fall on me, that the world may be delivered." 
JESUS: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." 
BUDDHA: "Consider others as yourself." 
JESUS: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." 
BUDDHA: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon all desires and utter no evil words." 
JESUS: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." 
BUDDHA: "Hatreds do not cease in this world by hating, but by love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good." 
JESUS: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." 
BUDDHA: "Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world." 
JESUS: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her." 
BUDDHA: "Do not look at the faults of others or what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done and have not done." 
JESUS: "You father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." 
BUDDHA: "The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low."  
JESUS: "If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." 
BUDDHA: "The avaricious do not go to heaven, the foolish do not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond." 

So while a historians like Josephus and Tacitus may refer to a following of a man put to death at the time of Pilate (almost a century after he is supposed to have died); and filtering the gospels canonical and apocryphal points to a lost common source of sayings and biography where the non-conflicting accounts attributed to his life stem from (known as Q); there is no evidence that the document Q is the life of the reported man if indeed he did live.

Back in 1985 in Tibet there was a woman who preached a parable about a knight who was seduced by an evil wizard and killed his fellow knights and made the wizard Emperor but was saved by his son and she was killed by the Chinese.

If a Chinese journalist reported that there was a woman who preached in Tibet and was killed preaching something other than Buddhism there wouldn't be an immediate assumption that she wasn't preaching from the gospel of St Lucas because it's the modern world and we can make these connections more quickly and with greater accuracy.

2000 years ago it become a bit more fuzzy.

The story of Barlaam and Josaphat is definitely pulled right out of the life of Buddha. 

darth_ender said:

 

 Let's assume God is real for a moment.  Let's assume that a modern-day Moses exists and the whole world knew this man was a prophet of God.  Let's go on and imagine that God provided commandments that were completely consistent with our way of thinking in the year 2013.  Let's then imagine that we wrote down these commandments and preserved them for 2,000 years.  Let's then say with great certainty that the people of 2,000 years in the future would look at our society, our people, and our values as a bunch of idiotic baloney.  Then they look at our scriptures that match our values, and decide that the God (which we already are assuming exists) must be false simply because he spoke to a more primitive people in a way that they would understand.  You don't have to believe the Bible is true, and you may give a number of reasons why you think that way.  But if you think God is false because he was working with a primitive people, you're kinda expecting a little much from him.  

So this same God gives the Book of Leviticus to these people, which is mainly list after list of really really specific instructions to follow.Are these people really SO PRIMITIVE, that in that list of 500+ laws He couldn't throw in "Don't rape people" or "Don't keep slaves" or "Don't kill dudes because they screw other dudes." 

Were the people who built the great cities of Egypt and Babylon, who irrigated the Fertile Crescent, so primitive these laws would have made their brains overheat?

TV's Frink said:

darth_ender said:

I don't approve of Frink's advocacy for abortion.

Um, okay.  I'm sorry that your understanding of God precludes the idea that he (she, whatever) would understand and, lord help you, approve.

Taking lessons from Bingo in how to use many words to make a difficult-to-decipher simple point ;)  You clearly don't approve of everything I do.  Apparently there's a lot of "not approving" of my belief in the Bible here.  I don't understand why "not approving" is such a cause to get everyone's tights in a tangle.

Bingowings said:

All the sources are long after the event and refer to his followers not to the man.

Like I said an impact crater.

If you follow the ripples you get to a point where there seems to be an event only the event isn't there (unlike John The Baptist or Paul where the paper trail leads right to the foot a flesh and blood man).

The same is true with King Arthur. Everything was written long after the event but what connects points to a possible Romano-Brit in Wales uniting local chiefs against Northern invaders or a distorted memory of Carausius. But everything else comes from other myths and legends from all over Europe. 

Of Jesus and Buddha.

* Born as an incarnate god. 
* Born from a virgin mother. 
* Birth claimed as a divine event and prophesied as the same. 
* Birth attended by singing angels. 
* Birth attended by wise men bearing gifts. 
* Prodigious childhood. 
* As a child astounded teachers with knowledge. 
* Fasted in the wilderness for forty days. 
* Tempted while alone by the Tempter/Mara. 
* Resisted the Tempter/Mara successfully. 
* After the Tempter/Mara left, supernatural events occurred.  
* Began ministry at thirty years of age. 
* Attract large following mostly from lower classes. 
* Attracted disciples who traveled with him. 
* Attracted one disciple who was treacherous. 
* Changed disciples' names. 
* Encouraged celibacy for their disciples. 
* Consecrated in a holy river. 
* Itinerant ministry instead of at a fixed place. 
* Performed miracles such as curing blindness. 
* Renounced worldly riches and required the same of their disciples. 
* Ministered to outcasts. 
* Advocated universal love and peace. 
* Taught mostly through use of parables. 
* Triumphal entries (in Jerusalem and Rajagripa). 
* Gave major sermon from a mound. 
* Disregarded by the dominant religious elite (Pharisees and Brahmans). 
* Just before death dispatched disciples to preach in other areas. 
* Death accompanied by supernatural event. 

Both Jesus and Buddha issued moral commandments that prohibited killing, stealing, adultery, false witness, and coveting. Both emphasized the same moral themes: advocate peace, not war; avoid the corruption of wealth; help the poor; abolish slavery and caste systems; abandon self and selfishness; and love your neighbour, even your enemy. Many statements by Jesus resembled those by Buddha, as presented below. 

JESUS: "A foolish man, which built his house on sand." 
BUDDHA: "Perishable is a city built on sand." 
JESUS: "Therefore confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed." 
BUDDHA: "Confess before the world the sins you have committed." 
JESUS: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the foregiveness of sins." 
BUDDHA: "Let all sins that were committed in this world fall on me, that the world may be delivered." 
JESUS: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." 
BUDDHA: "Consider others as yourself." 
JESUS: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." 
BUDDHA: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon all desires and utter no evil words." 
JESUS: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." 
BUDDHA: "Hatreds do not cease in this world by hating, but by love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good." 
JESUS: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." 
BUDDHA: "Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world." 
JESUS: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her." 
BUDDHA: "Do not look at the faults of others or what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done and have not done." 
JESUS: "You father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." 
BUDDHA: "The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low."  
JESUS: "If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." 
BUDDHA: "The avaricious do not go to heaven, the foolish do not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond." 

So while a historians like Josephus and Tacitus may refer to a following of a man put to death at the time of Pilate (almost a century after he is supposed to have died); and filtering the gospels canonical and apocryphal points to a lost common source of sayings and biography where the non-conflicting accounts attributed to his life stem from (known as Q); there is no evidence that the document Q is the life of the reported man if indeed he did live.

Back in 1985 in Tibet there was a woman who preached a parable about a knight who was seduced by an evil wizard and killed his fellow knights and made the wizard Emperor but was saved by his son and she was killed by the Chinese.

If a Chinese journalist reported that there was a woman who preached in Tibet and was killed preaching something other than Buddhism there wouldn't be an immediate assumption that she wasn't preaching from the gospel of St Lucas because it's the modern world and we can make these connections more quickly and with greater accuracy.

2000 years ago it become a bit more fuzzy.

The story of Barlaam and Josaphat is definitely pulled right out of the life of Buddha. 

Those parallels are certainly interesting.

He is learning from the Master. hee hee hee

darth_ender said:

TV's Frink said:

darth_ender said:

I don't approve of Frink's advocacy for abortion.

Um, okay.  I'm sorry that your understanding of God precludes the idea that he (she, whatever) would understand and, lord help you, approve.

Taking lessons from Bingo in how to many words to make a difficult-to-decipher simple point ;)  You clearly don't approve of everything I do.  Apparently there's a lot of "not approving" of my belief in the Bible here.  I don't understand why "not approving" is such a cause to get everyone's tights in a tangle.

Like I said to Warb, when you say you don't approve, I hear a parent scolding a child.

But that's fine.  It's my little bit of weirdness.

Did I mention Buddha's birthday is celebrated on Dec 25th?

TheBoost said:

darth_ender said:

 

 Let's assume God is real for a moment.  Let's assume that a modern-day Moses exists and the whole world knew this man was a prophet of God.  Let's go on and imagine that God provided commandments that were completely consistent with our way of thinking in the year 2013.  Let's then imagine that we wrote down these commandments and preserved them for 2,000 years.  Let's then say with great certainty that the people of 2,000 years in the future would look at our society, our people, and our values as a bunch of idiotic baloney.  Then they look at our scriptures that match our values, and decide that the God (which we already are assuming exists) must be false simply because he spoke to a more primitive people in a way that they would understand.  You don't have to believe the Bible is true, and you may give a number of reasons why you think that way.  But if you think God is false because he was working with a primitive people, you're kinda expecting a little much from him.  

So this same God gives the Book of Leviticus to these people, which is mainly list after list of really really specific instructions to follow.Are these people really SO PRIMITIVE, that in that list of 500+ laws He couldn't throw in "Don't rape people" or "Don't keep slaves" or "Don't kill dudes because they screw other dudes." 

Were the people who built the great cities of Egypt and Babylon, who irrigated the Fertile Crescent, so primitive these laws would have made their brains overheat?

It's amazing!  So many atheists, yet they still maintain a "holier than thou" tone!  Obviously their technology was amazing.  I'm not saying they were idiots.  But I'm talking about context.  Do you think if you traveled back in time (a feat limited to Bingowings at the present) to visit the Egyptians and told them about your clearly superior notions that there are no gods, they'd be ready to hear it?  Do you think if you shared with them the ideas of electing their pharaoh or treating women equally that they would be ready for such notions?  God was speaking to people of a different time.  Besides, if you've been keeping track of the conversation instead of jumping in the middle and using typical atheist talking points, you'd see that the Bible does not advocate rape.  It talked of treating slaves well in a time when slaves were not treated well.  I already have spoken against killing gays, and my only understanding is that the people of the time would have done the same, and this only codified it.

Forgive me Boost, as my frustration is not just at you, but rather at the persistent feeling of each and every atheist who enters this thread to try and make those who believe in God prove everything in the Bible and justify everything that goes contrary to our modern notions and understandings.  I think all points have been made over and over.  Rather than accept that some people believe something different based on different criteria, this zealous missionary effort to dissuade a belief in Christ because of a rather obscure passage that was seldom enforced, even less so at the time of Jesus.  It seems that rather than accepting there are good people who believe in a book that has a lot of truth, perhaps more than they are willing to accept, every atheist's purpose is to shove their own reasoning down someone else's throat.

I don't know how many times I've been told that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are annoying because they keep coming back and sharing their beliefs.  What about those who keep coming back and demanding that you see things their way?

CP3S said:

Trooperman said:

God is anywhere good is.  Everything good is from God.  Everything bad is from the devil.

But why?

Why would you believe this to be the case? It is so simplistic, and dare I say, silly. It is Saturday morning kids cartoon sort of simplistic (and by saying that, I feel like I am being way too harsh on Saturday morning kids cartoons). And still, why? What reason do you have to believe everything good comes from God, and everything evil comes from the devil? The Bible tells you? As we've seen the last few pages, almost every Christian here takes a very different stance on how seriously to take the Bible. Because you know God exists by this warm fuzzy feeling you get in your heart? Maybe that is just taking comfort in the thought that you have a giant invisible friend who has got your back, and who you can take reassurance that people who do "evil" things will always have to pay in the end.

 

When I was a little kid, I had an imaginary friend. When I got in fights with other kids at pre-school, or when somebody was picking on me, I'd go off to be by myself and I'd talk to my imaginary friend. We'd tell jokes, and laugh, and together we'd make fun of the kids who were being mean to me. That other kid may have been bigger than me, and totally ripped that waffle block from my hands, but now me and my imaginary buddy were whispering about how weird his nose looks. I got genuine comfort from this. At least I always had him to talk to, at least he always understood me.

At some point I grew up enough to realize an imaginary friend was silly, and that I needed to make real friends rather than retreat to be alone anytime I got uncomfortable. I remember lying in bed talking to my friend and telling him it was time to go. I imagined him slowly, sadly, dramatically riding away on his horse (Yes, he had a horse. I got to ride it sometimes! He had a dog too). As he rode away tears began uncontrollably rolling down my face and my heart felt crushed. I clutched my blanket tightly to my chest and cried myself to sleep.

I was so very small, but I remember this farewell so very clearly. Emotional attachment, feelings of comfort, those things don't mean something is real. I had the advantage of knowing my friend wasn't real, because I made him up myself.

In other words, I can't believe in something just because of some intangible feelings.

It took me a long time to make the leap from theist to agnostic. It had been hammered into me from a young age. Bible stories at bedtime, Sunday school each week, say your prayers before bedtime and at every meal. I often felt guilty when I'd fall asleep before I finished praying. Sometimes I'd nod off in the middle of my prayer, and then I'd apologize and start over. It seemed unspeakably rude to nod off while talking to the creator and ruler of the Universe.

I spent a period of time still being a "theist" while not really believing before I became comfortable enough to admit to myself I was an agnostic. I went to church every Sunday, and I still prayed sometimes. One night, I met this really fun and attractive blond, we hit it off and talked for hours. Eventually we went back to her place, stayed up half the night watching movies, started making out, and things escalated. I woke up beside her the next morning, the sun shining golden on her curly hair and reflecting off the smooth skin of her naked body. I felt overwhelmed with warmth, excitement, happiness, anticipation. As it should be. No guilt. I'd always felt guilt in the past, even when things didn't go anywhere near as far as they had gone the night before. That day I was able to admit to myself that I was agnostic.

In other words, I came to believe this in part because of some intangible feelings.  Yes, feelings of happiness at having a sexual encounter without guilt.  Feelings that if God was real, he'd surely be scolding me now.  Yep, I had good feelings, so agnosticism must be true.

I don't mean to belittle your experience, but this sounds a lot like "witnessing."

That would be the atheists who start a thread about atheism?

And one about their particular flavour of atheism?

If you ask for opinions don't be too surprised if some of them aren't yours.

God knows I've found that with some of the threads I've started.

P.S. Wow Endy you don't arf post fast.

Agnosticism can't be true, it's obviously half wrong. :p

darth_ender said:

One may argue about the nature of the man called Jesus of Nazareth, but virtually every historian agrees that such a man existed.

If he existed he wouldn't have been called Jesus Of Nazareth.

Yeshua bar Yosef is a closer possibility.

There's one box, either it has a cat in it or it doesn't.

How do you know?

There could be a box inside the box that has a cat in it but the one you see hasn't.

There could be another box hidden inside the room with a cat in it or not.

There could be an infinite number of dimensional transcendental boxes in the room with animals of all kinds moving from one box to another by means of quantum tunneling.

Bingowings said:

That would be the atheists who start a thread about atheism?

And one about their particular flavour of atheism?

If you ask for opinions don't be too surprised if some of them aren't yours.

God knows I've found that with some of the threads I've started.

I don't mind people who disagree with me.  I don't even mind a lot of people who don't agree with me.  The Internet is saturated with people who don't believe in God.  It's just when their purpose of disagreeing is not to educate, understand, promote discussion, or even challenge ideas, but rather to simply show just how ignorant the poor believer is that I become annoyed.

P.S. Wow Endy you don't arf post fast.

I must not, because I have no idea what arf posting is lol.

Bingowings said:

How do you know?

The cat told me.