Bible is word of God ...

[cwes99_03]

I was just noticing that INFY. Who's viewpoints are you posting on this side PetriFB?

I will garauntee, or else eat my hat, that these are not your words you are posting.

 

When I read your posts, they are eloquent in linguistics, however when I read your replies to sometimes very harsh criticism, you are nearly unintelligible.

 

Cite your sources, or be called a playjourist.

[YYYY]

God, shuffled his feet.

And glanced around

 

Crash Test Dummies

[paigetheoracle]

The danger with Bible thumping is that it can lead to people thumping! It is arrogant to claim that this is the word of God, if you exclude other religions as not equally being so: The choosen people - by who and for what? I have nothing against true Christians but hypocrites (wolves in sheeps clothing) that say they are one thing while doing another, no. Where is the tolerance and humility of The New Testament? All I hear is the eye for an eye vindictiveness of the Old Testament being bandied about. The concentration camps were full of the victims of people who thought they were right. Religion is not a game of football. It is not our team versus theirs but all of us as one planet, one universe pulling together. Without this community spirit (Jesus and the disciples shared everything) we descend into a free for all, that is anything but Christian. Religion is supposed to be rules for living, not excuses for killing each other. How far from the truth some people deviate (See political correctness under Weasel Words in Sociology column for more on this topic by me and the author of it). Watching a program on television about the educational establishment that spawned George Bush, I thought only of the Hitler Youth by their attitude and orientation towards materialism and ignorance of the rights of others. If they are training (You can't call what they're doing education) up more young men to be like him then 'God' really will have to help us as they'll be the ones with their fingers on the button in coming years and with their certainty, they'll push it.

[cwes99_03]

Thanks, Paige. This thread had been dead until you decided to drudge it back up and sick yourself on people who happen to think differently. Maybe it would have been left better off dead, only time will tell.

 

However, reread your post and see if you are doing exactly the same type of thumping as you show yourself to be opposed to.

 

In addition please reread the rules of the theology forum to see whether your comment here (or those of others before it) is acceptable.

[paigetheoracle]

Thanks, Paige. This thread had been dead until you decided to drudge it back up and sick yourself on people who happen to think differently. Maybe it would have been left better off dead, only time will tell.

 

However, reread your post and see if you are doing exactly the same type of thumping as you show yourself to be opposed to.

 

In addition please reread the rules of the theology forum to see whether your comment here (or those of others before it) is acceptable.

 

Firstly, perhaps it would have been better off dying - it's easier to die than live but where's the challenge in that? When people sick on me I like to sick back on them but you're right I most probably went over the top and at the wrong target but it's like all trauma (and violence), what reminds you of something brings back that same terror, that same fear and out comes the reactive male cows muck. Sorry.:eek_big:

[cwes99_03]

Just thought that everyone who reads that post might like a reminder to read the theology forum rules now and then.

 

The mods appear to not want this to devolve into a mud-(hmmm cow pie) slinging contest. Nor do they want people fighting over their personal theology or proselitizing. I and many others have respected this, though occasionally reacted improperly. Let's remember the point of this forum is for us to have civilized conversations, sans spammers, about a variety of subjects.

[sebbysteiny]

I don't think anybody on this forum can dispute my atheist cradentials. However, I have to back the religious nutters on this one.

 

This thread is in a forum for theology. Theology is about religion, god and absolutely not science. It is not strange to say that the bible is "god's" word or to have a debate about it in a theology forum. What else do you expect to discuss here????

 

 

Now for my contribution.

 

One of my reasons for not believing the new testiment is that the old and the new appear to be written by totally different persons. Though, that does not mean that both types of interpretations are not to be respected.

 

According to Jewish teachings, and advanced Christian teachings (which is effectively Jewish teachings), the old testiment is written by god, not by man. It is not even god inspiring a man. It is an exact dictation by god at mount sini and Moses was no more than a secretary typing out a recording.

 

However, according to Christian teachings (all Christian teachings this time because Christians mainly study the new testiment and only the very advanced Christians study the old testiment properly), God inspired the gospel writers.

 

These differences have a profound effect on interpretation.

 

In the new testiment, one has to analyse the sentance to extract its meaning. Sometimes, where a sentence is phased to put emphasis on some point, that phrasing must be analysed too. But analysing anything more than that is a waste of time, since it is the message that is most important rather than the words. Even in Jesus's reported speaches, it is only the messages contained within Jesus' speaches that is important.

 

The intense analysis of the messages have taken significant work from very bright and respectable scholars.

 

However, the old testiment are gods words chosen to the letter. This means that although the message contained within the words (and perhaps the emphasised words within the sentence) is important, the exact choice of letters and the exact orders and patterns within the sentences are equilly significant. Thus, the old testiment deserves a much deeper analytical approach. Sometimes, quite frankly, it is more like code breaking than story telling. Much of these details can only be found in the initial language of the text, ie aramaic / hebrew. Rabbis (and later, advanced Christians) have spent generations interpreting the original text and almost every story from the Old testiment (particularly the underlying morals behind it) come mostly from extracting it by analysis than by simply reading the text. In short, the text only contains about 30% of the stories.

 

My atheist argument comes from the fact that the old testiment is patently supposed to be interpretted this way, and the new testiment (including Jesus's alleged words which are supposedly from the same author ie god) are supposed to be analysed in a totally different way. If the old testiment is true (as both Jewdism and Christianity say it is), then why has god had a fundamental cosmetic surgery on his style over just a few hundred years? Only conclusion I can draw (accepting Jewdao Christian arguments) is that the latter must be a fake.

 

I've posed this question many times but never had a satisfactory answer as to why god supposedly changed his style so dramatically.

[TheBigDog]

I don't think anybody on this forum can dispute my atheist cradentials. However, I have to back the religious nutters on this one.

 

This thread is in a forum for theology. Theology is about religion, god and absolutely not science. It is not strange to say that the bible is "god's" word or to have a debate about it in a theology forum. What else do you expect to discuss here????

I suppose your claim and chest thumping is supposed to give you some sort of credibility in matters of theology. Or perhaps your slap at believers as nuts is your way of opening the path to intellectual debate. Theology is the study of religion. It is not belief in religion or God. It is absolutly science and is treated as such on this forum. And that is what I intend to discuss at this forum.

 

I do not intend to discuss or endorse insulting characterizations of people based upon what side of the fence their own beliefs happen to fall. It is my intention to moderate this forum in a fashion of frank discussions based upon mutual respect for the intelligence and choices of the participants in the conversation.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

The danger with Bible thumping is that it can lead to people thumping! It is arrogant to claim that this is the word of God, if you exclude other religions as not equally being so: The choosen people - by who and for what? I have nothing against true Christians but hypocrites (wolves in sheeps clothing) that say they are one thing while doing another, no. Where is the tolerance and humility of The New Testament? All I hear is the eye for an eye vindictiveness of the Old Testament being bandied about. The concentration camps were full of the victims of people who thought they were right. Religion is not a game of football. It is not our team versus theirs but all of us as one planet, one universe pulling together. Without this community spirit (Jesus and the disciples shared everything) we descend into a free for all, that is anything but Christian. Religion is supposed to be rules for living, not excuses for killing each other. How far from the truth some people deviate (See political correctness under Weasel Words in Sociology column for more on this topic by me and the author of it). Watching a program on television about the educational establishment that spawned George Bush, I thought only of the Hitler Youth by their attitude and orientation towards materialism and ignorance of the rights of others. If they are training (You can't call what they're doing education) up more young men to be like him then 'God' really will have to help us as they'll be the ones with their fingers on the button in coming years and with their certainty, they'll push it.

Paige, I can find no part of this post worthy of counterpoint. Can you please try again without insinuating that all religion does is spawn killing and comparing by association the President to Hitler? Unless you really have no respect for any of the people who feel differently than you, in which case you should just not bother at all. The point here is discovery through discussions based upon respect.

 

Thanks

 

Bill

[paigetheoracle]

Paige, I can find no part of this post worthy of counterpoint. Can you please try again without insinuating that all religion does is spawn killing and comparing by association the President to Hitler? Unless you really have no respect for any of the people who feel differently than you, in which case you should just not bother at all. The point here is discovery through discussions based upon respect.

 

Thanks

 

Bill

 

Okay Bill I will but it will be a long post because of it, however it is the length that is its strength because it leaves no doubt where I am coming from or the logic and you will see none of the emotion that 'blighted' my last post, proving me no better than those I attacked. There is even compassion (understanding) for those I attack but that comes to the fore only as the argument goes along.

 

Firstly, hypocrites aren't true believers in anything but themselves. they worship at the altar of the self. Islam and Christianity etc. are about 'community', so this stance is diametrically opposed to any religious position and in fact is what all religions are against. It is concern for the 'small self' of today as Buddhism would put it as opposed to the long game of tomorrow (Crime is short term gain for long term loss as the law (Lord) is geared for long term gain for short term loss). In the film 'Blade' (First in series), the villain was Hitler personified. He pretended to be concerned for his own people (vampires)and their future but was really only concerned with gaining personal power at the cost of others lives because of his own feelings of inferiority (revenge fuels the fires of violence as understanding, quenches them): Animal farm by George Orwell is all about this hiding the truth by plausible sounding deciet (self-serving as opposed to service towards others). This further breaks down into the stance of materialism versus spiritualism, which is terribly misinterpreted. Spirituality isn't the destruction of that which you need to survive through stewardship, but it's preservation through modest, open and honest living: It is not considered worthless trash to be maltreated but the very substance we need to survive on (Dominion doesn't mean debasement and annihilation of all living and non-living things, in wanton destruction because that is suicide, not life). They are addicts ( read 'When Society becomes an Addict' by Ann Wilson-Schaef) that want more and more, not modest believers who challenge themselves to live on as little as possible (monks and nuns or anybody into thoughtful, modest lives). 'By their works ye shall know them' - in other words the proof of the scientific pudding is not what they say they are (the con - The Emperors New Clothes Syndrome) but what their actions and lifestyle betrays them to be (self-indulgent and wanton or spiritual seekers of the truth living humbly? It's like criminals who hide 'behind' the law to justify their actions versus those who stand in front of the world and say openly, 'This is me, who I am - take it or leave it, it's your choice'. Courage (learning/enquiry) goes with not knowing. This is because if you think you 'don't' already know what's going on, you'll investigate to find the answer - whereas if you 'do' think you know already, you wont investigate because you are sure you have the truth already (prejudice is a full stop on your life as innocense is the door): These two stances are beautifully portrayed in a 'Babylon 5'final episode of the Shadow Wars storyline: Fighting to stay versus accepting that is time to let go of life and move on (No longer hiding behind your fears and insecurities). Hypocrites don't believe in the God within them, hence they never connect with the God without either. They panic, believing that they don't have the time to think or space to act out their hopes and dreams: Life is eternal and existance, infinite - forgetting that they try to rush, cajole and force things to occur, instead of letting them happen naturally in their own good time ('Consider the lillies of the valley'). In comparison with us, small things occur quicker and larger things, slower. Trust is what turns a cynical adult back into an innocent child and a hypocrite (liar) back into a truth teller - in other words a scared man back into a courageous one, a sinner (error taker) into a saint and an ordinary man into a missionary. If God is in anything, he must be in everything (All individuals, all races, all beliefs, all life forms (plants/animals), all of existance (rocks, planets, stars etc). He must be then, the universal binding agent in everything as fear is that which appears to split us off from reality and turns us into dangerous psychotics, who destroy the world to save it: A sane man lives - an insane one commits suicide ('War isn't murder it's suicide' Ramsey MacDonald, British Prime Minister). Every time you become frightened, you step off the path of progress and regress instead. Only by having the courage to to step back on can you save yourself as an individual or race. God gives us time to choose to live or die (hide/lie) because he knows like all errant children, we can only come back to the truth and ourselves as there is in reality nowhere else to go (denial is separation - affirmation is joining: No man is an island). They say science is a religion - well I say religion is a science. It is the pursuit of the truth, of the spirit. In Buddhism it is clearly that (Set laws trying to delineate the best way to live in a logical progression). While it is true that Christianity and Islam are the same, they are more the art of living than the science in my opinion but they too are based on discoveries and laws. God is the potential in us all (Star Trek - 'The Undiscovered Country' or the future)and God wants us to explore and exploit this, not cower behind what 'was' true (Life is a journey - The Tao). What do women say that they want most from men? Honesty and that's what God needs from us too.:( :eek:

[paigetheoracle]

One of my reasons for not believing the new testiment is that the old and the new appear to be written by totally different persons. Though, that does not mean that both types of interpretations are not to be respected.

 

According to Jewish teachings, and advanced Christian teachings (which is effectively Jewish teachings), the old testiment is written by god, not by man. It is not even god inspiring a man. It is an exact dictation by god at mount sini and Moses was no more than a secretary typing out a recording.

 

However, according to Christian teachings (all Christian teachings this time because Christians mainly study the new testiment and only the very advanced Christians study the old testiment properly), God inspired the gospel writers.

 

These differences have a profound effect on interpretation.

 

In the new testiment, one has to analyse the sentance to extract its meaning. Sometimes, where a sentence is phased to put emphasis on some point, that phrasing must be analysed too. But analysing anything more than that is a waste of time, since it is the message that is most important rather than the words. Even in Jesus's reported speaches, it is only the messages contained within Jesus' speaches that is important.

 

The intense analysis of the messages have taken significant work from very bright and respectable scholars.

 

However, the old testiment are gods words chosen to the letter. This means that although the message contained within the words (and perhaps the emphasised words within the sentence) is important, the exact choice of letters and the exact orders and patterns within the sentences are equilly significant. Thus, the old testiment deserves a much deeper analytical approach. Sometimes, quite frankly, it is more like code breaking than story telling. Much of these details can only be found in the initial language of the text, ie aramaic / hebrew. Rabbis (and later, advanced Christians) have spent generations interpreting the original text and almost every story from the Old testiment (particularly the underlying morals behind it) come mostly from extracting it by analysis than by simply reading the text. In short, the text only contains about 30% of the stories.

 

My atheist argument comes from the fact that the old testiment is patently supposed to be interpretted this way, and the new testiment (including Jesus's alleged words which are supposedly from the same author ie god) are supposed to be analysed in a totally different way. If the old testiment is true (as both Jewdism and Christianity say it is), then why has god had a fundamental cosmetic surgery on his style over just a few hundred years? Only conclusion I can draw (accepting Jewdao Christian arguments) is that the latter must be a fake.

 

I've posed this question many times but never had a satisfactory answer as to why god supposedly changed his style so dramatically.

Claims that the old testament are based on the direct word of God and the new are not is based on 'belief' (Take no-'body's' word for it). Surely the proof of which is closer to 'God's' intention is to be found in which is closer to 'good'? In science proof of the pudding is to be found in the eating - that is, if you've truly found out how something works (in this world or any other) is the ability to control phenomena. In other words if you've truly located the cause, you can turn the effect on and off at will. Does an eye for an eye promote peace and understanding or loving one another? (War turns off continued existance - peace enhances it). What is religion? What is its purpose? Has to then be asked - to wipe out man or help encourage his survival? Maybe these then are Gods way of controlling life on this planet as a mechanism. The New Testament is the start button and The Old, the stop button but even then I would put that down to politics (conflict) and spirituality (peace, harmony, tolerance, forbearance).

 

Another thought - look at the history of anything. The initial models are always crude and prone to break down but with time and lessons learnt, they are refined into better working formulas of the basic idea. Maybe God sitting on his cloud, looking down on the Earth thought "Oh dear, this is not working out as well as I thought - time for a rethink and a little tweaking" and hence The New Testament. :(

[paigetheoracle]

I'm off on holiday for a week, so if I don't respond to replies to my posts, it's because I'm not there to physically do so, not that I am too stunned or too rude to reply (But I may be when I get back): Like Wittgenstein says so complicatedly, I cannot speak thereof that which I know not, so cannot quote Islam or Judaism in my posts as my knowledge is zilch in these areas. It is not that I want to exclude them because I don't want to know what they have to say just that I've never got round to studying them (Brought up a Christian - studied Buddhism and Hinduism in later life, so that is where my knowledge principally lies, historically: The latter two have only really crept into Western consciousness recently, where B & H have both been here since the sixties, with Hippiedom and fast food joints (curry houses and chinese takeaways). So apologies for going off topic a bit.

[InfiniteNow]

Someone who understands a topic well should be able to get to the heart of that topic with 2 or 3 sentences. You used 3 posts, and still didn't respect the request directed at you politely by a forum moderator.

 

Also, please use the cariage return (ENTER key) usefully, or I will begin deleting your posts.

 

Thank you.

[sebbysteiny]

Claims that the old testament are based on the direct word of God and the new are not is based on 'belief' (Take no-'body's' word for it). Surely the proof of which is closer to 'God's' intention is to be found in which is closer to 'good'? In science proof of the pudding is to be found in the eating - that is, if you've truly found out how something works (in this world or any other) is the ability to control phenomena. In other words if you've truly located the cause, you can turn the effect on and off at will. Does an eye for an eye promote peace and understanding or loving one another?

 

As admirable and, dare I say it, sensible, as your suggestion is, I think it is factually wrong. Morality is supposed to be extracted from relegion, not vice versa.

 

My point though is that the old testiment is (if you are a believer) the direct word of god to the letter. The new testiment (if you are a believer) is the indirect word of god written by gods inspiration of the gostel writters rather than an exact dictation. If, gods exact words to the letter are that of the old testiment, and if Jesus is just god in human form, it stands to reason that the two messages (the exact words used in Jesus' preachings, and the words of the old testiment) should be in the same style and thus subject to the same interpretational rules. However, they are not.

[CerebralEcstasy]

As there is neither evidence nor reason to suppose god exists or that any particular book records the "word of god", this thread should be in the strange claims forum.

While there seems to be no evidence to you that God exists, this doesn't mean that he doesn't.

 

So to err on the side of caution, one should consider both sides with equal seriousness.

[ughaibu]

There is more evidence for UFOs than there is for god, in which forum do you think claims involving UFOs belong?

[Edella]

While there seems to be no evidence to you that God exists, this doesn't mean that he doesn't.

True,you can't disprove an existential claim,but the same thing could be said about unicorns,Zeus, martians,FSM.....

 

So to err on the side of caution, one should consider both sides with equal seriousness.

Pascal's Wager.If I believe in God and he does not exist, I have lost nothing. If I believe in God and he does exist, I will gain the infinite reward of Heaven. On the other hand, if I do not believe in God and he does not exist, I have neither lost nor gained anything; but if I do not believe in God and he does exist, I have earned the infinite punishment of Hell. Since I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in God, then logically I should believe in him.

The first and most serious objection to the Wager should be immediately obvious to anyone who sees it. It argues for belief in a god, but it doesn't offer any advice on which god. There are hundreds, if not thousands - how can I tell which one is the right one?

 

How do we pick the right god out of this multiplicity of deities? How can we find the right Heaven and avoid the right Hell when there are countless different ones to choose from? The Wager offers no help in making this choice; by its logic we should believe in any supernatural being claimed to have the power to reward or punish us. What if the universalists are right and God does not condemn anyone, but forgives everyone and lets them into Heaven anyway? In that case, atheists have nothing to lose.