Superstition is the way
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They are more alike than what you realise for both believe that there is only 1 god. They both believe God sent prophets such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Joseph, John the Baptist, Jesus, etc.
There are several others distinct similarities which i shan't explain here. Google it if you want to know more...Comment -
Technically a collection of superstitions, but obviously yes. I'm sure it's comforting to many who either can't or don't want to handle the overwhelmingly-more-likely truth. The result of closed-minded people miseducating their children...shame too; if you presented a kid with the bible and any one of Dawkins' books, I doubt you'd see many choosing to believe the Bible.Comment -
Tell me where these fantasies land on that list.Comment -
Nothing wrong with religion as long as you keep it all in perspective and don't use it as a crutch....I'm not a religious guy myself but I don't care what others believe in as long as they aren't annoying about it and can stand other people's view points
Just like most other things, a small portion of the crazies pretty much ruin it for everyone else
Overall it's done more bad than good on a global scale and it's not really close
You don't need religion to be a good person, and being religious doesn't automatically give you a free pass.....I find the opposite to be more true than not to be honestComment -
Not this again.Comment -
Used to agree strongly with this, but find myself having to rethink it after reading Dawkins; in "The God Delusion", he makes a pretty solid case that religion (at least as defined by all major ones today) causes significant harm, and that a more active intellectual and societal opposition to it should be encouraged.Comment -
i'd pop a cap in sancho and i'd slap her do------wn!!!Comment -
…3But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. 4For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.
Islam preaches a different Jesus, and Jesus Christ wasn't just a " prophet " He is the Messiah, our Savior... Big differnce of beliefs..
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Exactly my point (not trying to make this a new thread) but the point is crucial for people to understand: A lot of people claim to "believe" in Jesus, let's say. What Jesus do they believe in?
It helps to ask questions and actually study. You'll find out how many liars there are out there.Comment -
Excellent point...people really need to ask themselves, "Do I believe in the Jesus the bible describes as descended from David? If so, which of the two contradictory genealogies do I believe, and how will I continue to believe the bible is infallible while rationalizing away the massive contradictions here and elsewhere?"
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THE BIBLE... An archaic piece of literature meant to use as a device to live your life... Not a religion where you can pick and choose what to believe or spout as "gospel". Oral Roberts spelled it out best.... " If you, my followers, don't send me 10 million dollars the lord, our savior , is gonna take me away to his heaven." He is what people looked to for comfort.. Now tell me..
Everyone has a brain and a thought process. Please use it to the best of your ability....
LOVE LIFE.... ITS EASY..Comment -
Biblical inerrancy is not, and never was, a historical or mainstream christian teaching. It's a deformed western teaching. I don't blame you for making fun of it. However, you should know that there are answers to the questions you raise. But it sounds like you hang around people who think christianity began in the 1600sExcellent point...people really need to ask themselves, "Do I believe in the Jesus the bible describes as descended from David? If so, which of the two contradictory genealogies do I believe, and how will I continue to believe the bible is infallible while rationalizing away the massive contradictions here and elsewhere?"Comment -
Good question, but you are still letting the heretical inerrancy proponents shape the story/argument. First question is, what is proof to you? The bible is, and has always been, a collection of writings pointing towards the Truth, who is a person. It includes letters to particular churches (like from Paul) and from communities with their experience and exposition of the evangelion (the gospel). It is not some sort of Quran that dropped out of the sky and is a manual for life; never has been. Anyone hinting even that that is in serious error. The Word for ancient, true christianity is not a book, it is a person. The canonical scriptures were accepted because they point to right teaching and practice about this person, the God-Man, Jesus Christ.Comment -
John1:1
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
His Words are written in " this book ", so I agree with your post to a degree, to follow Christ and His teachings would be to follow scripture..it is all about getting to Jesus and understanding Him, word is very strong and powerful and anyone seeking Him and fighting the spiritual war, should and would keep their sword close by " The Word " read Armor of God in Galatians if you don't know what I speak of, but scripture is true, and completely necessary in the walk with Christ.Comment -
One has to have a hermeneutic to understand the scriptures; put in another way you have to have a tradition to understand the Word. Just like the Ethiopian eunuch, one must be guided. Thus, it is also a historical teaching of ancient, true christianity that scriptures are only to be understood (fully) within the context of the church. The church, after all, is who/what wrote the bible and decided which of its books were canonical.
This fact demonstrates why, in nearly (if not all) all cases of western christianity, there are major problems. Any single man can't do it, he has to create his own tradition, which is what we see in XYZ denomination (you pick it, Calvin, Luther, etc. insert any other "leader" who is the founding name of that tradition). It's quite straightforward and clear.Comment -
Proof is exactly what it's been defined to mean: evidence that a certain belief explains best explains the facts. Quran and Christian bible are similar in this regard, in that they're simply written anecdotes about things that may or may not (probably not) have happened. I would agree that Christianity would have to be about the person of Christ; unfortunately, there's no evidence for his supernatural abilities or anything beyond he was a guy who popularized some simple moral sentiments discovered by others before him, while also hanging on to a double fistful of illogical beliefs and superstitions.
Yes, the biblical canon seems to have been made so because they best fit the narrative the church wanted to portray...doesn't mean those stories were accurate, or lead any reasonable person to believe there's any more to the story than some guy who had a good idea.
The problem is it necessarily can't be true, as it contradicts itself numerous times. Even the relatively simple story of one guys teachings (New Testament) is riddled with contradictions, as one might expect from texts that were written generations after the guy in question died, and which were almost certainly creatively written to fulfill prophecies after the fact. If you wanna say that some of this Jesus guys teachings were good and people should follow them, that's true, the same as people would be wise to follow the same ideas espoused by people before Jesus came on the scene. However, they're good teachings for objective reasons (they benefit individuals and thus societies more than the alternative), not for the superstitious ones given in the bible and other myths.Comment -
so much proven life before "adam and eve" ... as in possibly up to 2 million years before... i was watching something on neaderthals the other night... some christians still just dont want to believe neanderthals were homo sapiens and how long ago they lived.... even though their skeletons, from thirty thousand to hundreds of thousands of years ago, are still being found ... god? it will always be silly to believe such an impossible theory, so yeah, its Superstition to the Max ... christians will never embrace facts and will always be let down by their beliefs and unanswered prayers ... its not faith, its a disorderComment -
Indeed, there is a faith component (that's actually the point in one sense) but that is true for anything in the ancient world, if we are honest. I think you are getting at believe-ability, perhaps. The problem with forum discussions is that they are very 1-dimensional. The only reason I'm doing this is because you can at least logically and factually show how deformed western christianity has become. Still, I must say that those that follow it are going to be at worst annoying, unlike other faiths which would kill you depending on what part of the world you are in --- so I have to be honest about that too. Back to the issue on "evidence" --- Are you looking for scientific evidence? Well, you're asking the wrong question. The Saints have been a testament to his life and "supernatural" abilities (I argue that you don't need this at all to believe, actually you shouldn't) from generation to generation, but as part of the church you don't need these demonstrations of the power of God to believe because you don't test Him, you already experience Him. You should check out Christianity as the de-mythologyzing myth by Girard to understand how its story is in fact far different than the ancient lessons or people you refer to. Additionally, it is more accurate to say that the canon was what was considered reliable as to the teachings of the church. Nothing more, nothing less. You put bias in your estimation of it ("their narrative") which is both silly and closed-minded, because there's no way you could know. I write so much on this because you actually seem interested and reasonable about it.
Finally, if your view of the Bible is as I've said, it can't contradict itself because it points to a person. Communities might have had differing, small facts but the Bible isn't meant to be, and never was, just a historical document. It's only historical because it happened in history. And it wasn't written "generations" after "the guy died." You seem farely well educated and should know better than to be rogue about this because you are incorrect.
Also, if you call it or insist that it's a myth, what's your point? Why not be open to the fact that it might be true and try to find out IF it is true? If you've come to the conclusion a priori that it is a myth, why are you wasting everyone's time? Put another way regarding the scientific or evidence side of the question, what would possibly make you "believe"?
These are important questions for everyone, which is basically why I've spent time at least correcting falsehoods thrown about over the course of the last few posts. That's the least I can do. Reading this won't do anything but might make you think differently about how you could experience God, which is knowing. Maybe that'd be a first step because while knowledge is important, knowing God is through our experience in the world related to how well we see Jesus Christ in the least of those, your brethren.Comment -
We agree that anything in the ancient world (or for that matter, the modern world) has the same requirements for objective proof. I have no issue with anyone claiming the bible was an autobiography of sorts that shouldn't be taken very literally; when labeled as such, it's a work of literature with a mostly intact message. For it to be fully intact, the "there is a god" bit would either have to be dropped or given some reason to believe it, aside from "other people did and do".
When I say "their narrative", I refer to how it's primarily used, and mostly in the same sense you do when you say the bible was compiled out of sources that agreed with the teachings/message/narrative. Unfortunately, it remains a rather large part of the bible that one should believe in that specific God, for reasons not supported by evidence. Could God be real? Certainly, I can't disprove it...but the probability of it, compared to the probability he isn't real, is so minuscule as to render it extremely improbable. At some point, beyond any reasonable limits of probability" can be acceptably shortened to "no".
I keep an open mind, and there are several things that would compel me to believe. Provable supernatural phenomena being the easiest; by provable, I don't mean I personally experience it, as I'm aware that my experiences are always to a degree subjective, and can't on their own be compelling proof of much. This mistake is common among many religious people of all faiths: experiences are attributed to a deity or supernatural process, simply because the person experiencing them doesn't know the explanations. There was quite a bit of excuse for this for centuries, but in this day and age, there is little to no excuse.
As for authorship, there doesn't seem to be any solid evidence that they were written by the people they're named after, let alone by people within a generation or two of Jesus' life. The consensus even among biblical scholars is that they were written generations after Jesus, and were certainly not selected from among a much larger selection of writings to form the New Testament until much later. I understand that some books claim to have been written earlier, but claims made in literature that didn't surface until much later is still subject to the same requirement of proof. Is it possible that they were all accurately reproduced records of writings from apostles? Yes, although I imagine it quite unlikely, considering how likely it is for stories to change in the telling within even one generation or copying. Regardless, when they were written is a relatively insignificant point; there date of compilation by the organized church, at which time they were selected not on the basis of accuracy but on the basis of what agreed with the church, is far after Jesus' time, and there's no reason to expect it was done based on historical accuracy.
Appreciate the reasonable discussion
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you want facts?
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/\ /\ /\ That's why the dead sea scrolls are a threat to modern day Christianity. The scrolls tell of Jesus married
and having kids. Mary was a disciple. That takes care of only a male dominant religion. Scrolls also say to worship
Jesus and his father in your own way, not to be lead like sheep by an organization like the church.Comment -
I'm a 21st century Christian and this picture post is just factually incorrect; it is false. While I agree there are some issues with the NJKV, there aren't any substantial ones with the (old) revised standard version, by the way.
There are no original texts to translate? Plain falsehood. The Church has the original texts in Greek. Greek speakers have always known and commented on these, given that the church was eastern and the fathers knew Greek and it was the lingua franca. What's more, Hellenic Jews (see lingua franca) also translated the Old Testament 3 centuries before Christ into what is called the Septuagint text. Hundreds of years after the last apostle died? That's just a flat out false statement.
I'm quite certain you have no idea about the history of the canonical scriptures or the early church. The post is so blatantly off it is clear that you (or whoever made it) has no desire to truly know about it.Comment -
Not only are you paraphrasing, you are again just flat out wrong. Dead Sea Scrolls were likely the texts of those similar to, or of, the Essene people, Hebrews who were of Aramaic language.
You are confusing a great many concepts here (like that of the gnostic gospels) and you are incorrect about every one you touch on, I'm sad to say.Comment -
Picture isn't that far off really; he's only talking about New Testament, not old. The canon testaments aren't 4 centuries old but there oldest existing copies are, and there certainly were a lot of other documents to choose from. Minor errors aside, the main point of the post (that the KJ bible is a slightly skewed translation of translations of stuff that was chosen by the church to be their version of the history they wanted to teach) is still valid....to say the whole thing is off because a non-crucial part of the argument is false is an exaggeration at least.
Spot on here...Dead Sea scrolls seems to have become the popular name to lump all non-canon biblical works under, old testament or new lol
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stackin, the big picture of the picture isnt really off at all... you, just like others, believe unimaginable amounts of bullshit when it comes to your science fiction character, god, and contradictory, manipulative book of bullshit, the bible... im not sure if its a case of being illiterately brainwashed or a serious mental issue ... deflecting and outright ignoring facts will always be a huge part of the god fearing christians life ...Comment
