That's nice. But you did not answer my question at all. I asked you to describe what are the criteria which determine for a story if you consider it to be truth or fiction. and then provide examples for each case.
Ah, but you forget that nothing is beyond the capacity of an omnipotent being. As soon as you acknowledge that there is such a thing, you forfeit your ability to reason out whether such an entity created the world in six days or flood the earth while telling only a select individual to build an ark to keep animals and his family safe, etc. Why is it especially hard for people to believe the awesome power of God such as the stories of Noah, Creation and Jonah being swallowed by the whale BUT YET SOooooo EASY for them to believe the horrible or sinful things such as the death and destruction of war, the judgment of man and other cute tidbits like when Lot's daughters seduced him to produce progeny? It baffles me that we'd stray away from the awesome in light of believing in a being that we recognize as all powerful. However, perhaps it's because we're mortal - we find sick pleasure in the atrocious happenings and will not write them out of our minds because in ways, we see ourselves in these figures of no-great-achievement (not to downplay Lot or the warriors of Israel, but compared to Noah or Jonah, they're much more plentiful) Here's to believing in the most unbelievable happenings - it is the only way we'll keep dreaming dreams that will eventually become realities. If Jules Verne didn't write his books then it may have taken longer for people to develop working submersibles. If Leonardo DaVinci were not one for writing in notebooks, we may not have mastered the physics of gyration as quickly for our helicopters. Keep dreaming and think big. It's only impossible if you deem it so. Jason
I was going to stay away from this thread, but what the hell. Hijynx, not everyone believes the omnipotent being created the world in six days, or in the story of the flood. Are those people able to reason scientifically?
I think his main point is - if you believe in God are you going to limit what you believe God can do? Why believe the Bible at all if you don't want to believe some of what it says. It seems a bit ridiculous to pick and choose what parts of the Bible you want to believe. It seems many religions are based and started by picking and choosing, ie. islam, LDS, JW, etc... they take some of the things and try to discredit the rest, usually with some new writings that contradict.
I look at the bible as a book of philosophy. I'm not a bible "believer" but I do pick and choose what I like out of it. Love thy neighbor(as often as possible) etc. I'm agnostic, but I hope(not believe) there is a god and an afterlife. I think many Christian denominations in the states serve a very useful purpose and do a lot of good. More and more, they treat the book as a book of philosophy (which they pick and choose from), while paying homage to god in a more general sense. My point, which is where I fall into agreement with the OP, is that not all the religious are devout. They understand logic, reasoning, and scientific principles and work to reconcile those principles with their desired belief system. Believing in god doesn't necessarily mean you believe the creation story, or anything in the bible for that matter. If your beliefs do not contradicts scientific evidence, statements like, "your beliefs proves your inability to reason" are out of line and over the top. You'll note these "Moderate believers" try and live a principled life based on their beliefs, but aren't so devout as to be selling their possessions because the end is at hand, so I'm not sure what people take so much offense at. If a group of hot girls call themselves wikins, and like to take in strange men for their bizarre sex rituals on plastic sheets covered in chocolate in celebration of the earth fairies, I say more power to em. Where do I sign up? By the way, the end IS at hand. REPENT!
Did you know how it was created??? (the new testament) It was picked and chosen of books that were pro Jesus by a group in the 325-400 year range. the books had to be written by Jesus 12 disciples or there helpers and pro-jesus. No one knows who wrote the first 4, mattew, mark, luke, john(see catholic website for there statement to correct those 4)(Greeks) If this is the case, based to the bible creator rules, should those be removed? We have picked and chose alot in the past
~ The bible or any religion of the day should evolve with each generation until parity is reach with the Devinative order - eventualy written text will be recognized as the vehicle for reaching parity but an obstacle in living it. ~ Living a religion is not necessitated by reading it as the flaw to the religion is the need to be reading about it in the first place - The atheist existence is not text based but is still bound by the laws for its existence that are not decipherable through science.
The new testament books were tested by the old testament, if things did not line up they would not make it in, but there is way too much on that subject to explain in this thread, read how the Bible was canonized to get that story. Good luck, I keep asking him and he will hit reply and give you more nonsensical sentences with large words, some of which he made up or spelled phonetically where I couldn't find the word either way in a dictionary.
- religion does not evolve. It is what it is. ~ Our religion is described within the "Christian" bible - that man is expelled from the Garden of Eden and must seek readmitence for redemption that will allow for the further pursuit of imortality....and so on, as ours is a refinement of this single issue and regard all other matters within the bible including Jesus as not properly interpreted if not related to our core religion. ~ As God expelled man from his original garden it is for us to evolve the reason for the expulsion as the directive from God for our return. ~ Failure to return to the Garden of Eden will eventually lead to Armageddon, the triumph of evil is our interpretation from the bible of that issue and that Amageddon, the triumph of good will be our outcome in returning to the Garden that is omitted from the same Christian bible.
Your first paragraph applies to me (except the hope not believe part ). I don't base my life around the bible. The parts of the bible I do believe are parts, like you said, loving your neighbor, the ten commandments (though I do not believe God handed them to Moses), parts of the bible like that, which in my opinion are made to inspire people to do good. I dislike the parts that basically say "follow us or burn in hell"
~ The composition of the Christian bible is an issue that Christians will have to resolve come their day of judgment and is not a concern for the Edenist congregation. ~ kolgames, Obamanation and others who chose within a text, the bible, what is and is not real is more to our understanding in seeking the answer for mans dismissal by God as a directive to be discovered and eventually be honored by all for the moment of Amageddon - the triumph of good, that peculiarly is dispelled by the Christian bible.
One day 5000 years from now, after the apocalypse(nuclear war? Global warming?), our descendants will unearth this Digital Point server from the ashes and go about restoring the data on this hard drive. They will only be able to recover some of the data from the drive, amongst it, Breeze Wood's quote above. It will be added to the "holy texts of the ancients" as civilization rises from the ashes. Scholars will struggle to interpret it for the two millennia that follow. Wars will be fought over the interpretation of that very "verse". Millions will die. Then will come the next apocalypse. Hell, I'm reading it right here and now and scratching my head.
Are you trying to say that the Bible says that armageddon is the triumph of evil? Every time you say something about Armageddon being the triumph of good, you say something about the Bible, but your wording makes no sense. Try using English words that you know, understand and can spell, this will cut down the confusion.