A Book You Can Trust

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Double takataka.

kxmode - I am an academic, I know academics, I know how academics look at the Bible.

That point is not the point of an academic as anybody I know would use the term. It is the kind of point that would be made by a sophomore, or by one of the comedians some people like to quote here. An academic would not bother with something at that level of triviality - it would be much more significant to point, for example, to parallels between biblical texts and Ugaritic hymns or Egyptian stories.

Fnord - your idea that the God of a good many peoples [not just our friend kxmode - wanted people to remain ignorant indicates either great ignorance on your part or serious failure to understand. If you ever actually read the relevsnt passage [http://kingjbible.com/genesis/2.htm] you will note it is not the tree of science, or the tree of data, or the tree of theory - it is the ":tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now it is very clear that you and certain others do not consider questions of ethics and morality to be part of knowledge versus ignorance.

Further - I doubt very much that kxmode actually scorns academics - anybody who values THAT Bible translation almost certainly values academics, though you and he might not value the SAME academics.

Looking at the way you and some others here respond uncritically to authority. and knowing US academia as closely as I do, I have to say you are as much willingly subject to mind control as kxmode - just that - again - it is different controllers.

Then we should dump the OT as just the bunch of books that we should not care about anymore. That includes the genesis, the exodus, the law. It makes more sense.

...Except that the NT seems to have his own share of utter BS laws and also inaccuracies that do not work when taken literally..

For starters, we have Jesus saying that the OT should not be ignored.

Luke 16:17 says that the law will always remain valid.

Matthew 5:18-19 says that those who disobey the OT law will be the least in his kingdom.

There's the part that paints Jesus as a total narcisist guy, saying that people should love him more than their own parents. And other bunch of awful things. That's Matthew 10:34: “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace on earth! No, rather a sword lf you love your father, mother, sister, brother, more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. “

As a bonus he didn't come to bring peace on earth. Yay!

In Mark 9, Jesus seems mad that Jews no longer kill disobedient children:

9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe[c] your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’[d] and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[e] 11 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”



And the NT includes the revelations. Which are probably John going on a hallucinogenic trip to make churches scared of him.

If God wrote it, Moses wrote it, or brilliant people wrote it, that we would learn science from the text is preposterous - it would be the furthest thing from their mind, and certainly not at the expense at learning the nature of God and the story of humanity's relationship with this God and with each other.

That's not to say that Intelligent Design is irrelevant but hardly an argument for taking the bible literally. Early church leader Augustan, when posed the question of whether time existed before God created the universe posited that perhaps time was created along with the creation of the universe. Modern science largely agrees with this though Augustans view was not based on the findings of science and was a theological statement based on faith. Say if Augustan's theory one day turns out to be false, and that Time as a principle of our universe did not come into existence with the big bang, but perhaps, a reactionary force to other universes in the multi-verse that preceded our universes creation, then the theist should be fine because we did not AND SHOULD NOT hinge religion on science, and it's ever evolving nature.

To suspend your intellect when approaching God makes God look bad.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pulls their strings; and in doing so, we give them the power to pull ours.

Here are some of the beliefs of the Cult of Jehovah's Witness:

- They believe that Jesus did not rise from the dead; that His body either dissolved into gases or is still preserved somewhere.

- They believe that God is not triune (i.e., Father, Son, and Holy Ghost).

- They believe that there is no such thing as a hell of everlasting torment. Hell is just the grave. The wicked are simply annihilated.

- They believe that man has no spirit.

- They believe the Holy Ghost is not a person of the Godhead, just a "life force" of God.

- They exercise mind control over members.

- They believe that man must work to be part of "God's system of things".

- They believe that only the 144,000 mentioned in the book of Revelation will live in heaven with God.

- They believe all dead people will have a second chance for eternal life at the millennium. If you do not prove worthiness at this time, you'll be destroyed.

- The believe the blood of Christ does not forgive sins, it gives us a "chance" to live again. They have NO assurance of salvation as Jehovah's Witnesses who supposedly know the truth.

- They believe Jesus is the archangel Michael - Jesus is a created being.

- They believe Jesus is just an agent of God, nothing more.

- They believe that Jesus' second coming occurred invisibly in 1874.

- They believed that in 1914 the millennium would occur and that righteousness would be restored to the earth. As 1914 approached, JW leaders changed the date to 1915, 1916, 1924, 1928, and on and on to the present day!

Thus, the Cult of Jehovah's Witness is just another doomsday cult. Personally, I prefer to interract with the mainstream Christian cults.

Last edited by Fnord on 03 Jul 2011, 10:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Not really, though. The OT is the scriptural heritage of Christ's teachings. If you don't get the background story, then why Jesus should even be believed is irrelevant.


Not really.


What law?


What law?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic by asking "what law?" The spirit of OT law has a central underlying theme summarized by the Great Commandment. In keeping with the spirit of the law (rather than the letter of the law) one keeps all of the law by default. The NT is explicit about what the law is.


OK, but the idea of Jesus as a narcissist is really a matter of opinion. If you dislike the teachings of Christ, that's not my problem.


Quoting scripture out of context. This refers to Christians being persecuted by their own families. Christians won't be using a sword against their families--their own families will want to kill THEM. If they profess to be Christians and abandon their faith because their families are intolerant, then basically they are siding with their parents. So, of course they aren't worthy of being called Christians! I don't see why this is a problem for anyone except people who hate Christians.


Out of context. All this means is Jesus was accusing the Pharisees of being hypocrites.

The law about cursing parents merely indicates something that is an affront against God Himself. Parents are to basically stand in the gap between their children and God and are to act as God's agents for the benefit of their children. To curse a parent is to also curse God and thus in a Yahweh-ist theocracy is an intolerable offense. Besides, the person who brings charges of cursing against a child must follow due process and bring witnesses as evidence of the crime. A teenager or young adult (or even an older adult) who is bold enough to publicly shame his own parents in full public view is probably even more abusive in the home. Parents who love their children and want to see them grow up and succeed will see to it this never happens. Further, slandering one's own parents costs them their reputation and quite possibly their own livelihood. The OT law in this regard is a sensible one given the time in which it was given.

In Mark 9, mentioning this law only emphasizes the seriousness of what it means to bring honor to your parents and is really incidental to the main point. Apparently the way Corban was being used deprived working, adult children of the means by which they could care for their elderly or sick parents. So to keep one (manmade) "law" the priests caused them to break another. Even the passage you quoted here accuses the Pharisees of doing many things "like that."


Also a matter of opinion.

Basically what we have here are scripture passages quoted out of context together with your own biases against other sections. It remains that the Bible is not problematic taken literally unless, as in many cases, it expressly says that elements of dream/visions are NOT to be understood literally and that the symbolic code for interpretation is revealed. Apocalyptic literature is often highly symbolic. It's also understandable if prophetic messages aren't completely understood until after the fact. Eschatological writings are bound to be confusing since, well, they haven't happened yet. But at the very least they give us clues for understanding those events when they DO happen.

So none of this really proves any problem with taking the Bible literally.

However, you do demonstrate something that is worth noting: Anybody with a little imagination and an agenda can selectively quote scripture to show it to mean whatever they want. People with personal agendas can quote from the Bible in such a way that it can be interpreted to give them authority and convince other Bible readers that it means what they think it should mean. Even Charles Manson somehow blended Biblical prophecy and Beatles lyrics in order to convince his followers to kill people for him. The RC church certainly tried to justify (and succeeded) burning suspected witches when the NT gives it no such authority. Using semantics and cherry-picking to make a point does not mean that the original scriptures in context really meant what they are said to mean, and this goes for both those who use scripture to get what they want from believers and those attacking the Bible wholesale.

It's interesting to me that you'd accuse people of cherry-picking and THEN proceed on your own to cherry-pick in order to make your point!

QFT

It is certainly not what God is looking for.

Spoken by God's psychoanalyst?

You seem to have more respect for the Freudian tradition than certain ones.

Actually, spoken by one who has paid attention to what the subject has said on the subject to his subjects.

By what has been attributed to God by extremely doubtful and unverifiable assumed witnesses.

That may be 99.9% true, but I believe the genius of the torah is too complex to have not been divinely or out of this worldly(Aliens who seeded earth with life?) inspired.

The possibility of aliens strikes me as being infinitesimally more likely than God but I grant it very little.

Not really, because it still wouldn't have been any evidence for supernatural intervention. The obvious counter argument is that they were good mathematicians who calculated pi to 100 decimal places in order to give credibility to an invented God.

I have entertained that speculation for quite a while now. Not just the Torah. In approximately the same time frame (end of the bronze age) in societies all over the world people were beginning to catch on that the world operates according to principle and laws, not just the Whim of the Gods. In Greece, Egypt and Babylon more effort was being put into principles that explained how things happened or worked. It is possible that the human race was just waking up to facts but I speculate that non terrestrial visitors were planting intellectual seeds in the brains of our species. Maybe. Perhaps. An entertaining thought in any case.

ruveyn

This is the same quality of thinking that said that only natural forces could not turn a bit of slime floating on the ocean into the huge variety of life we now see. Evolution proved otherwise. Give humanity the credit it deserves to work out its own problems.

Not at all. The physical make up of our brains does determine what ideas are kept in our brains. Some ideas we get from experience, some we get by being taught.

In human history, we have examples of people from one country going to another to teach hitherto unknown ideas and principles. By extension it is possible (although there is no evidence to support the notion) that visitors could have stopped by and taught humans and thing or two.

Most likely humans caught on to the idea of laws and principles all by themselves, but it is odd that this sort of thing was going on in different places at just about the same time without diffusion of the ideas by ordinary means. Is it a coincidence? Possible. Could the awakening have been caused by Outside sources? Possibly, but that is just speculation not based on any hard evidence.

ruveyn