Re: !
 

Agnostic here. I was raised Prespy, but as I got older I couldn’t continue to take unsubstantiated stories as truth. Then as I actually acquired some historical knowledge of religion, it became apparent that the sciences and religion could not coexist in logical world. Finding that religion could not withstand the checks and balances applied to science, I found myself no longer believing. Now, when I look at religions, I find one universal feature. They all share one aspect, other than the Supreme Being thing. They are all designed to maintain the power base of a rather elite group of people. And for the most part, all of the root religions have at some point in time actually dictated to their people. Of course the religions that grew out of dictatorships, monarchies and empires were the most guilty of this. And then there is the one universal constant. When there is almost no reason to make war on the people just beyond the frontier, religion will provide a reason.

Re: !
 

Actually very few religions have a "supreme being"... Monotheism is the exception, not the rule (in terms of comparing religions themselves, not some pointlessly silly comparision based on number of worshippers).

Re: !
 

A correction if you please: I don't think that religions provide a "reason" to make war. But religions do, I think, provide an "excuse" to make war.

To explain myself, I believe that most armed conflicts are due to rather mundane reasons: land grabs, disputes over natural resources, tit-for-tat revenge attacks etc that are readily understood in terms of normal human psychology.

But most people like to think of themselves as being good guys and would feel bad about plundering and killing others. In such cases, religion can provide an excuse to get people "all worked up" so to speak, by giving the conflict a moralistic tone and making it feel to like war is some kind of righteous, noble act.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

*Glues his shoes to the soles of his feets and nails them there to be sure that they won't come off!*
-Ouch, that hurts.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Well, the most innocuous thing I can say:

I have no religion, I must live with my conscience. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

On one hand, I understand a person Not beliving the Bible based on the actions & conduct on those who "Claim" to believe it. I personally am appalled by such mis-representation.
On the other hand, it is somewhat surprising on how many people make such strong statements on a book they have never read. If one takes the time to seriously read & look into the Bible, you find that, though it is not a science book, where it touches on science, it is in perfect harmony with established scientific fact. The same holds true for other areas, as in history & geography. It soon moves to amazement when it comes to examining Biblical prophecy to historical events.
It doesn't make sense to dismiss it without first examining the evidence.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Wonderfully said, brother. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

I am, as Narf said that he is also of(back in Page 1), of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or more known as the Mormon Church. Though we are wary of that term.

Also, although I by no means intend to start a debate, I look at Thermodyne's post and am certain that he did not actually look closely into religions. It's called organization! "Maintaining a power base" my a$*

Anyhow, as far my outlook on religion, I don't agree with bits and pieces of other religions, but am taught to respect them, and the good individuals who compose them.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Universe is attempting to create God through evolution, and maybe a little osmosis.

Actually I just like saying 'osmosis'.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Wait, I have another theory. God actually looks like a dolphin, and the Dolphin race is getting really annoyed that we keep evolving faster than they do. That, and the stupid fishing net thing.

Maybe I'm just a secular hedonist. I'm a religion of one!

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

>"I'm a religion of one!"

Yeah......and I bet you'll never figure out why..... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
(Unless you actually DO believe these, in which case I'm sorry)

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

I've never read the bible either, but we were forced to read or listen to bits at school, and to watch really poorly-animated bible stories, and to take part in nativity plays and all that, so large chunks of the stories (if not the actual text) are at least familiar to me and to most people I know. The stories and such that I was told appear to be a more-or-less random entanglement of mythology and ancient history.

The idea that every word in the Bible is the actual word of God is absurd to me- you have to admit that Man has a habit of putting words into God's mouth, and to me the bible is nothing more than the end result of two or three thousand years of that: Most of the Old Testament was carried by nothing more than word-of-mouth for centuries before it was ever put into writing, and various political spins were woven into it by different people along the way. Then you have the New Testament, which was written by loads of very different people over several centuries and has also been re-written/ re-translated with "spin" throughout that time by those who have used it to advance their own viewpoints/ justify their own actions. <snip listing of various barbarisms carried out in the name of Christ over the Last two Millenia> More to the point though, the bible- in particular the New Testament- has been interwoven with mythologies from other religions (to ease conVersion from other those religions throughout the ages) so that you have to wonder how much of it there is left that could actually have anything to do with the true story/ teachings of Christ. Quite a lot, probably, but how do you know which bits are which? It just throws into doubt the reliability of the whole thing.

And of course that's all assuming you can get past the "yes, there is a God" belief that is fundamental to the entire process, which to be honest makes the whole thing a non-starter for me.

Finally there's the fact that the bible doesn't seem to carry any single, clear message: Some people use it to promote universal peace and acceptance, others to justify bigotry and murder, even in this day and age. Those are the extremes of the spectrum, be it seems that every possible permutation in-between is accomodated somewhere. They can't all be right. What's the point in basing your faith on a book that can mean anything you want it to mean? I might as well not bother with the book and do whatever I want anyway. (Which is pretty much what I have done.)

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

That's a real interesting thought. Could the Universe itself be trying to create God? Just as the universe was condensed into the <gross understandment> compact ball of energy and matter, then expanded, could life which started with the simplest of forms, progressed through intelligent species, now be trying to fulfill the vacuum of emptiness created by the lack of a higher order? Could the eventual fulfillment of a higher order being be the "event" that begins the contraction of the universe and the devolvment of life?

Rasorow

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Actually that is an interesting point. If you were to study the Bible you would see that it does carry a single message or theme throughout it. That theme is the vindication of God's sovereignty by means of the Messianic Kingdom Government. The Bible clearly covers a wide range of other topics but they all tie in with and go back to that main theme.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Unapologetically aethiest. Couple points I'd like to make though.
1) Aethism does not count as a religion. Aethism is the lack of belief in God, not a belief in the lack of God.
2) Refering to God as 'He' is not sexist. It's proper English. Ask any English teacher (or English major) and they will tell you that in the English language, the default gender for beings of indeterminate sex is male.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Well, there is somewhat of a debate about such pronouns, though the masculine form is still dominant (if not the only one) in grammar books; interestingly, nobody is concerned about this in the French language, even though the situation is exactly the same.

A summary of alternatives among many (from someone involved in linguistics, for lack of a better term) is available here .

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Since no one has come forward to the dispute this, I am going to do so.

You are quite correct that strong, unqualified statements concerning the Bible should not be made without having first made a serious attempt at studying the subject first-hand. Now, let me say that I have read the Bible, cover to cover, several different Versions of it in fact. On the hand, and while this may or may not be true for you, I believe that while many theists do, understandably, have first-hand knowledge of their religious canon, they have relatively little knowledge of the origins of that canon, and the process by which it came into their hands.

There are a lot of Bible-bashing sites on the internet, and I once ran one myself. I won't point you to them since I find that most of them are too partisan, focus too much on nitpicking and try too hard to grasp at tenuous straws. However, I will rely on Wikipedia, which being a community, open-to-everyone effort, should be a much more neutral, qualified, source of information.

First of all, Biblical canon looks at the various different "books" that compose the "Bible" and explains which are canon to which religious denominations and how they became canon to that denomination. The point here is that at various different points in history, different Groups of people had to gather around in a meeting and sit down to decide what God supposedly did say, and what he did not say.

Next, The Bible and history examines whether or not the Bible is actually scientifically and historically correct as you claim.

In any case, some quotes from the Wikipedia page here:

On Genesis:

On Jews living in Egypt:

On Joshua:

For anyone interested in a detailed account of scientific errors committed in the Bible or scientifically unsound teachings perpetuated by Christian denominations throughout history, Whitehead's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom is an old but still very useful read that is now in the public domain.

Finally, Wikipedia has a page on Alleged inconsistencies in the Bible which details some of the inconsistencies within the Bible itself.

Now, I note that you do not claim that the Bible is wholly inerrant, "merely" that it has proven to be correct on an impressive number of matters. How much "correctness" should be regarded as being truly "impressive" is a really subjective matter of course. For example, I might say that the "Dao De Jing" is impressive, simply by virtue that it contains a large number of self-evident "truisms".

In the case of the Bible, personally, as I believe that it was written purely by men without divine knowledge, I would still expect these men to be reasonably intelligent, knowledgeable and relatively well-travelled, persons, and that the accuracy and correctness of their work to reflect that ability. Consequently, in order to seriously claim that the Bible is "impressive" above and beyond that standard, would require that the Bible include information that could not be known at that time and incur a far higher burden of evidence.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

As a quick reply, I've heard that creation, as described in the bible, is simaliar to many other stories of creation. I'll just point out that the order described in the bible fits the order described by the location of fossils, as it was described in my textbooks.

The arguement that the biblical creation must be false because it is simaliar to many others is a falicy(sp?), if such a congruence exists (I havn't read other religeons religeous texts, yet), it is evidence of some sort of historical congruence or origin point and hardly evidence of falsety(sp?).

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

You're going to be have to be more specific, but generally I'd say that this is not correct.

Roughly the order described in Genesis goes like this, quotes from KJV:

1: "...grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.."

2: "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years..."

(Note: so God supposedly made plants and trees first, then made the Sun and the Moon etc. Ouch.)

3: "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good."

4: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind..."

The above implies that God created fish first (generally correct) but makes the mistake of including whales as fish which as we now know, is not correct. But the writers of Genesis could not know what we know. Generally, evolutionary biology (supported by recent fossil findings) state that whales are descendents of land-based mammals.

It also implies that birds were created before reptiles ("creeping thing"?) and in any case, before land-based animals, and anyone who's watched "Jurassic Park" knows that's not true. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I can supply complete references to anyone who is interested.

You are correct of course. But the main point is not to say that it is factually false, merely to say that it is unoriginal. If there is true "congruence", then we must reasonably be able to say that the writers of Genesis based their writings on information sources completely independently of the cultures surrounding them.

Given the close cultural contact between them and the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians etc., it is more reasonable to suppose that the writers of Genesis plagiarized, to use an unkind word, from existing creation mythologies that pre-dated the Jewish religion. On the other hand, if we find significant similarities between two cultures who were completely isolated from one another, then we would be able to speculate on the possibility of congruence.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Creeping things can also mean bugs.

As for the order, KJV, 1st day: 'In the beggining God created the heaven and the Earth.' - Universe, then planet. Same.
'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.' - Sun after planet. Different.
'and God divided the light from the darkness.' Planetary rotation. Same.
2nd day,
'And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.' Seems to imply that atmosphere came after water; as far as breathable, same.
3rd day,
'And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear' Same. Also, implies that if the waters were in one place, the land was in one piece - As geologists generally say. Same.
'And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.' After water, atmosphere and land formation, plants. Note that the next verse recaps and references 'trees'.
4th,
'And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:' Stars now. Different.
'And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.' Different.
5th,
'And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' Land creatures. Same. Fowl - No reference to feathers. Indeterminate.
'And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.' Creatures coming out of the water. Same. Large sea creatures after (Implied)small ones. Same. No reference to feathers.
6th,
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.' More diverse life forms(Implied) after(Implied) less diverse life forms. Same.
'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' Humans after the establishment of every other catagory of life. Same.

11 Same
3 Different
2 Indeterminate (Labelling the fowl indeterminate)

That's enough for me to say it's amazingly accurate, given the span of time.

As for the creation myths round about that area, as I said, I havn't met the literature. However, your assertion that they are older is premature. There is no conclusive non-religious evidence that I know of.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

And this is getting kind of off-topic, so if you want to reply, please make a new thread.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

A few problems there Narf...

No. This does not say, heaven first, then the Earth, just heaven and Earth. There is no order. This is not the same as scientific fact. It is a bit of a stretch to relete "heaven" to "universe," but that is beside the point.

That is an invalid assumption. There was atmosphere long before water. There are also no "waters under the firmanent," there is magma, and molten cores, and all that fun stuff, especially before the Earth started cooling enough for any water to be present in non-gaseous form.

Dry land was there long before liquid water. The world was never covered entirely in water, then land started appearing. This is backwards. Water started appearing as the Earth cooled from its super hot beginnings (condensation). Unless you want to call lava water...

This is rather ambiguous... doesn't say what sort of creatures the waters brought forth. Land creatures? Sea creatures? What was first, fish or land creatures? Definitely indeterminate.

Fowl means one thing, a certain kind of bird. Fowl directly implies (and requires) feathers.

The waters only "brought forth" marine life and amphibians. Everything else was not "brought forth" by the waters, but evolved from the first amphibians, on land.

There was no such implication. If you want to read it literally, as you did before, it implies that great whales were first.

Again, fowl is a certain class of birds. Most certainly feathers. Can't be anything else.

I see no such implication. Also, seems to be contradictory. All the living creatures that move were already created on day 5. How can creatures already created be recreated?

No, not the same. There are a lot of categories of life that evolved after or parallel with humans.

It is not that accurate...

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Could a mod move the entire off-topic part to another thread, please? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

For help on what to make, I think it really got off-topic with Dogscoff's Last post; Fyron think's it started with 'Electrum's post perhaps, starting with "On one hand, I understand a person Not beliving the Bible based on the actions & conduct on those who "Claim" to believe it. I personally am appalled by such mis-representation. "'

So, um, use your judgement?

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

I'll wait to see if a mod does actually move it before replying. But I'm reading. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

There is anyone that really believe literally in everything that the bible says (including the contraditory parts?).... if so, this person would be extremely confused... (at least i would be, but maybe i´m wrong)

Of course the bible was heavily tinkered by several persons along the time, if you don´t belive it, get an actucal Version of your preffered cannon and compare it with the same cannon of a century ago (i did it, and the subtle and not-so-subtle alterations are interesting)...

Edit: edited to change possible inflamattory words, even don´t believing in everything that the bible says i do respect the book as a way that some people can become more compassionate and wise human beings... unfortunatelly some people also use the writings of the bible to justify very atrocious acts... but this is not the fault of the bible, but of the human beings...

PS: Dogscoff, thanks for your hint, i was wrong to use harsh words to demean or ridicularize persons that don´t belive in the same things that i do...

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Makinus, the answer to your most recent question will be "yes" for many people on this forum (NOT including me) so you might want to edit your post before things get out of hand.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Edited the post (i didn´t excluded my question, only phrased it in a more educated manner)

I do find that the bible, if you read it knowing that it is a book created by human beings and not directly by God, can be used to learn several good things...

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

A good book to read in this regard is "Asimov's Guide to the Bible"

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Allow me to add to this that it is commonly asserted by those with some sort of belief in god that atheists are unable to have a set of morals. This is, of course, not true. Morals exists just fine outside of the beleif in some divine presence. I just always feel the need to point this out whne this topic comes up since non-atheists love to paint atheists as amoral, evil, etc...

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

This is probably the most amusing OT post I've seen on this forum. Though I'm a bit late, here goes...

I was raised mormon. Or raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I later converted to Orthodoxy (russian, to be specific, not that it matters.) I used to be a monk but gave it over.

My brother is the Army's wiccan chaplain for germany.

Niltrias

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Fyron's already seen some of these answers on IRC, but other people havn't, so that's why I'm replying to all of them, in case you were wondering, Fyron.

What I'm saying here is that what we have in the bible KJV describes the end result of milenia of scribes occasionally making mistakes, with good accuracy. I'm not saying it all makes sense; I firmly beleive that the bible we have now is not the bible that was given.
I disagree.

Spooky!
 

I'm a night mage. (or witch, or wizard, or warlock, or nocturnalist, whatever)

It's not something I chose, specifically, it was more of a calling...I started dabbling in the mystic arts and was always nocturnal. The more I learned, the more I found that I'm attuned to the darker energies of reality.

Mind you, it isn't inherently evil, so don't spout off any "OMG! SATANIST!" stuff, please.

Re: Spooky!
 

For anyone who is interested, Wikipedia has a page:

Geologic timescale

which makes it easy to see which came first and approximately when, so decide for yourself.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Strangely enough, I've heard this accusation made against theists many times, yet in all of my dealings with theists, I've NEVER heard any of them claim atheists are unable to have morals. NEVER.

Now, I can easily imagine that there are people in this world who think they are God's right hand and who would say such a thing. I, however, have never had the (dis)pleasure of conversing with them. I assure you, they are the minority.

To claim that theists "commonly assert" that atheists are incapable of morals is simply untrue.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Wow! I never would have imagined a simple statement would create such a brew-ha-ha! I sometimes forget that religious fervor isn’t limited to the pro-Bible stance.

Narf, I’m sorry that this conversation has seemed to move your thread away from it’s original intent. That being said, this will be my final post on this subject. I have found that arguments & debates rarely, if ever, change anyone’s views. To the contrary, they usually make a person more set in there opinions.

Deccan, I check out the opinions promoted in the sites you listed. The Bible has never been short of controversies & critics. It was interesting that the majority of the issues were not w/ Biblical accuracy & historicity, rather with the views of those who claim to speak for it, just as I had mentioned. The rest is a promotion of opinions of so-caller “Higher Critics”. Such opinions are nothing new. It is interesting that the standard such higher critics use with the Bible is: If there is no corroborating evidence, it must be a lie.
Son rushes hurriedly into the house to talk with his father.
Son: Dad! Dad! I just saw an albino deer behind the house.
Father: Really! Did anyone see it?
Son: Nope! Just me!
Father (as he starts beating his son): NEVER LIE TO ME AGAIN!

Again, although the Bible was not written as a science textbook, Bible says nothing that is contrary to established scientific facts. The progression of the Biblical creation account is:
(1) a beginning
(2) a primitive earth in darkness and enshrouded in heavy gases and water
(3) light (Remember that this is from the perspective of the Earth)
(4) an expanse or atmosphere (second creative day refers firmament (KJV) Others use “Expanse” the Hebrew word use here means to stretch out or spread out or expand. Amazing what a little research can turn up)
(5) large areas of dry land
(6) land plants
(7) sun, moon and stars discernible in the expanse, and seasons beginning
(8) sea monsters and flying creatures
(9) wild and tame beasts, mammals
(10) man.
Nothing unscientific there. If fact, science agrees that these stages occurred in this general order. The issues usually arise interjecting information that’s not there, such as the 7 creative days being 7 literal 24 hours days, instead of what is being stated, 7 eras or epochs in the preparation of the earth several thousand years in length (interestingly, the Genesis account never states an end of the seventh day. Paul, in his writing states still being in the seventh rest day.)

Think of the mathematical probability with coming up with this order (1 in 3,628,800)

How does this compare to other culture’s creation stories?

the principal Babylonian myth says that the god Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, killed the goddess Tiamat, then took her corpse and “split her like a shellfish into two parts: Half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky.” So the earth and its sky came into existence. As to the creation of human life, this myth states that the gods caught the god Kingu and they “imposed on him his guilt and severed his blood (vessels). Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.” (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by James Pritchard, 1974, pp. 67, 68)
Other cultures have similar stories. One Egyptian myth relates that the sun-god Ra created mankind from his tears.

Are any of these plausible and in harmony with scientific fact? The very nature on the Genesis account and these stories is so different, is it really reasonable to think the Genesis account was copied from them, as some critics claim?

Again, though the Bible is not a science textbook, it shows remarkable insight in such matters. Especially remarkable when compared with the thinking of the time. While much of the world was believing the world was flat, supported on the backs of elephants, the Bible clearly states the world was a sphere (Isa 40:22) suspended on nothing (Job 26 : 7). While the rest of the world’s medical practices were employing dangerous techniques involving dung & urine, the Mosaic Law instituted hygienic practices including not touching dead bodies and quarantines. Again, well above the standards of the times they were written, why above the standards of relatively modern times, too.

Biblical critics & revisionist historians will continue to give their opinions. Yet the Bible time and time again has stood up against such claims, many times aided by science & archeology.

Again, I apologize Narf for the direction this thread took. This will be my final post on this subject. I just felt that some of the misinformation needed to be corrected. I hope you don’t mind.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Electrum,
A lot of your arguments are not supported and highly inacurate and based upon fallacy, not fact. Your arguement is actually based on a number of illogical premises like: Shifting the burden of proof, Reification / Hypostatization, Plurium interrogationum / Many questions, Non sequitur, Ignoratio elenchi / Irrelevant conclusion, Affirmation of the Consequent, Converting a conditional, Bifurcation, and so on.

While condemning other religions for being out of touch, the same religions are used to support the Noah fable. IE, global floods which are entirely impossible. Earth lacks the amount of water needed to support such a flood to the extent described in any fable.

As to disprove your agrument, I will not rely upon any athiestic or non-religious documents but merely point you to the nearest mosque and ask them for pamphlets about thier religion and science. You'll find many of the arguments in them are word-for-word your arguements.

Spoo,
As an Athiest, I have been accused of lacking morality because I lack religious beliefs just as many times as I've been accused of being a satanist. But what this means is that the accuser does not understand what athiesm is. Athiesm is not a denial of simply god, but a denial of fact without proof or facts without proof. When such claims are made against an athiest, it is religion or a relgious individual attempting to define athiesm in the realm of beliefs they understand. Typically it's in a negative light to illustrate an argument or to place someone on the defensive.

My solution to it is, for the satanist claim, is to point out the satan of the bible is a christian for his belief in the biblical god. For the morality charge, I demand they define thier own morality without using the bible or religion.

You are correct, most thiest do not make the morality claim against athiests. The people who make the claims are people on soap boxes invoking the Royal "We". Argumentum ad populum is the fallacy in this case.

Narf, you are very right. The Bibles of today are not the bibles that the first church laid down. Countless tranlations and retranslation mistakes add up over time, then to top it off the bible is drawn for various documents and oral traditions and older religions that further compound things.

But this is not to say some of the parables from the bible are bad ones, some of it is very good and helps to teach life lessons. The problem is when the mindless zeal of zealots are used to push for personal gain and power is when religion directly conflicts with others.

When people argue about the conflict on which religion is right and which is wrong, I can't help but frown in dismay. Our founding fathers in America were able to put aside thier athiest & religious beliefs and realize there are bigger things than religion going on in this world and we need to focus on the world here and now.


Back on topic,

I'm an Progressive Freethinking Federalist Athiest

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Yeah, The Odd Translation mistake really adds up, as does Blatant editing and censoring of various biblical scriptures by various Churches to support their dogma. (Most evidently the Holy Roman Church of the Middle Ages). But as my friend says.

"I Don't believe in the stories in the bible, I believe in the morals and teachings in the stories. Thats what is Important."

As for Being Immoral, that's just ignorance. Some Atheists are, Some Devout worshippers of Religon are, and Vice Versa. I don't believe just because you have faith in a particular system (or lack of one) means that you are more or less "moral" than others, There are many instances throughout history of people deciding not to "practice what they preach."

At the end of the day, It's tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness and understanding that's needed in this world. And Most religions preach this, maybe we should start listening.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

As a guy I worked for once said, "it's a case of Do as I say, not as I do."

RD,
I think you misunderstood me or I wasn't clear enough because that's pretty much what I was saying. My point was that when someone or an organization lacks the ability to logically identify something they don't understand, they try to define it in terms they understand. This often ends in a negative description of the individual.

IE, some christians don't understand how anyone can not believe in god, so they must be against him and thus evil and immoral as satan is against god and immoral and evil.

While that example of a flawed arguement, typically that is the reasoning behind false claims athiests are immoral from what I've found. That's not to say there may have other reasons.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

This is too blanket a statement I think. Does this mean that any criticism of Biblical accuracy and historicity is always invalid because of bias and that the Bible cannot be critiqued in this way at all? If not, then which types of criticism are valid and which are not?

Let me, for example, point out that the line "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so" is chronologically incorrect. Plants whose "seeds are in themselves" are flowering plants, whose seeds are located in enclosed ovaries. These appeared in the Jurassic, after the appearance of many types of land animals. Trees yielding fruit came even later, being a further evolution of flowering plants, and after all, from an evolutionary point of view, considering that fruits exist only to attract animals who had help the plant's reproduction, it would make no sense to have fruit trees exist when there are no land animals to eat them.

How can this statement that the Bible is factually incorrect on at least this one matter be brushed aside simply on the grounds that this is not an issue of Biblical accuracy and historicity but "merely reflects the view of those who claim to speak for it"?

The requirement of multiple, corroborating sources of information is a standard test in the study of history. It is not a requirement uniquely imposed on the study of the Bible.

In any case, the analogy you provide is inadequate: a singular incident of limited scope with only a single eye-witness. Considering the scope and magnitude of the events claimed by the Bible, it would be appropriate to use a larger analogy, say, an ancient text found in a recently discovered ancient city that claims that alien visitors visted that city in vast starships.

Only if you ignore that the fact that the Bible makes some statements that are curiously specific, and others that are curiously vague. The specific mention of "whale" appearing seemingly together with other sea life is clearly wrong for example, as is the case of the specific types of plants mentioned above. The specific mention of "fowl" is another example. Narf does have a point that perhaps the people at the time had no better term to describe the meaning conveyed at the time, but to judge that would require linguistic skills that I do not possess.

And also only if you ignore the fact that the Bible makes references to things that we have no clear idea what it corresponds to. What is the "firmament"? What is meant by waters above and below the "firmament"? What does the earth bringing forth mean specifically? After all, land animals evolved from sea animals. What does "every living creature that moveth" mean? Does it specifically exclude land animals? Etc.

See this copy of the Babylonian creation myth for example: The Enuma Elish

Is it really so different? The Biblical Version is monotheistic, and God himself is more impersonal while in the Babylonian Version, the deities are more human, in fact, exaggerated forms of humanity. But the content has broad similarities. To orient yourself, consider that in the Biblical Version, creation is organized into six days, while in the Babylonian Version, creation is organized into six generations of deities:

Tiamat and Apsu -> Lahmu and Lahamu -> Anshar and Kishar -> Anu -> Ea -> Marduk.

This is controversial. I don't believe the various statements made in the Bible were specific enough to judge what the writers of the Bible actually believed. You can google for references to a round Earth, but I can google for references to a flat Earth as well. The fact is that the statements are just so vague.

Certainly there were early figures in the Christian church who quoted scripture to argue that the Earth was flat, no doubt just as passionately as you quote scripture to argue that the Bible has always stated that the Earth is round.

I believe that the practices were religious rituals, not practices justified by medical hygiene.

In any case, justifications of this sort are as spurious as attempts by say Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners who say that since some of TCM's remedies are empirically found by modern scientists to be sound, the TCM theories of chi, Yin-Yang, Theory of Five Elements etc. must therefore be true.

Correct, and this goes way back. What you omit is that most of the pertinent and respected criticisms were by Christians theists.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

I own several. They make me tons of cash!

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

On an aside, but didn't the Greeks and Egyptians determine the curvature of the earth long before the bible could be created?

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Let's try to remember that the purpose of this thread is to simply state ones beliefs. We are straying dangerously off course.
For example: Arguing that evolution states that life appeared in a certain pattern that does not agree with the bibles chronology and is therfore innaccurate. This is dangerously close to stating that evolution is right and the bible is wrong. How do we know if this person even believes in evolution? Statements like these could injure someones feelings and must be avoided in order to keep this thread civil. Let's cool down this topic and get it back on track. Okay? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Or we could just let this thread die a not so natural death, since it seems like the same people are stating the same opinions over and over. Let me tell you something....you're not going to change anyones mind! We're all going to continue thinking what we always have, since religious beliefs are often deeply ingrained. Let it go!! It's pointless!

(Sorry, but it really annoys me when people continue argueing about the same things over and over again. It seems rather foolish to me.)

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Just to nudge the OT thread even more OT...

I picked up a copy of "Stranger in a Strange Land" in the airport during a layover, and finished it a while ago at home. It certainly has an interesting viewpoint on the whole aspect of religion and culture, and I find that my viewpoint more or less falls in with Jubal's throughout most of the book. For those who haven't read it, the short Version: atheist beliefs, but doesn't claim to know beliefs are true, and accepts that any religion could have it right, while positing that none of them have hit it yet.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Yes for the New Testament, generally no to the Old Testament. Fundamentalists, in line with tradition, claims that the Pentateuch was written approximately in 12th century BCE. Academics disagree, and date different portions of the Torah to different dates, generally dating the Pentateuch to around 7th century BCE.

The first person to measure the circumference of the Earth is generally agreed to be Eratosthenes of Cyrene who lived in approximately 250 BCE.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

Well My dad claimed he was half Jewish and Half Hillbilly so I have wandered the hills ever since.
I wish this religious thread had not been started by one of my brothers but it was. I hope that we all recognize that we must seek out the truth. And understand that some of us will find it and some of us won't. One thing I have learned in this life is that you should take and judge people as individuals and the huge majority of people are basically good and just like you trying to do the best they can. And before anyone screams "Judge not lest ye be Judged" read the whole line in context.
Good luck and God bless everyone and if you don't Believe in God or Luck then all the best to you.
PS
How many angles or demons does it take to make the talisman work? And does the talisman take energy?
Oh wow maybe we should modify the talisman to take Gobs of energy so it can only be fired 3-4 times. Hmmmm.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

The only way to do that is delete the component and add a "talisman" mount (or several, for each size of normal mount, as you prefer) that increases supply usage drastically.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

/me eats all the supply.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

I haven't read all of the article below, but it directly addresses the original topic of this thread I beleive:

Translator Takes the Word at Its Word
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
from NYT

THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES
A Translation With Commentary.
By Robert Alter.
1,064 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $39.95.

In the beginning, God did not create the heavens and the earth. The King James Bible puts it too neatly: "In the beginning" could mean that the creation was God's first act, or that the creation was itself the beginning, but wasn't something there before? The sentence also reads like a topic sentence, bluntly introducing that account that follows.

Things are actually far more mysterious and inchoate, as Robert Alter keeps reminding us in his astonishing translation of the original Hebrew text of the first five books of the Bible. There are so many accretions of meaning and assumption layered over the Biblical text, so many commentaries, so many doctrines; even the English language has been influenced by the glories (and errors) of the 17th-century King James translation.

Return, then, to the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch - the Torah - where pronouns are often ambiguous, words are compacted with multiple meanings and clauses can begin to make sense not in the ordinary sequence of reading but only in the course of doubling back and rereading. Here is how Mr. Alter renders that first sentence of Genesis:

"When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the waters, God said, 'Let there be light.' "

That sentence unsettles. The creation is not a completed act, but part of a process. The act of speaking is the focus of attention, coming after an almost breathless catalog of elements in a world "without form and void" (as the King James Version puts it), in which "welter and waste and darkness over the deep" and "God's breath" are components of a primordial earth.

It isn't likely that this rendering will soon replace the old. It doesn't easily scan. But it is so weirdly convincing, and so evocative of matters beyond conventional understanding, that it anticipates not just the story of Creation but the epic enterprise of translation and commentary into which Mr. Alter leads us.

That enterprise, as Mr. Alter explains in an invaluable introduction, means avoiding the "heresy" that translation can be used to explain the Bible, which in the worst cases becomes "explaining away the Bible." He cultivates instead a scrupulous attention to the Hebrew text and its multifarious meanings. Another recent translation of the five books of Moses by Everett Fox (Schocken, 1995) is even more radical, so preoccupied with emphasizing the strangeness of the Hebrew that it creates a self-consciously strange English. But Mr. Alter seeks both English fluidity and Hebraic accuracy. That means paying attention to the large and the small: the way, for example, imagery of the hand, with all its deeds and misdeeds, works through the tale of Joseph and his brothers; or the way the Bible's use of the letter vav (meaning "and") creates accumulations of acts and events, reiterating the extraordinary. God really is in the details.

It also reflects a different approach from the one that has guided so much bland modern translation, which has tended to seek clarity and simplicity above all. For more than 20 years, Mr. Alter, who is professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley, has been arguing for a more literary approach to the Bible that would not blanch at its intricacies.

Religious belief has traditionally treated the Bible as a coherent, divinely inspired historical document. But in the 19th century, German philology began an archaeological excavation of the text, discerning in its varied styles, its different terms for God and its expressions of opposing interests, the hands of four authors who wrote their accounts over the course of centuries - multiple sources out of which redactors created the pastiche we now read.

For a century, philological research laid bare the biblical text, illuminating its crevices, dating its shards, explicating its contradictions. After millennia of religious commentary by Jewish and Christian scholars, this was a form of secular compensation. Philology turned the Bible into a text about its own construction.

But Mr. Alter, beginning with "The Art of Biblical Narrative" (1981), undertook an extraordinarily powerful project of restoration. The redactors, he claimed, were not merely curators: they were creators. Their choice of words, their juxtaposition of passages, their respect for ambiguities - nothing was arbitrary. But the Bible is not just a religious masterwork, Mr. Alter argued; it is also a literary one: pay close attention to the text and it will yield its secrets. Out of perceived patterns, analysis of word usage and attention to rhythm, insights into character and narrative and purpose will emerge.

In Mr. Alter's new Versions of Genesis and much of Exodus, this literary approach proves its considerable power. But it seems much less effective or convincing in the compilations of law and ritual in Leviticus and Numbers. For there, literalness and precision are more the point than allusion and suggestion. The literary becomes secondary. The text may even demand sacrificing effulgence and grandeur - a demand with its own dangers.

The Liberty Bell, for example, is inscribed with a phrase from King James's Leviticus: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto the inhabitants thereof." Mr. Alter says that passage does not deal with liberty but with legal arrangements regarding the disposition of property in the Jubilee year, when slaves are to be set free. In his translation that sentence rather awkwardly calls for a "release in the land to all its inhabitants" the "release" referring, he explains, to "debts and indenture." This is too pedantic, particularly since Mr. Alter is prepared to let a familiarly resonant phrase like "Am I my brother's keeper?" stand, instead of choosing less poetic and possibly more appropriate alternatives to "keeper," like "watcher" or "overseer" or "guardian."

But out of Mr. Alter's close reading and translation, something grander really does take shape, along with a conviction that the Bible is not just incidentally mysterious, posing challenges because of its antique references and sources. It is essentially mysterious.

The Bible's redactors, for example, deliberately included fragments that may have been puzzling even in their own time (like an interpolated account of God's trying to kill Moses). They also incorporated texts that explicitly carried an aura of times past, creating what Mr. Alter calls an antiquity effect. Invocations of ancient events and primal rites, along with allusions to the rise and fall of earlier empires, add to the ineffable nature of the story told. The Israelites are thus placed not at history's beginning but in the very midst of its maelstrom, struggling to make sense of it, as we, today, struggle with these accounts.

The Israelites' struggle is unrelenting and it is urgent. How is a civil society to be constructed out of its willful, desirous tribes? How are reluctant and faltering leaders to be guided? How are they to be disciplined? What makes this society's existence worth preserving? What makes it different from those that threaten it? And how does it relate to forces beyond its ken?

These are the fundamental questions asked by every people of every age into the familiar present. The structure of law and ritual offered in Leviticus and Numbers is the Bible's primary response, demonstrating, Mr. Alter believes, a "pervasive spiritual seriousness."

But there is no explanation offered for the law. Its statements are as firm and beyond disagreement as "Let there be light." They attempt to create order out of the welter and waste and darkness of humanity whose disruptions, jealousies and dissatisfactions erupt even in the midst of the Bible's sober, legal expositions. "The ritual implementation of the monotheistic vision," Mr. Alter explains, "was a battle against the inchoate."

That enterprise, as the Bible shows again and again, is always threatened, always incomplete. So, as Mr. Alter knows, is the literary enterprise to translate and interpret the biblical epic. Welter and waste and darkness remain, in any act of creation, which doesn't make one any less grateful for what has been accomplished.

Re: OT: What\'s your religeon?
 

summery of Alarikf "robert alter" dialogue.

Man made a literary "god" to help him with his social problems around him.

So its not important that "god" was there to make creation. (since the denial of that premise is already agreed upon.) But that "man" made the text to help organize the chaos of mankind's existence.

So religious "supernatural" experience is divorced from the equation and the literary explanations of the Authors is emphasized.