OT: Bible Discussion (Split from Real World Sensitivities)

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

Secularists sue to prevent schoolkids from praying. Teachers confiscate Bibles.

My friend, the public school of a lay state is a place to /Learn/. I don't say it, it's in the laws of the state you accepted to live in. School is a place to learn maths, english, geography and science. Not Creationism, which is one religious, non-scientific thing. Not praying, because there are places, not of the state, for doing this as a freedom the state consider innate into you and nobody can remove. And not having Bible, because in a school a Bible is just out of place, as it would be everything else not related to teaching to children (from a Superman comic book to Playboy sorry, joking)

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

Basically, Christ's message here is not that we have to literally hate our families. Rather, His message is that we must love Him so much that we are willing to sacrifice anything (or anyone) for Him.

Auch, excuse me but I think no one, NO ONE, could ask to an healthy, sane, person, to sacrifice (I know of course in a non literal way) the people he loves the most in his life, daughters, wives, parents, to a person claiming (you said it) to be God, a person never appeared to me, lived (if lived) 2000 years ago. Not even if they believe in something else than him.

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

Jesus was telling a parable in Luke 19, the Parable of the Ten Minas. Those words you quoted are spoken by Jesus, but they're actually the words of the king in the parable.

True, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear it was a Parable. But you should go further talking. The parable is something Jesus uses in that occasion to talk about the Reign of God, as it is said in that paragraph. The king is God, clearly, without any need of interpretation. You have read the chapter. "Kill whoever doesn't accept me", in the mouth of Jesus - who IS God himself - doesn't sound any better thinking at it as a parable and "not literal".

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

As with the quote from Luke 14, Jesus is trying to warn His followers about the high cost of following Him. The Gospel divides people based on belief. Those who believe Jesus are fundamentally different from those who do not believe.

Well, maybe that is my main problem with the whole thing. Religion (not only yours) divides people (families! The Bible itself says so) of today's complex and ever-changing world, on world views that are at the best, what? 2000 years old.
You may say they are still valid. I read the Old Testament, or the Quran and I say no, the world is changed, the world MUST CONTINUE CHANGING to go far from these world views of DIVISION and HATRED, not to talk about lapidation and mass murder. Those words cannot have been inspired by a perfect and loving god for me. There must be a mistake, those are the words of a tyrant of cavemen. I just can't accept it.

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

That said, it is also important to understand that Christians interpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus. [...] So we don't ignore the Hebrew Scriptures, but we do understand them in a very different way from most Jews.

Please, tell me how the light of Jesus can make you understand in a (as rational as possible) way, this (almost random quote):

"Now KILL ALL THE BOYS AMONG THE LITTLE ONES. And KILL EVERY WOMAN WHO AS SLEPT WITH A MAN, but SAVE FOR YOURSELF every GIRL OF YOUNG AGE who has never slept with a man." [Numbers 31:17-18]

It is Moses (one of the greater prophets of your religion) which says in the God-inspired Bible what to do to the prisoners of a war against a city, a war which is THE VENGEANCE OF GOD, Numbers 31:3
You talk about the lens of Jesus, my friend, but I fear no lens can let me accept those fearful, full of hate words, in the mouth of a God someone believes in. (Note, the WORDS, not the BELIEVER himself)

Still, of course, nothing against you. A hug and my best wishes.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

When interpreting Scripture, context is key. In Luke 14, Jesus was telling His followers about the cost of being a disciple. He wanted to make it very clear to them that His demands were absolute. There should be no possibility of divided loyalties, because Jesus must be the Lord of your life. Reading the whole chapter makes this point quite clear.

Basically, Christ's message here is not that we have to literally hate our families. Rather, His message is that we must love Him so much that we are willing to sacrifice anything (or anyone) for Him.

For some reason it wanted to glitch and note show Tifone's original quote from Luke 14. I gave up trying to get it into this reply. Anyway, I find this part particularly interesting, because it's the same sort of indoctrination that is embedded into the US Special Forces, and CIA. Only there they replace Jesus with America. The premise is still the same, to convince someone to embrace something so entirely with their being, that should they be told that their own brother or mother is a threat, that they will do what has to be done to protect the ideological focal point.

Originally Posted by SlipperyJim

As with the quote from Luke 14, Jesus is trying to warn His followers about the high cost of following Him. The Gospel divides people based on belief. Those who believe Jesus are fundamentally different from those who do not believe. Our priorities are different. Our worldview is different. Our lives are different. When Jesus is Lord, everything changes.

This is the essential premise that must be laid down before leaders can develop a militant "us vs them" mentality. You call non-believers "fundamentally different", but between the two quotes provided here, and your rationale to support them, you mean that non-believers are "inferior". Beyond that, non-believers are not just inferior, but expendable, and perhaps worthy of direct and violent retribution for their disbelieving ways. To me it seems that this is a good example of scripture that you can interpret to your heart's delight, you can dress it up and sugar coat it all you want - and it's still just wrong, and no matter how you try to bury it, it is filled with malice and dischord.

Originally Posted by Nikelaos

I think it is wrong for people to pick out little qoutes to make judgements, being totally conservative here, the bible was written by several people and their scriptures were all written at different times, even the 4 gospels were written with a 30/40 year gap between each one and as such each chapter of the bible will have the individual ideas of a single individual and is insufficient in my opinion to lift an entire faith but instead the fundamentals of the entire collection of scriptures should just be followed.

But the bible itself states that it is the word of god. It seems illogical to assume that an essentially infallible being would deposit its teachings into people who were so horribly flawed that they would contradict eachother, and make such horrible and glaring errors as are seen. Hence, the basic disagreement between logic and faith ensues.

Originally Posted by Nikelaos

also to clarify i believe most christians take the old testament to be little more than a fable, the fundamental values are accepted but the stories aren't necesarrily taken literally as they are written in the bible.

And again, it seems terribly illogical to claim that part of a religious scripture is directly literal, while another part is figurative. I find it amusing that when religious believers are confronted on certain points, they argue that the "word of god" must be taken literally word for word. Confronted on other points, and they will figuratively construe the message in whatever convoluted way necessary to support their own point of view. It is worth noting that this particular point of view may not mesh with many other factions of the religion, who will interpret that particular portion of the bible in a different way.

[JimMorrison]

Oh and I'm glad that this thread picked back up. 8 )

Let's just try to keep things civil please, so the discourse can continue. As the most level-headed faithful whom I have met have claimed to only want to help me and improve my life, it is the same that I give in return. Personally I believe that there is only one spiritual destination, and that no religion can actually take you all the way there. They are human constructs (most of them quite old, as well), and therefore intrinsically flawed. It is the individual, the human who must transcend beyond the confusion and lies - grasping the seed of truth that is within their faith, and letting it grow within themselves without the interference of of the garbled rantings of barbaric and unwashed madmen from the past.

<3

[JaghataiKhan]

I'm happy to answer questions about my faith, but I'm not going to read comics by some organization called the Luciferian Liberation Front. Life is too short to spend on such pastimes....

O RLY? The comic directly quoted from the OT, I remember stating that. Nice dodge. Life is never short not to read even the rival's apologetics(correct If I wrongly used it)

Let me read it for you then! As the Jews exited Egypt, they assaulted the promised land to cleanse it of other faiths. It speaks of 32000 virgins captured, 32 of hem SACRIFICED to God WHILE BURNED ALIVE(stop dodging this!), and the rest given as slave wives!

So stop defending the Abrahamic faiths. God ordered these. That equals a "sick feck".

You Christian folk are all the same. You always dodge a question, miss the point, find a way to denigrate the rival argumentator (Luciferian liberation front is an atheist website, but it is named Luciferian! OHNOES!), or entirely try to lead away from the point.

Well, my final conclusion is that God is a 5 year old fat kid throwing a hissy fit against a creaton that gives him the finger because he is just that. Noah's flood itself is stolen from Gilgamesh, and is logically contradicting as a perfect God simply can disintegrate those hated in an instant, and never need a pair of animals to repopulate the world. Babies drowned too, animals drowned too, children drowned as well. A perfect entity CANNOT make this. End of discusion.

So your God is either a mad raving monster or a holy entity that has LIMITED powers. Take your pick.

Also, if such a thing is perfectly holy, I am the anti-Christ, or will definitely follow him should all this Bronze Age babble is right, and he will rise.

[llamabeast]

Er, as a moderator I'm feeling a little nervous here. This thread is on the very edge of disaster.

JaghataiKhan, if you got banned from the Mount&Blade forums for being offensive in your vehement assaults on religion, please try to avoid repeating that here.

In any case, I am moving this to the Bar&Grill, as it has nothing to do with Dom3.

[Edratman]

This site is a collection of saying from a famed (at the time) late 19th century American athiest.

Naturally, I concur with this.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/.../ingersoll.htm

[Edi]

For the sake of completeness, this was split from here.

[Kuritza]

Originally Posted by Tifone

Surely there were a lot of non-religious dispotic nationalist governments which committed lots of atrocities (Russia, Cambodia).

/Cough
Was it Russia or Cambodia that dropped nuclear bombs on civilians?... Or maybe they started Opium Wars after Chinese government tried to protect its citizens against drug dealers?..
/cough
Lets keep to the topic, please, which is religion.

[Agema]

Mainstream interpretation of the Bible, even since the earliest Christian theologians, has never been that it is entirely literal.

Even if the Bible is the word of God, it does not mean it has to be literal truth. It is logically consistent to say that although God is perfect, any communication he could render to humans must be interpreted by imperfect human understanding. (That argument was originally based on Platonic philosophy, although it's also compatible into one of the major strands of postmodern philosophy.)

The failing with literal interpretation was pointed out over 1500 years ago by Christian theologians. They noticed their understanding was far greater than the primitives who wrote the early Bible and had even less chance of comprehending the whole truth. As human knowledge grows, Christians need to consider whether tracts of the Bible are actually loose framework, grossly simplified versions of events, or outright allegory.

For Christians to back total literal interpretation is to put them at odds with the intellectual background of their own religion. For atheists to do it (assuming they aren't countering a literalist), it's nothing but setting up a straw man.

[thejeff]

I suspect atheists often assume the literalist position because many of the most extreme and the most vocal Christians are literalists, especially in the US and many places on the net.

I know that most Christians aren't literalists, but most of the ones I worry about are.