Reading the bible

Squark said:
The Bible is very historically accurate, events in the Bible which were though to be false have actually been proved to have occurred with historical evidence.
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This is addressed to all people who have a faith or believe in one religion over any other...

Can you explain why you trust in your 'god' particularly and not Jesus, Allah or Shiva or Zeus or Jupiter or Ram or Ganesha or Ra or Isis or Seth etc etc ?

I have always wondered how people with faith can be so certain that they have got it 'right' when that means that so many people (a vast majority) both past and present have got it wrong.
 
Hodders said:
This is addressed to all people who have a faith or believe in one religion over any other...
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I'm not religious so probably shouldn't really be answering but you could work up an argument that there is only one god who appears in different forms to appeal to differing groups of people (Brave New World advances such an argument for instance). This also allows you to explain apparantly contradictory themes between religions as they were designed to explain problems or codes of conduct that made sense in a particular region or at a specific time period.
 
semi-pro waster said:
I'm not religious so probably shouldn't really be answering but you could work up an argument that there is only one god who appears in different forms to appeal to differing groups of people (Brave New World advances such an argument for instance). This also allows you to explain apparantly contradictory themes between religions as they were designed to explain problems or codes of conduct that made sense in a particular region or at a specific time period.
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You should check out Ba'hai :)
 
Shoseki said:
You should check out Ba'hai :)
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I've met a few Ba'hai and they were nice folks, it sounds a lot better than some in that you are encouraged to seek out your own 'truth' but it's still a form of organised religion and on that basis alone I'd be unlikely to get along with it. It isn't that I want to believe in anything particularly, I just don't like other people being told that they can't/shouldn't believe.
 
semi-pro waster said:
I'm not religious so probably shouldn't really be answering but you could work up an argument that there is only one god who appears in different forms to appeal to differing groups of people (Brave New World advances such an argument for instance). This also allows you to explain apparantly contradictory themes between religions as they were designed to explain problems or codes of conduct that made sense in a particular region or at a specific time period.
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Fair enough - Judaism, Islam and Christianity can be "unified" in this way as can most monotheistic religions. But it starts to get more and more difficult (and starts to look like more and more of a cop out) when you start to include polytheistic religions.

Sure you can say that the multitude of Hindu gods are simply manifestations of different parts of Gods will. But in order to do so you have to ignore huge swathes of catechism and credos belonging to the religion in question.

It undermines (fatally IMO) any religion when you start to pick and chose, accept and ignore, repeat and update. Basically change it. If something is 100% true then changing any part of it makes it less true.

If something is less than 100% true than it cannot be 100% correct and is not suitable for a faith.
 
Hodders said:
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If something is less than 100% true than it cannot be 100% correct and is not suitable for a faith.
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If you're looking for a universal truth that is correct for all eras and unchanging then I think you'll always be disappointed, societies move on as does the World itself. What was once useful isn't automatically so 1,000 years down the line or even just 20 years on. If you boil it down then Bill in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures is probably remarkably close to a universal truth with "be excellent to each other" as it is about as simple as it gets and the closest thing to a code of conduct we should all follow that is useful, other useful codes of behaviour come and go but "be nice to each other" is one for the ages, societies need that sort of conduct otherwise they begin to fail.
 
semi-pro waster said:
If you're looking for a universal truth that is correct for all eras and unchanging then I think you'll always be disappointed, societies move on as does the World itself. What was once useful isn't automatically so 1,000 years down the line or even just 20 years on. If you boil it down then Bill in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures is probably remarkably close to a universal truth with "be excellent to each other" as it is about as simple as it gets and the closest thing to a code of conduct we should all follow that is useful, other useful codes of behaviour come and go but "be nice to each other" is one for the ages, societies need that sort of conduct otherwise they begin to fail.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a universal truth in any way. Other than you're born, you die, you decay.

In all honesty I have very little time for religion. As an anthropological tool it is useful in explaining human behaviour and evolution. As a model for living you life most major religions have some value.

But the problem comes when belief is absolute, it leads to all sorts of problems - best summed up by Steven Weinberg - "Without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

There are some people who are unable to live with the harsh realities of life. I remember aged 8 a feeling that whilst being hugged by my mother nothing could hurt me. It was lovely, but I grew up and realised that life just wasn't like that.

I feel that for many adults religion is a way of hanging onto the 'being held and safe' feeling. Some people take prozac, some people take religion.
 
Edinho said:
Unless anyone here can read ancient hebrew I think all comments are a bit invalid. I find it a bit strange that a whole religion can be based on 'someones' translation.

Islam gets a lot of stick but at least they dont muck about, what it says it says, and thats it.

Im not religious just a neutral observer.

Also the bible is a book of metaphors and riddles, The Flood, Genesis, Adam & Eve take them literally then its plainly stupid, I see no reason why Genesis can be loosly akin to the big bang theory, albeit in an unscientific way. But put this to both Christians and (so called) atheists both scoff. Both as bad as each other imo.

Its a piece of literature, not to be taken as gospel, not to be mocked, and not to be written off as a piece of junk either.
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I think your a bit naive in saying there isn't different translations and interpretations of the Qur-an, because there is, hence why you get Sunny and Shia Muslims. Also lot's of people, scholars and the like can read ancient Hebrew, my dad can read it for a start.
 
Hodders said:
Can you explain why you trust in your 'god' particularly and not Jesus, Allah or Shiva or Zeus or Jupiter or Ram or Ganesha or Ra or Isis or Seth etc etc ?
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well I don't believe there to actually be a difference between any of them, whoever is really up there will get the praise/worship/talked to/prayers etc.................. the name isn't important. Indeed Allah and God are the same thing, Arabic speaking Christians would still call God Allah, because it is just God in Arabic.
 
Hodders said:
"Without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
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always found this quote weird, because it assumes that there is an absolute good and evil, objective morality, but for that to exist there needs to be a divine authority, such as a God. Which kind of undermines the point.
 
yantorsen said:
always found this quote weird, because it assumes that there is an absolute good and evil, objective morality, but for that to exist there needs to be a divine authority, such as a God. Which kind of undermines the point.
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I think you just unnessecarily complicated his point. Which was that 'people with good intentions in the name of religion can commit immoral acts'.
 
Nitefly said:
I think you just unnessecarily complicated his point. Which was that 'people with good intentions in the name of religion can commit immoral acts'.
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As can those who don't act in the name of religion, Hitler for one, or any number of African warlords for more recent examples. People are always going to act wrongly towards others, religion simply provides a convenient excuse.

I'm certainly not saying that religion is blameless, their are very few people in any position of authority that have never taken some sort of advantage of it, but if I were to go out and kill a hundred people in your name I would be the one that gets the blame, not you.
 
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Spuds said:
As can those who don't act in the name of religion, Hitler for one, or any number of African warlords for more recent examples. People are always going to act wrongly towards others, religion simply provides a convenient excuse.

I'm certainly not saying that religion is blameless, their are very few people in any position of authority that have never taken some sort of advantage of it, but if I were to go out and kill a hundred people in your name I would be the one that gets the blame, not you.
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BADUM! Hitler invoked!
 
Some interesting points taken from the King James Version:

http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/1/eVerseID/1

Please feel free to put the book/verse in and check the passage;


II Samuel 24.9

And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

I Chronicles 21.5

And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.

So how many fighting men were found in Israel and in Judah?



II Samuel 24.13

So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days' pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.

I Chronicles 21.12

Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.

How many years of famine?


II Kings 24.8

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.

II Chronicles 36.9

Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

How old was he?


Now God doesn't make mistakes. There are loads and loads more basic errors like the above, which is why you cannot follow the Bible anymore as it has so clearly been tampered with.
 
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