Religion - I can understand someone believing in god/jesus, but why do they believe in the bible?
- Thread starter SkScotchegg
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But without the Koran and bible for e.g being used to 'spread the word ' how could those two religions even exist as they are today
If I ask that last question to some of the posters on this thread I doubt I will get any answers will I? Where do they think heaven is, that's another question I've not seen an answer to because it sure aint above the clouds as was the belief before man took to the skies 100 years ago
I'm pretty sure that many Christians view god in the form of a man with long hair and a beard who watches over his subjects from above simply because artists in the middle ages portrayed Jesus in that manner and films still do today
mmm, no celestial virgins for me, I would expect.
No. Go and sit on the naughty step.
Religions managed fine for ages without texts. It just helps to have them, now that lots of us can read.
Usher said:
Outside this Universe.
Usher said:
I've no idea what God looks like.
But the Bible means a myriad of different things to a myriad of different people, I find it highly unlikely (in fact I am positive) that there are very few people of faith who rely solely on the Bible or Torah or whatever, for their belief. Just look at the different interpretations of the Bible and different denominations based upon it.
I doubt that was the common belief in 1910, but then we can look at other more secular beliefs which would seem backward today, like Smoking being good for the Lungs etc...
I doubt that also.
Soldato
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Nope, but then i can't remember seeing anywhere that a lack of sanity rescinds ones freedom of speech? We are all quite insane at the end of the day, and you are no more troubled than I.
'Reading things into other peoples posts' - You mean other than a previous posters obviously challenged relationship with his sister that he bought up and into this thread of his own accord? You mean me taking offence at that same posters use of the example of a dead or sick child as a means to not believe in God?
Oh and not one single person has responded to my still-no-proof-for-the-Higgs-Boson-which-surely-means-it-doesnt-exist challenge as a counter to faith without proof.
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So you're the guy making sure all the Christmas light decorations in towns are non-denominational just in case they offend some theoretical hyper-sensitive non-christian. I always wondered where you were hiding.
Or you're the guy complaining to the Daily Mail because South Park parodied something a bit close to home.
Seriously? Homeboy was making a perfectly valid, perfectly on-topic, perfectly succinct point. In no way was what he typed akin to the abortion "analogy" you presented.
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I think bunnykillbot lives in a fantasy world of his own and seems incapable of reading posts in the manner they were intended and instead reads things into them that others don't even contemplate and then starts spouting laughable waffle to try and justify it. Quite frankly if I was a Christian myself I would find his outbursts an embarrassment.
It's like me finding his user name ' bunnykillbot' offensive because I am an animal lover and he thinks that killing fluffy little bunnies is oh so hilariously funny and then he'll claim he didn't intend that at all.
You decide
Soldato
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Personal insults i can cope with, but your total lack of countering any of my arguments amuses me greatly.
Most people on this forum will believe in the Higgs Boson, even though zero evidence exists
Most people on this forum will believe, given the size of the universe, that extraterrestrial life exists, despite again, zero evidence.
Your argument 'God doesn't exist because there is no proof' is fundamentally flawed by your own hypocrisy.
Most people on this forum will believe in the Higgs Boson, even though zero evidence exists
Most people on this forum will believe, given the size of the universe, that extraterrestrial life exists, despite again, zero evidence.
Your argument 'God doesn't exist because there is no proof' is fundamentally flawed by your own hypocrisy.
BunnyKillBot... I have to agree with you that there does tend to be a lot of hypocrisy on here.
Not sure how long you have been on ocuk but apparently we have christians who do not believe in the Bible or Jesus or in God, muslims who do not believe the Quran is the word of God, vegetarians who eat meat etc. People seem to choose whatever they wish to be and also decide themselves what it means to be such and such, thus changing the very definition of what they claim to be.
There is nothing wrong with someone having a different interpretation of the Bible or Quran, by all means bring it forward and explain and argue your case, but when you say you don't believe in any of it, don't call yourself a Christian or Muslim, just stop deceiving yourself.
Not sure how long you have been on ocuk but apparently we have christians who do not believe in the Bible or Jesus or in God, muslims who do not believe the Quran is the word of God, vegetarians who eat meat etc. People seem to choose whatever they wish to be and also decide themselves what it means to be such and such, thus changing the very definition of what they claim to be.
There is nothing wrong with someone having a different interpretation of the Bible or Quran, by all means bring it forward and explain and argue your case, but when you say you don't believe in any of it, don't call yourself a Christian or Muslim, just stop deceiving yourself.
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I don't think anyone could want to counter your argument as your in world of your own.
It's your condescending attitude that lets you down, particularly as regards your comments re my sister, you say she loves me and is afraid I won't go to heaven
You have zero knowledge of my sister and more to the point her Christadelphian beliefs which does not accept that there is such a place as heaven so get your basic facts right as you seemingly like to portray the voice of all knowledge attitude.And as for your incredibly childish rant about 'how dare I post on a public forum' re my post regarding praying for a sick child and then posting a link to a newspaper story of a young man being killed and then following it up with a bizarre accusation that I might picket such a funeral shows that you have some very serious radical fundamentalist issues within your mind. However as it appears you have some kind of mental illness I will make allowances for you and not pursue this any further
This hypothetical "most people on this forum" that you mention probably "believe" in the Higgs Boson due to the fact that it has been demonstrated by complex maths and physics that such a particle is the most likely explanation for observed effects in the real world. The same can be said of extraterrestrial life. We know, to a degree, the requirements for life to occur and we now regularly see evidence of planets being found that could meet those requirements.
To my knowledge the same claim is not made for God, although IMO there are always some "people of faith" (and iI'm sure everyone, faithful or not, know someone like it) are more than happy to argue that absolutely anything as being due to God as the only explanation. You could say the same about 9/11 nuts.
Soldato
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Izzy, *Yawn* /ignore
So a hypothesis, rooted in the language of mathematics *There exists an expectation that the Higgs Boson does exist*, but it has not yet been observed.
Again a hypothesis, although this time less rooted in sound mathematics. *There exists an expectation that other life does exist*, although to date it has not actually been observed.
**
These precepts are all faith. The experiments of the LHC could still go either way. Even with a newly appointed EU minister for interplanetary relations, he may never get a call into work. You are hedging your bets on an outcome before actually seeing the result.
So how are we different?
So a hypothesis, rooted in the language of mathematics *There exists an expectation that the Higgs Boson does exist*, but it has not yet been observed.
Again a hypothesis, although this time less rooted in sound mathematics. *There exists an expectation that other life does exist*, although to date it has not actually been observed.
**
These precepts are all faith. The experiments of the LHC could still go either way. Even with a newly appointed EU minister for interplanetary relations, he may never get a call into work. You are hedging your bets on an outcome before actually seeing the result.
So how are we different?
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This hypothetical "most people on this forum" that you mention probably "believe" in the Higgs Boson due to the fact that it has been demonstrated by complex maths and physics that such a particle is the most likely explanation for observed effects in the real world. The same can be said of extraterrestrial life. We know, to a degree, the requirements for life to occur and we now regularly see evidence of planets being found that could meet those requirements.
To my knowledge the same claim is not made for God, although IMO there are always some "people of faith" (and iI'm sure everyone, faithful or not, know someone like it) are more than happy to argue that absolutely anything as being due to God as the only explanation. You could say the same about 9/11 nuts.
those complex math and observations could just as easily be God, or the Flying Spaghetti monster or just about anything, even non corporeal extra terrestial life.....
Well I guess the majority of people will be relatively unmoved one way or the other if HB is directly observed.
The Bible being true and Jesus Christ actually being the eternal Logos, only begotten of God the Father, has huge implications for a person's entire life though. St Paul got it bang on though. If there was no resurrection we are totally wasting our time.
As many atheists and agnostics have mentioned on these forums: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When making claims about Jesus, we are generally not just asking people to accept an idea. We are claiming they need to live their lives differently. Most people are going to want not only convincing evidence but direct experience to swallow that. Otherwise why waste their time?
I've seen enough to convince me, but experience was a huge contributary factor. Intellectual study of the Bible and surrounding history alone would probably not have led me to faith, although I do believe that Christian theism is intellectually coherent and robust.
Even if you can convince someone intellectually, there's still a big hurdle to salvation: "So you believe that there is one God? Good! Even the demons believe that and shudder."
I feel that all this discussion on whether religion is good or bad, or whether God exists or not is ultimately down to the individual to decide, but I feel that within all this is the overriding concept of tolerance, tolerance of those with faith from those with none, and tolerance of those with none by those with faith.
When we can all agree that some believe different things and that ultimately it doesn't really matter one way or the other then maybe, just maybe we can all celebrate our differences and not castigate them.
I couldn't give two figs for what anyone believes, as long as they are tolerant of those who believe differently or not at all and vice versa.
I have read the Bible (seven different versions in fact, including the Latin) and the Quran (in Arabic and English (they were not exactly the same incredibly) and frankly neither gave me any belief in their respective version of God (neither did they prove to me that God didn't exist either, I am ambivalent on that subject). I found them extremely interesting though and a excellent source of research historically (regardless of the criticism about authenticity).
This to me is their true worth, as tools to learn and teach, be it the lessons contained within or as reference to the ancient world. I think that it is time that the major religions took another look at their Canon and Scripture and reassessed what message they wish to convey. I would go for one of inclusion and tolerance regardless of belief.
When we can all agree that some believe different things and that ultimately it doesn't really matter one way or the other then maybe, just maybe we can all celebrate our differences and not castigate them.
I couldn't give two figs for what anyone believes, as long as they are tolerant of those who believe differently or not at all and vice versa.
I have read the Bible (seven different versions in fact, including the Latin) and the Quran (in Arabic and English (they were not exactly the same incredibly) and frankly neither gave me any belief in their respective version of God (neither did they prove to me that God didn't exist either, I am ambivalent on that subject). I found them extremely interesting though and a excellent source of research historically (regardless of the criticism about authenticity).
This to me is their true worth, as tools to learn and teach, be it the lessons contained within or as reference to the ancient world. I think that it is time that the major religions took another look at their Canon and Scripture and reassessed what message they wish to convey. I would go for one of inclusion and tolerance regardless of belief.
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Soldato
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Izzy I have one final challenge to offer you, Heaven. Its got a bit of a preamble and i have no doubt its quite waffly so i don't expect you to read it, but i'm always open to suprises.
I love mathematics. I really do. Maths is an incredibly powerful language that can be used to define and shape incredibly complicated ideas. Its power lies in its unparalleled consistency through a stringent syntax and well defined set of governing principles. Any given formula expressed using mathematics has but one definition. The formula 2 + 2 = 4 for instance is explicitely clear in its meaning. The symbol + has but one definition, to add. The symbol = has but one definition, the result. Every operator imaginable has a single, constrained, absolute definition. Every number in the range +∞ to -∞ is, by virtue of having no physical definition, defined.
Unfortunately, the language of Human-kind, used to convey meaning to other Humans is not mathematics. The language of people is symbolic, emotive, inferred and resolved pictorially.
Take the simple sentence 'The Cat sat on the Mat' for instance.
When you read that, what images conjured in your minds eye? What did the cat look like? What of the mat? What did 'sitting' actually entail? Upon reading, the precise meaning of the terms differs according to the perspective of the reader. No matter how many times we repeat this process the cat you see is not the cat I see. The mat you see is not the mat I see. The verb action 'sat' will never play out in your minds eye the precise way it does in mine.
The problem is two fold and we are both at fault.
Firstly, I was not precise enough in my use of Language to properly define the terms. With enough adjectives, scene setting and so forth I might be able to get close, but your reading will always be biased by your understanding of the terms used forthwith. It is the reason many book-to-movies fail. What you 'see' when you read a good book may not be what the director of the latest blockbuster sees.
Secondly, in your reading you made an assumption of what the terms used actually meant. This is an automatic, human and normal process. You 'grab' the first thing that comes to mind when you think 'cat' and you define the term according to your knowledge and understanding.
So to get to the point:
You claim that there exists one, true understanding of the term 'Heaven' which, it so happens, is your understanding of the term 'Heaven'. Thereby, because there is only one understanding of the term 'Heaven', which is your understanding of the term 'Heaven', your sisters is wrong.
It is my belief, and this is true generally in wider society as well, that when religiously minded people talk to non-religious people there is often an air of 'we are not even talking the same language' because this is, ultimately, true. You hear and speak of one word, while the other hears and speaks an entirely different definition of the same word. How can we ever properly converse when the terms of our language are not absolutely defined?
I love mathematics. I really do. Maths is an incredibly powerful language that can be used to define and shape incredibly complicated ideas. Its power lies in its unparalleled consistency through a stringent syntax and well defined set of governing principles. Any given formula expressed using mathematics has but one definition. The formula 2 + 2 = 4 for instance is explicitely clear in its meaning. The symbol + has but one definition, to add. The symbol = has but one definition, the result. Every operator imaginable has a single, constrained, absolute definition. Every number in the range +∞ to -∞ is, by virtue of having no physical definition, defined.
Unfortunately, the language of Human-kind, used to convey meaning to other Humans is not mathematics. The language of people is symbolic, emotive, inferred and resolved pictorially.
Take the simple sentence 'The Cat sat on the Mat' for instance.
When you read that, what images conjured in your minds eye? What did the cat look like? What of the mat? What did 'sitting' actually entail? Upon reading, the precise meaning of the terms differs according to the perspective of the reader. No matter how many times we repeat this process the cat you see is not the cat I see. The mat you see is not the mat I see. The verb action 'sat' will never play out in your minds eye the precise way it does in mine.
The problem is two fold and we are both at fault.
Firstly, I was not precise enough in my use of Language to properly define the terms. With enough adjectives, scene setting and so forth I might be able to get close, but your reading will always be biased by your understanding of the terms used forthwith. It is the reason many book-to-movies fail. What you 'see' when you read a good book may not be what the director of the latest blockbuster sees.
Secondly, in your reading you made an assumption of what the terms used actually meant. This is an automatic, human and normal process. You 'grab' the first thing that comes to mind when you think 'cat' and you define the term according to your knowledge and understanding.
So to get to the point:
You claim that there exists one, true understanding of the term 'Heaven' which, it so happens, is your understanding of the term 'Heaven'. Thereby, because there is only one understanding of the term 'Heaven', which is your understanding of the term 'Heaven', your sisters is wrong.
It is my belief, and this is true generally in wider society as well, that when religiously minded people talk to non-religious people there is often an air of 'we are not even talking the same language' because this is, ultimately, true. You hear and speak of one word, while the other hears and speaks an entirely different definition of the same word. How can we ever properly converse when the terms of our language are not absolutely defined?
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Does anyone think that perhaps the bible etc was merely borne on the lack of knowledge at the time & had to "find" a higher being to explain away mysterious ailments/phenomena etc at the time? I mean...the burning bush....if that's not a reference to medieval vd/jock itch then I don't know what is. Things get lost in translation along the way. & then you have idiots..yes...IDIOTS..who this day & age still believe it all. Anyway...if it keeps you happy...whatever floats ya boat & all that...(or sinks it...depending on the religion lol)
You (or the position you're arguing from, of course) have faith in something which *cannot* be explained using the language of logic, and subsequent derivations, to another being.
The Boson/UFO "believers" have faith in something *rooted* in the formal language of logic, which can be explained and readily demonstrated to have foundation in truth to another being.
I already know who's going to reply to this and what they're going to call me out on, but he asked why they're different, and this is why. One is pure, absolute, personal-experience-based faith, and the others aren't necessarily so. They are reasonable*, logical extrapolations. And chiefly: nobody's claiming that anybody else will suffer pain for eternity of they don't believe in the higgs boson or that ET life is likely. Do you see?
*Yes, I know, before the absolutistier-than-thou guys post, "what's reasonable to one may not be to someone else", sure. However. Any debate, any intelligent discourse, must be based on certain assumptions for both parties, for it to even exist. Every single thing you want to talk about, even the mere act of talking about something (with the implication being that there's a point to engaging in such) requires some assumptions and/or "faith". A point several people don't (to me, at least, and in the interests of disclosure I have had a few Peronis tonight OK
) like to mention is that "Faith" is not binary. Or rather, the view of faith as binary doesn't get you very far, and you can make much finer, more detailed, more granular assessments of situations, and statements about such, when you take a continuous model of "faith".Nobody is arguing that "being logical" doesn't take any faith at all. Of course it does. Everything does. Some things take more faith than others. Do you see?
Next up: is the practice of "logically deducing that logic takes less faith than traditional organised religion-based belief" circular and/or shall I have another Peroni?
If more of us were John Lennon we'd all be assassinated, sadly
But yes, this. Fundamentally this.Sadly, woven into the fabric of organised religion (or a large proportion of the populations perception of it, then) is the belief that *it really does matter both one way and the other*, which is why this blissful state of affairs is a looong way off.