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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: I gave up on believing in God.
Thread: I gave up on believing in God. This Popular Thread is 204 pages long: 1 30 60 90 ... 98 99 100 101 102 ... 120 150 180 204 · «PREV / NEXT»
Doomforge
Doomforge


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posted April 08, 2008 11:01 AM
Edited by Doomforge at 11:04, 08 Apr 2008.

Quote:
It seems to me the entire bible is defunct then, not just Leviticus..


The problem with Old Testament is that it was man-made, whatever those men claimed. Christians believe that Jesus was sent also to straighten out the unclear things, and he did. See that some of his teachings and actions contradicted the old laws and customs.

And Popes also claimed that whatever they said was the direct word of God.. they even released a decree that made it "official" (That Pope is infallible - it has never been annulled ). If it applies to Popes, why can't it apply to people who wrote parts of old Testament? I believe the contradictions in it aren't because God isn't sure himself what to do. It's people's work. Mistakes, and so on. Perhaps also sexist parts and many others. Jesus claimed men and women are totally equal and I believe it solves the mystery

Do you know what inspired Old Testament? It often were dreams, visions and such. Even if part of them really were God's doing (ok, sounds naive, but I don't care ;P), then at least a part of them could be misinterpreted or simply irrevelant.



But most important of all, I don't understand why do you think that a couple of man made old laws and customs written into the Bible deny the existence of a God.

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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 08, 2008 11:06 AM
Edited by TitaniumAlloy at 11:11, 08 Apr 2008.

Yes but it is clearly stated in the New Testament that all of the Bible is the word of God.

So if the Old Testament is written by men and is wrong, then the New Testament must also be wrong in saying this..


Also remember that Jesus refused to let Mary, a woman, touch him at one stage but a few verses later is happy for the male disciples touching him...


This conversation is separate to my belief that god does not exist, just as it's separate to my belief that chocolate is good
I'm proposing that the bible is, in it's entireity, useless, ranging from irrelevant to downright immoral and disgusting. The fleeting moments where one of it's many rules of things that "god doesn't want you to do" coincides with something that may be in fact morally right in the real world, then people thinks that that redeems it.
This is ridiculous, people who have never heard of the bible know that it is right not to steal/lie/kill... they just don't know it's right to grow your beard and cut off women's hands for stopping fights..



(on a side note, talking about what Jesus was sent to do... do you ever think that may be Jesus wouldn't want to die for his father? the bible says he did but his death was foretold before he was even born... this is hardly fair)
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Gallow
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posted April 08, 2008 11:15 AM

@angelito: what warning you talk about,you didnt warned,so stop acting like if i would said something really bad because i didnt,i dont like false accusations like this,im out of this thread and forum cant even post a dam bunch of letters and if i do make me feel sick,have fun aplying penalizations,your not neutral mod.

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Azagal
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posted April 08, 2008 11:22 AM
Edited by Azagal at 11:33, 08 Apr 2008.

@TA
Yes. So it's wrong in one point... big deal.
Quote:
Why is the bible so useless?
Because it was written, cover to cover, by primitive, power hungry, sexist men.

Well maybe not primitive but yes it was written by man, and the bible has most certainly been fitted for the purposes of the people in charge (I belive) but I don't see how that makes religion bad, nor declines the "existance" of god. Besides the bible is a freakin book anyone claiming it's only truth can't be taken serious. And well I guess catholic offical mostly say so because they have to (would be kind of embarrasing to admit that you've been wrong for the past 2000 years wouldn't it?). What I don't like in this thread is that some people tend to generalize a lot.

Quote:
So in my eyes, it is a bit naive to think religion is only a good thing. The main (and starting) reason may have been like that. But the world changed....and will change every "decade". As long as we have "free will", we will use those things for egoistic reasons.

Sorry but religion itself is not evil/bad and not necesarily good either. I think Dooms example was perfect.
Take a knife it's neither good nor evil it's the person useing who decides the effects of it not the thing itself.

This is also why I don't agree with TAs statement about religion being the cause of Crusades,etc. Crusades where started to conquer the east. I'm not saying that Jesus was coincidentally born in Nazareth and Jerusalem is somewhat holy to christians but religion itself wouldn't have lead to this. And I don't see how one can explain that it does but I'm open to suggestions. It's always one/a group of lunatic/s wanting to achieve something and religion can be an extremely helpful tool. That's all there is to it the way I see it.

Edit:
Quote:
I'm proposing that the bible is, in it's entireity, useless

Ok. I don't really know the bible but I don't belive it's entirely made up of "don't cut your beard"/"cut womens hands off"/"slavery is good"-ish arguments (I know you didn't say it is). The thing is that they are there but why should any reasonable christian belive it? Just because they stand in the bible? Even the Pope will tell you that that stuff is wrong/doesn't apply "anymore" (I guess of course I don't know what his holyness would do).
I mean what's wrong with the Bible being mostly/in big parts/partly useless/immoral/repulsive etc. ? As I already said I belive anyone takeing stuff like that (your leviticus quotes for example) for granted to be ignorant. But how does that make christianity bad? You see any normal christians living according to the ridicolous aspects of the bible (I'm not saying they're living by the good ones either)?
____________
"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord

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Doomforge
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posted April 08, 2008 11:32 AM

Well, the Bible is what it is. I respect it, and believe the contradictions are human made, and it still is a fraction of God's activity.

But enough about Bible, perhaps we should discuss something else now?

How about the Near Death Experiences?

From Stanford Encyclopedia:

Supposing that an afterlife is at least logically possible, is there any empirical evidence that might offer support for such a belief? Historically, much of the interest in psychical research, on the part of eminent philosophers such as William James, H. H. Price, and C. D. Broad, was motivated by a search for such evidence. However, it is arguable that a superior source of evidence lies in so-called “near-death experiences” (Bailey and Yates eds., 1996). These are experiences of persons who were, or perceived themselves to be, close to death; indeed many such persons met the criteria for clinical death. While in this state, they undergo remarkable experiences, often taken to be experiences of the world that awaits them after death. Returning to life, they testify to their experiences, claiming in many cases to have had their subsequent lives transformed as a result of the near-death experience. This testimony is especially compelling in that (a) large numbers of persons report having had such experiences; (b) the experiences come spontaneously to those near death, they are not sought out or deliberately induced; and (c) normally no one stands to benefit financially from either the experiences or the reports.

These experiences, furthermore, are not random in their contents. There are recurring elements that show up in many of these accounts, forming a general (but far from invariable) pattern. Typical elements include a sense of being dead, peacefulness and absence of pain; “out-of-body experiences” in which the subject views his or her own body “from outside” and witnesses various events, sometimes at a considerable distance from the location of the person's body; passing through a dark tunnel towards intense light; meeting “beings of light” (sometimes including friends and relatives who have died previously); and the “life review” in which the events of one's life pass before one and are subjected to evaluation. The subject may be initially disappointed or reluctant to return to the body, and (as already noted) many testify that the experience has been life-changing, leading to a lessened or absent fear of death and other beneficial results.

These experiences are surprisingly common. A Gallup poll taken in 1982 concluded that eight million Americans (about five percent of the adult population at that time) had survived a near-death experience. The experiences occur regardless of age, social class, race, or marital status. Probably the improvements in medical technology, which enable many to return from a state of “clinical death,” have increased the numbers in recent times. But NDEs have been reported throughout recorded history and from all corners of the earth . Since the publication in 1975 of Raymond Moody's book, Life After Life (Moody 1975), there have been numerous studies of the phenomenon, some of them carried out with careful attention to scientific objectivity (e.g., Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1982).

As one might expect, there is a wide variety in interpretations of NDEs, from those which take the experiences to be literally revelatory of a state that lies beyond death to debunking interpretations which see the experiences merely as a reflection of abnormal brain states. Neither of these views is compelling, for reasons that will be developed. Clearly there is no one medical or physiological cause; the experiences occur for persons in a great variety of medical conditions. Susan Blackmore employs a “divide-and-conquer” approach, assigning different medical causes to different aspects of the experience, but her conclusions are speculative and appear to outrun the data (Blackmore 1993). An interesting counterexample to explanations in terms of the “dying brain” is found in the NDEs experienced by mountain climbers in the midst of what they expected to be fatal falls (Heim 1892); it is hardly credible that these experiences can be put down either to drugs or to oxygen deprivation!

On the other hand, interpretations of NDEs as literally revelatory of the life to come, though common in the popular literature, are also suspect. Carol Zaleski has shown, through her comparative studies of medieval and modern NDEs, that many features of these experiences vary in ways that correspond to cultural expectations (Zaleski 1987). A striking instance of this is the minimal role played by judgment and damnation in modern NDEs; unlike the medieval cases, the modern life-review tends to be therapeutic in emphasis. In view of this, Zaleski ascribes the experiences to the religious imagination, insisting that to do so enhances rather than diminishes their significance.

It may be that some of the difficulty in interpretation arises from the attempt to ask, and answer, a single explanatory question. It may be more helpful to recognize that there are several distinguishable aspects of the experiences, each of them requiring explanation, though the explanations may not be unrelated. First, there is the inception of an NDE: what is it that triggers the experience? Second, there is the pattern — what Zaleski refers to as the “syntactic structure” — of NDEs, the repeated themes and elements that reappear time after time. While the pattern is far from invariable, and it may be rare for a single experience to exhibit all of the aspects, there is enough consistency in reported experiences to call for explanation. Third, there is the specific content of the experiences — what in particular is said to have been experienced by those who make the reports. Finally, there is what I shall term the evidential aspects of NDEs — those aspects of what is reported that can in principle be verified objectively, in such a way as to show that something has occurred that is not explainable through normally recognized natural processes.

What can be said, then, about the explanatory questions posed by these different aspects? With regard to the triggering event, the most plausible answer may be that the trigger is simply the perceived nearness of death. A specific physiological trigger is perhaps not ruled out, but there are no especially plausible candidates. (Once again, the cases of the falling mountaineers provide counterexamples to most medical explanations that could be offered.) One of the more deeply puzzling aspects of the situation lies in the pattern or general sequence of events that is common to many NDEs. If the experiences were random in character, they could more easily be dismissed as the result of a cognitive/sensory system gone haywire as a result of stress. But why just this specific pattern of experiences should often result, is a question that demands further consideration. (At this point explanations in terms of Jungian archetypes may be proffered. But for some of us, an appeal to Jungian archetypes does not constitute much of an advance in intelligibility.) With regard to the third aspect, the specific content of NDEs, we may be somewhat better placed. Zaleski has shown conclusively, by her comparison of modern with medieval and other pre-modern narratives, that the content is strongly influenced and conditioned by cultural expectations and assumptions concerning the “other world.” Zaleski does not, however, seem to recognize that an explanation is still called for as to why the religious imagination produces such a narrative now (that is, at the time of a near approach to death), and with this structure, as opposed to countless other patterns that might seem equally possible.

Finally, there is what may be the most neglected feature of all, what I have termed (following Gary Habermas) the evidential aspect of NDEs. These are phenomena that, provided they can be verified, indicate strongly that something is occurring that is not susceptible of an ordinary naturalistic explanation. It would seem that this is the direction we ought to look if we desire to arrive at least at the beginning of an objectively compelling assessment of NDEs. As we have seen, a survey of the literature will reveal a full range of interpretation of the typical features of the experiences, ranging all the way from naturalistic debunking to acceptance of the experiences at face value as revelations of the postmortem state, and it may seem a futile endeavor to arrive at an objective basis for deciding between the many alternatives. But if it is possible to verify objectively certain paranormal aspects of NDEs, fully naturalistic explanations can be ruled out and the way is open for further exploration concerning the meaning of the experiences.

Evidential aspects of NDEs fall into several categories. First, there are out-of-body sensory experiences, in which patients, often while comatose, observe accurately features to which they have no access through normal sensory channels. (One boy decided to “remain behind” while his body was transported to the hospital; he reported on the actions and reactions of the remaining family members with an accuracy which astounded the family members themselves (Moreland and Habermas 1998, p. 158).) Second, there are accounts of sensory experiences which accurately report events that occurred during periods in which the subject's heart had stopped, and even during “flat EEG” periods in which there was no detectable brain activity. Finally, there are “surprise encounters” during the NDE with friends and relatives who had in fact recently died, but where the subject had no knowledge of this prior to the time of the experience.

Evidently a careful assessment of this evidence would require extended discussion; only a few remarks can be offered here. If the information gained in the out-of-body experiences can be independently verified, and was demonstrably unknowable to the subject through ordinary means, then at the least we have some rather spectacular cases of extra-sensory perception. (And in a number of cases the verification has in fact been carried out, with positive results (Moreland and Habermas 1998, pp. 210-16).) Even more striking is the evidence of experiences that occurred, and information that was acquired, during periods with no detectable brain activity. Admittedly, a flat EEG is not absolute proof that there is no residual activity going on in the brain that could be the locus for the experiences. But this is the best evidence we presently have; to posit residual activity in spite of this has about it a strong air of special pleading. If this evidence is accepted at face value, it shows that the human mind can function, at least for a time, without the support of brain activity, and that is indeed a dramatic result. Finally, the surprise encounters with recently deceased persons come the closest of all to providing direct evidence of postmortem survival. The crucial question, of course, is Where did the subject obtain knowledge of the other person's death? If ordinary channels of communication are ruled out (as they sometimes can be), the most natural conclusion is that this knowledge was obtained from the deceased person, who is somehow still alive. A possible alternative, if extra-sensory perception is accepted, is that the information could have been extracted telepathically from the mind of some still-living person who knew about the death. This seems, however, to be very much an ad hoc maneuver — and in any case, it requires paranormal powers that naturalistically-inclined thinkers will be loath to acknowledge.

In the light of this it is clear that the evidential aspect of NDEs needs to be taken more seriously than has often been done.[5] Even if these experiences do not constitute full proof of post-mortem survival, they put severe pressure on naturalistic views of the mind/brain. And it is precisely these naturalistic views that, for many persons, constitute the greatest obstacle to belief in an afterlife.

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Azagal
Azagal


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posted April 08, 2008 11:34 AM

Great now that I join the bible discussion you blow it off.
____________
"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord

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Doomforge
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posted April 08, 2008 11:39 AM
Edited by Doomforge at 11:40, 08 Apr 2008.

sorry

I can add that my neighbor has experienced a NDE.. twice. She's 80 years old and had a few severe heart attacks. She says death is indeed nothing to fear

ps. she was an atheist for the most part of her life. It changed after her first NDE.

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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 08, 2008 11:56 AM
Edited by TitaniumAlloy at 12:03, 08 Apr 2008.

Quote:

Well maybe not primitive but yes it was written by man, and the bible has most certainly been fitted for the purposes of the people in charge (I belive) but I don't see how that makes religion bad, nor declines the "existance" of god.


Sorry but I never said that the bible denies the existence of god, and just in my last post I clearly stated that this wasn't my point..

Quote:
It's always one/a group of lunatic/s wanting to achieve something and religion can be an extremely helpful tool.

And we don't need lunatics having extremely helpful tools...


Quote:
Quote:
I'm proposing that the bible is, in it's entireity, useless

Ok. I don't really know the bible but I don't belive it's entirely made up of "don't cut your beard"/"cut womens hands off"/"slavery is good"-ish arguments (I know you didn't say it is). The thing is that they are there but why should any reasonable christian belive it? Just because they stand in the bible? Even the Pope will tell you that that stuff is wrong/doesn't apply "anymore" (I guess of course I don't know what his holyness would do).
I mean what's wrong with the Bible being mostly/in big parts/partly useless/immoral/repulsive etc. ? As I already said I belive anyone takeing stuff like that (your leviticus quotes for example) for granted to be ignorant. But how does that make christianity bad? You see any normal christians living according to the ridicolous aspects of the bible (I'm not saying they're living by the good ones either)?

I think if you were to add up all the useful passages in the bible it wouldn't be so much of a book as a leaflet.
And I'm saying that you don't need the Bible to do good, it achieves nothing, yet somehow it manages to achieve less and less by the day , more and more things are not relevant, the passages that millions base their lifes on... more often they can say "no.. we don't like that one either, but this one we do!"
This is the book that people take oath upon in America!

Again my points were made in a discussion of the bible by itself, any reflections on christianity were infered but not implied.







@Doomforge:
Quote:
it still is a fraction of God's activity.

How small does that fraction need to get before people realize that it's zero?
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Azagal
Azagal


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posted April 08, 2008 12:01 PM

Then I got it the wrong way, sorry.
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angelito
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posted April 08, 2008 12:35 PM

Quote:
@angelito: what warning you talk about,you didnt warned,so stop acting like if i would said something really bad because i didnt,i dont like false accusations like this,im out of this thread and forum cant even post a dam bunch of letters and if i do make me feel sick,have fun aplying penalizations,your not neutral mod.
So you think you are "bad mannered" because you are so nice all the time? If you even fail to see your wrong moves, it's really the best you stay out of such "emotional" topics.
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TheDeath
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posted April 09, 2008 01:13 PM

Quote:
And we don't need lunatics having extremely helpful tools...
Whoa, wait a bit, I guess they're not children anymore, it's impossible to stop them.

Thinking like that we would end up with putting them in chains for something they never did. You know let's ban everything, because it's a "tool". This includes science ('tool' for let's say, creating potentially dangerous "tools"), and just about any natural thing (what if they find a piece of rock and kill you with it?? let's ban nature and rocks!!). Also maybe we'll need to ban the air too, they might some uses for it somehow... But then we'll also have to ban their minds, maybe they'll use telekinesis or telepathy to confuse us!!

When will people realize that you can only have peace by understanding, not force? And that criminals are still criminals regardless of their "ability" to do harm?

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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 09, 2008 01:38 PM
Edited by TitaniumAlloy at 13:39, 09 Apr 2008.

By that same token people don't need encouragement.

I never said anything about locking anyone up. Where did force come into the equation? In your metaphor.
This wasn't my point anyway my point was trying to establish the usefulness of the bible, and as Doomforge put it (not me) it is a useful tool for lunatics.
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TheDeath
TheDeath


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posted April 09, 2008 01:43 PM

Quote:
This wasn't my point anyway my point was trying to establish the usefulness of the bible
Ok, then I chose the wrong analogy.

Quote:
and as Doomforge put it (not me) it is a useful tool for lunatics.
Yes, but my point was, so is almost everything else, if you take it to the extreme

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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 09, 2008 01:52 PM

But I put it to you, that unlike the aforementioned knife, the bible is not good for ANYTHING else... apart for providing "spiritual guidence" to people who haven't realized that killing people is wrong, who are beyond the help of a book anyway. And those passages that do contain such helpful hints could possibly do so in about a paragraph rather than  the whole book, and without the whole "eternity of pain" thing.
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TheDeath
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posted April 09, 2008 01:55 PM

But you can't really mean the Bible is literally a tool for e.g crusades? It's only a fake reason -- in fact I'm pretty sure they would've found other fake reasons had the Bible not exist (to do the same thing).

It's not literally a tool because you can't just use it to destroy something, unlike (let's say) a nuclear bomb

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TitaniumAlloy
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posted April 09, 2008 01:59 PM

Well, besides this again being far beyond the point I was trying to make, it was implied by Doomforge, that in that sense yes it would be a tool.

Because by your reasoning they did need a reason and the Bible gave them one.
Of course it's not a tool as in you can't build a house or fix the plumbing with it but it is a tool in the sense that it helped them achieve their goal, of finding a reason for the Crusades.

Of course I wasn't talking at all about the Crusades, I didn't even think of it like that in this discussion.
I don't blame the bible at all for the Crusades.
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Azagal
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posted April 09, 2008 02:20 PM

Quote:
And we don't need lunatics having extremely helpful tools...
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this imply that religion is a bad thing because people can use it for wrong purposes? I still don't see how this is an valid argument for describing religion as something "bad". Many things (as TheDeath mentioned) can be used for the wrong purposes but that doesn't make the things themselves bad, does it?

Quote:
it was implied by Doomforge Azagal, that in that sense yes it would be a tool.

You don't pay attention to me()?

And about the bible being useless and stuff... hmm... I don't see it the way that people "base their (entire) lifes" on that book. I however only know many intelligent and reasonable people thus I don't know how many people would actually do such a thing. But when they do I don't see what's wrong with saying that "I don't follow xyz bad but I do zxy good". Christanity forces you to acknowledge the bible as the holy word (I'm not sure about the "force" part) but it doesn't tell you that "IT IS THE ONLY TRUTH, INFIDELLLLL!!" (or does it?). Well even if it does, only fanatics would chose to live by those words and the normal (majority) christians don't live by that. So I don't see whats wrong with it.
____________
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Doomforge
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posted April 09, 2008 02:25 PM
Edited by Doomforge at 14:35, 09 Apr 2008.

Quote:
But I put it to you, that unlike the aforementioned knife, the bible is not good for ANYTHING else...


Well, I perfectly understand the Bible bashing. It has a lot of contradictions, and a lot of other things that make it look fairytale-ish to atheists.

But is it really? Well, we all know its human made. And from here, you can either believe that it's really a fraction of God's knowledge mixed with the irrevelant human babbling, or that it's entirely human made. And I mean the old testament here, because the new one is something different.

There is an obvious tip that it's human made: In the Bible, the bat is called a specie of a bird. And God obviously knows bats aren't birds so..

You say the Bible is useless, well, it is
a) an impressive part of human culture and therefore NOT useless
b) a document informing us of the way the Jews lived ages ago, teaching us about their customs and (partially) history
c) a symbol - for those who believe in God - of men and God's alliance, something you seem to miss, yes it's a relic for those who believe

And if you want to live a "good" life, you will follow the example Jesus set, whether you realize it or not, I think it's pretty clear.


Another problem is that people seem to bash Bible because it ruins the vision of a perfect God, that can be put in our modern reality and still fit well. A book that, supposedly, comes from God and contains such weird things as the beard cutting thing, seems just a joke. But hey, you can always think another way: if we're created as an image of God, he must resemble us as well, maybe even in the sense of humor. Perhaps some parts were just a joke indeed



Going 100% for logic and science is never the best idea. As one famous English physics professor said (can't remember his name, shame.. ), science never takes the human's sense of aesthetics into consideration when trying to describe things like God and faith. There are things you simply feel that weren't, aren't and will never be understood. Such as self-awareness, and a thousand of other things. There are hundreds of thousands of examples of people who experienced things that made them religious, even if they were complete atheists. There were things that science never could explain. The NDE is a good example - a man that has been in clinical death could describe the internal injuries of a man in the next room, that were not diagnosed yet. My family has experienced things that are unexplainable as well, but I won't bore you with my stories. My point is that in my life I've seen and heard enough things to convince me that God and afterlife exists, and I pretty much doubt there is a thing that would destroy my faith.

And that's why I believe in God, and probably I always will.

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TheDeath
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posted April 09, 2008 02:33 PM

Quote:
There is an obvious tip that it's human made: In the Bible, the bat is called a specie of a bird. And God obviously knows bats aren't birds so..
Depends actually on what you mean by bird.

If bird == flying creature, then it's correct

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Doomforge
Doomforge


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posted April 09, 2008 02:47 PM

Well, could be.

Anyway, in my last post, I pretty much summed up everything I wanted to say in this thread, so unless you guys want to comment it in some way, I don't think I'll add anything more in this thread, cause I'd start to repeat myself

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