Funny what you notice when you actually *read* the bible
- Thread starter Cupric
- Start date
All quotes except two definitions(from dictionary.com) are from taken
I think most of the other statements have been well handled
Lets see, two very important phrases there.
LMAO, i beleive he was applying common sense to the bible lol
Understanding myself? I in no way understand myself any better when i read some fictitious character.
Unless i missed something he started straight at the beginning and started walking through it, lmao
By definition it does not mean any of those things,by definition he is receptive, or is skilled in the areas of reading or listening(just in case you dont understand that word either), in no way does that imply the concept of learning, or understand, that comes with acceptance of the said piece of information. The second phrase, the one with the knockoff of the bible, is not neccisarily true either, old whites learned years ago that slavery is good, greeks learned that millions of gods was correct, children LEARN that there is a god, children LEARN there is a tooth-fairy, children LEARN there is a santa, none of those "beget" tolerance, acceptance, campassion, mercy, OR PEACE!
World? hell no, america and europe? perhaps, but then again the decendents of people who have a gun up to their head or hung off a cliff and told "convert to christianity or die", it is quite a reasonable assumption
I think most of the other statements have been well handled
Taken,
Of the 30% we can be sure that many only follow the religion because of tradition and the culture in which they were born. And while many will be aware of the bible very few will have read any significant portion of it.
Most people in all countries tend to prefer to act like sheep; they will follow whatever the dominant leaders tell them.
The USA was specifically not founded on Christian principles. Most of the founding fathers were anti-Christian and desperately wanted America to avoid the terrible pitfalls of Christianity that had devastated most of Europe in the past.
The bible may well have had an influence on many of our western leaders, but you are offering this as a good thing. I prefer to believe how much more advanced and enlightened the western world could have been had the bible and Christianity not been around.
Cris
According to official statistics only 30% of the world population is considered Christian. While Christianity is the largest religion it is only a minority perspective when considering the whole world. I think your math could withstand a revision.
Of the 30% we can be sure that many only follow the religion because of tradition and the culture in which they were born. And while many will be aware of the bible very few will have read any significant portion of it.
Most people in all countries tend to prefer to act like sheep; they will follow whatever the dominant leaders tell them.
The USA was specifically not founded on Christian principles. Most of the founding fathers were anti-Christian and desperately wanted America to avoid the terrible pitfalls of Christianity that had devastated most of Europe in the past.
The bible may well have had an influence on many of our western leaders, but you are offering this as a good thing. I prefer to believe how much more advanced and enlightened the western world could have been had the bible and Christianity not been around.
Cris
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
Same here
I must put my two cents in on this one
)
You know, it's kind of like a Buddhist friend of mine puts it; he talks about the Buddha in certain, fixed terms, but manages to account for all the BS of any such position with a simple phrase: "As the story goes ...."
It's all in the wrist, see?
But I do have a difficult time with the God character in the Bible; I don't mind the notion of gods hopping bodies and so forth, but that's the point: it's a story, not something worth basing a "civilization" (if you'll permit me a liberal abuse of the term) around. We would do better to elevate Aldous Huxley, JD Salinger, and Salman Rushdie to "holy" status; indeed, two of those egos would definitely disapprove. I learned more about myself and the world from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird than I do from the Bible.
thanx much,
Tiassa
I must say that this is tragic. I learn a great deal from characters with whom I am sympathetic; Bradbury's "The Crazy", Salinger's "Buddy Glass" (and "Seymour" and "Holden Caulfield") .... Harper Lee, Clive Barker, Jack Cady, Salman Rushdie, Steven Brust ... all of them have characters who can still teach a thing or two. It's part of what fiction does: considers reality abstractly. What we do with it is up to us. (Wow, look at all those two-letter words!
)You know, it's kind of like a Buddhist friend of mine puts it; he talks about the Buddha in certain, fixed terms, but manages to account for all the BS of any such position with a simple phrase: "As the story goes ...."
It's all in the wrist, see?
But I do have a difficult time with the God character in the Bible; I don't mind the notion of gods hopping bodies and so forth, but that's the point: it's a story, not something worth basing a "civilization" (if you'll permit me a liberal abuse of the term) around. We would do better to elevate Aldous Huxley, JD Salinger, and Salman Rushdie to "holy" status; indeed, two of those egos would definitely disapprove. I learned more about myself and the world from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird than I do from the Bible.
thanx much,
Tiassa
exactly cris......people followed the majority (Christian beliefs) back in the days before america was developed. whether it be for social status or the "we better do it or their gona burn us" thing. The people with the most influence normaly are the ones who get their way. im willing to bet that if society A with its relegion "b" dominated over society C with its relegion "d" then of course society A's relegion would prosper and eventualy turn much of society C's relgious beliefs into theirs if not destroying it all together.
ok so far...
'us' likely refers to all of the members of God's kingdom, Him and his Angels, etc...
he is merely describing something that already took place in more detail....
you MUST realize that this was written hunderds of years ago, yes? you do not read shakespear and take everything literally, do you? sheesh...
'..in the day that you eat of it you shall shurely die." means that the GAURANTEE (sp?) of death will come on that day
sigh....
its a test, obviously...
God knows hes there, hes merely asking 'what are you doing?', or 'why are you hiding?'
while snakes dont LITERALLY eat dust, they crawl along the ground with their jaws touching, or near-touching the dirt
in general, snakes in the wild do not get along well with humans...
no, his angels...
God was speaking to his angels, etc...
heh...i dont even know what that means...so what if hes local?
adam WAS the first man, though its possible that God made other people after him
huh???
the serpent said that they would not lose their immortality if they ate of the tree. which was a lie. he also implied that God gave them access to the tree, but didnt want them to eat of it for reasons other than their safety/wellbeing
already splained the snake thing...
there are probably some atheistic scholars who would disagree with the 'points' you have made...
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
You must be a Christian. This is one of the two typical Christian responses. The other response would be "us" refers to God and Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus was a co-creator and has always existed.
But if you look at the original text, the word was never "God" it was Eloheem. A word that is not singular. It means "Beings that decending from the Heavens"
Extraterrestrials?
You make your own conclusion!!!!
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
The logical and open minded conclusion when reading the Bible, especially in Genesis and Ezekiel is that Extraterrestrials in some way intervened.
Some how I doubt that by believing in a snake that talks and lies has anything to do with logic. The snake was used in the Bible to establish Evil or the Devil and to draw a line between Heaven and Hell. Even though, these are all man made concepts.
Some how I doubt that by believing in a snake that talks and lies has anything to do with logic. The snake was used in the Bible to establish Evil or the Devil and to draw a line between Heaven and Hell. Even though, these are all man made concepts.
Greetings, MangoMan,
You think when God says "Us" he is "likely" speaking to angels. What makes you think that?
Then why does the description not match? The sequence of events is different, that's not describing in more detail, that's either describing something different, or contradicting the first description. And if my interpretation isn't the valid one, where did Cain's wife and all the other people of Nod come from?
Of course not, only an idiot, or a fundamentalist would take the bible literally. However, I have people (you decide if they're idiots or fundamentalists) knocking on my door and demanding I do just that. So, I'm giving it a shot, and coming up with some interesting conclusions. If I actually took the bible literally, I'd be too *afraid* of Lord God to even talk about this, he might send bears to rip my arms off or something.
Oh? And you know this how? That's not what my version of the bible says. It says "In the day that you eat of it", not "if you eat of it", or "after you eat it", it specifically says "in the day".
This isn't obvious to me. If it is a test, why did God have to test Adam & Eve in the first place - did he not already know the answer? If they failed the test before they even ate of the tree, before their "innocence" was compromised - whose fault is that? If you set a plate of meat in front of a puppy, are you going to beat him soundly and confine him to a pen for the rest of his life for eating it? Monsterously unfair, don't you think? Especially if you *created* the puppy to begin with, complete with meat-gobbling tendancies. I think the answer is more that God figured Adam and Eve for being a different creature than they were - he didn't reckon on our curiosity, which implies to me either Lord God failed to create us as he wanted us, or he simply didn't know the full consequences of his own creation and was experimenting to discover them.
Again, where does it say this, or even allude to it? There are other portions of the bible where God admonishes his followers not to worship other Gods before him as well, indicating that God himself has acknowledged at least the *presence* of other Gods. So why is it not possible he was speaking to some of these other Gods back at the beginning of things?
That means he's not all-present, all-knowing. He's a limited being, holding influence over only a portion of the people alive at this time. Quite different from the modern Christian conception of an omnipotent god.
I see it stated nowhere that Adam and Eve had immortality. In fact, the reason God boots them from the garden is so that they will *not* gain immortality. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense if they had it in the first place. They didn't lose immortality, they lost *ignorance*. The serpent merely said that God lied when he said they would die on the day they ate from the tree, and that God doesn't want them to eat it because it will open their eyes. The serpent never said one word about immortality, simply that the fruit wouldn't kill them. As for the implications you mention, I would say they were right on the money. The tree of knowledge had nothing to do with immortality, at least not as it's recorded in the bible.
And what do atheists have to do with contemporary Christianity?? There is probably a scholar of every type somewhere in the world that would disagree with my 'points' - such is the nature of free thinking. What's YOUR 'point' by stating the obvious??
You think when God says "Us" he is "likely" speaking to angels. What makes you think that?
Then why does the description not match? The sequence of events is different, that's not describing in more detail, that's either describing something different, or contradicting the first description. And if my interpretation isn't the valid one, where did Cain's wife and all the other people of Nod come from?
Of course not, only an idiot, or a fundamentalist would take the bible literally. However, I have people (you decide if they're idiots or fundamentalists) knocking on my door and demanding I do just that. So, I'm giving it a shot, and coming up with some interesting conclusions. If I actually took the bible literally, I'd be too *afraid* of Lord God to even talk about this, he might send bears to rip my arms off or something.
Oh? And you know this how? That's not what my version of the bible says. It says "In the day that you eat of it", not "if you eat of it", or "after you eat it", it specifically says "in the day".
This isn't obvious to me. If it is a test, why did God have to test Adam & Eve in the first place - did he not already know the answer? If they failed the test before they even ate of the tree, before their "innocence" was compromised - whose fault is that? If you set a plate of meat in front of a puppy, are you going to beat him soundly and confine him to a pen for the rest of his life for eating it? Monsterously unfair, don't you think? Especially if you *created* the puppy to begin with, complete with meat-gobbling tendancies. I think the answer is more that God figured Adam and Eve for being a different creature than they were - he didn't reckon on our curiosity, which implies to me either Lord God failed to create us as he wanted us, or he simply didn't know the full consequences of his own creation and was experimenting to discover them.
Again, where does it say this, or even allude to it? There are other portions of the bible where God admonishes his followers not to worship other Gods before him as well, indicating that God himself has acknowledged at least the *presence* of other Gods. So why is it not possible he was speaking to some of these other Gods back at the beginning of things?
That means he's not all-present, all-knowing. He's a limited being, holding influence over only a portion of the people alive at this time. Quite different from the modern Christian conception of an omnipotent god.
I see it stated nowhere that Adam and Eve had immortality. In fact, the reason God boots them from the garden is so that they will *not* gain immortality. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense if they had it in the first place. They didn't lose immortality, they lost *ignorance*. The serpent merely said that God lied when he said they would die on the day they ate from the tree, and that God doesn't want them to eat it because it will open their eyes. The serpent never said one word about immortality, simply that the fruit wouldn't kill them. As for the implications you mention, I would say they were right on the money. The tree of knowledge had nothing to do with immortality, at least not as it's recorded in the bible.
And what do atheists have to do with contemporary Christianity?? There is probably a scholar of every type somewhere in the world that would disagree with my 'points' - such is the nature of free thinking. What's YOUR 'point' by stating the obvious??
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
I think he is confusing the two:
The Tree of Knowledge
The Tree of Life
The Tree of Knowledge
The Tree of Life
MangoMan
I believe I owe you a welcome to the forum; if not, it just means I haven't been paying close enough attention--your handle is unfamiliar to me. I was wondering if I could get clarification on a point:
Of course, we might have an issue of words; to me, God's kingdom (as applied) refers to the whole of the Universe and Creation.
thanx,
Tiassa
I believe I owe you a welcome to the forum; if not, it just means I haven't been paying close enough attention--your handle is unfamiliar to me. I was wondering if I could get clarification on a point:
Is that, then, the same "us" that God refers to in Gen. 3 when He notes that man can reach out his hand to the tree of life in order to become "like us"? How, then, is man depraved, deprived, or so lowly as to require elevation to equal the rest of God's kingdom?
Of course, we might have an issue of words; to me, God's kingdom (as applied) refers to the whole of the Universe and Creation.
thanx,
Tiassa
Greetings cupric and i appologize for the 'he' thing, i feel like an arse now lol
An aristetilian form of thinking, I would say that thinking about a subject and then applying yourself to that subject would be a better form then, say, reading a book, feeling sympathetic over a fictitious character and adjusting your life or values or more understanding of yourself over a fictitious character.
Hockeywings - you shouldn't feel like an arse at all - how were you to know my sex? "Cupric" simply means copper - a fiery metal possibly most often associated with "male" things like wires and old armaments.
And besides, I've been affectionately called "one of the guys" often enough to find being mistaken for the opposite sex rather familar in a comfortable sort of way. At least, until it begins to happen to me in person, then I might be a bit dismayed... *laughs*
And besides, I've been affectionately called "one of the guys" often enough to find being mistaken for the opposite sex rather familar in a comfortable sort of way. At least, until it begins to happen to me in person, then I might be a bit dismayed... *laughs*
lmao
ooooo more debating
what fun!
there are many possibilities....
its possible that God created the body of Adam before bringing it to life
its possible he created man as an animal before giving him a soul...
its possible he created the human race, and then created a special man whom he named Adam (which is what you were getting at i think)
"...in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
ie: ....in the day that you eat of it, it will become a sure thing that you will die
that is my explanation and opinion
dont forget that its not modern speech...
whatever the entire whole of God would be it is far greater than a man could imagine... (even if 'God' is only an idea)
also, its quite possible that He knew they would fail
or at least planned for both possibilities
again, more than one possibility
maybe God is extremely complex and does not conform to either 'individual' or 'many'
he could have meant the angels, ETC... that populate his kingdom (in this case kingdom being Heaven, not the universe)
the 'other gods' are evil spirits, which would be over in the topic of witchcraft, etc...
they are bound to obey the command of God, and are far weaker
one of these is what prompted the serpent to say what it did...
k....
how did you arive at that?
if you assume that the tree of knowledge does not give instant death, but eventual death(as well as removal of ignorance, yes), then that would mean that before eating of the tree you would NOT have eventual death, thus having immortality.
yes i apologize that was a dumb thing to say
what fun!
there are many possibilities....
its possible that God created the body of Adam before bringing it to life
its possible he created man as an animal before giving him a soul...
its possible he created the human race, and then created a special man whom he named Adam (which is what you were getting at i think)
"...in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
ie: ....in the day that you eat of it, it will become a sure thing that you will die
that is my explanation and opinion
dont forget that its not modern speech...
heh...its funny how you think that He's a man or something...
whatever the entire whole of God would be it is far greater than a man could imagine... (even if 'God' is only an idea)
also, its quite possible that He knew they would fail
or at least planned for both possibilities
again, more than one possibility
maybe God is extremely complex and does not conform to either 'individual' or 'many'
he could have meant the angels, ETC... that populate his kingdom (in this case kingdom being Heaven, not the universe)
the 'other gods' are evil spirits, which would be over in the topic of witchcraft, etc...
they are bound to obey the command of God, and are far weaker
one of these is what prompted the serpent to say what it did...
k....
how did you arive at that?
if you assume that the tree of knowledge does not give instant death, but eventual death(as well as removal of ignorance, yes), then that would mean that before eating of the tree you would NOT have eventual death, thus having immortality.
yes i apologize that was a dumb thing to say
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
Once again, I think you are confusing the two. The Tree of Knowledge symbolizes just that....knowledge. It has nothing to do with life or death. And it seems to me, when reading the Bible with and open mind, these beings that created us were trying to hide knowledge from us.
Now the Tree of Life, on the other hand, is about immortality. These beings didn't want us to eat the fruits of this tree because we would become like them. We would become like these Gods that created us. We would live forever.
Peace
Now the Tree of Life, on the other hand, is about immortality. These beings didn't want us to eat the fruits of this tree because we would become like them. We would become like these Gods that created us. We would live forever.
Peace