9th December 2005, 2:38 AM
*jumps in*
I dunno, why do you think of a torture device as holy? When you tell people who have miserable lives that there is a perfection where nothing is harmful and everything is good, people want to get as close to it as possible. If you tell them that a shroud, or a cup, or a piece of wood, or a toilet, touched some physical part of a bieng that is said to come from that God who controls the wonderful perfect ideal, you want to be as close to it as possible.
I totally agree. How do i know that I what i read in book X is factual info? I can cross refference with other books to the point of being stupid but after finding the same info from different sources it can be applied as fact. It's why we record history, so that we know where we have been and what we did. And if most historical scholars agree on a particular subject, I am forced to except their findings as factual and try to learn more about it until it reaches a point of 'undeniable' where you have so much factual evidence from so many different sources, even indirect sources, it is formed as fact. So I have scholars, people of sciencees who have spent their lives over the past few hundred years trying to piece together the true history of how things went down, what cultures destroyed other cultures, who rose to greatness and who fell, what were the languages, what were the customs, etc etc And what they find is put to scrutiny and if it passes, it is labeled as fact. Religion cannot do these things, but the bible, a book, can be scrutinized and compared to what we know or understand to be fact.
First you ask me how I can trust the information from the books I read and then tell me i'm the only one who who speaks of the problems with the bible? I dont understand... Of course i'm not the only one, there are billions of people trying to figure out their religion and what God is and the best way to do that is to get down to the gritty factual details. Unfortunately, any scholar who searches for truth in history that doesn't make sense when compared to the bible is shunned by every religious leader out there and even has to make do with the fact that billions of people like you will call him a devil for it.
Explain this in more detail please. Because what I see is a massive religion that can make any claim it wants without having to put forth in any effort in to proving its validity, a government-like entity that creates huge empires in every culture around the world and absorbs or destroys any previous culture that was there in order to replace it with its ideals on its terms.
Mind you, I dont mean to put down your friends or college buddies. But they are hardly any credible source for factual info, they do what I did when I was young; ask questions. "Well what about such and such? or how about this?" because they dont understand why you follow something so blindy. And before you tell me you're not blind, remember that what you do is based on faith - the act of hope in something that is not proven. I have faith that my office chair wont break but I have no way to actually know it wont or will.
Even more, you ask why is not talked about more broadly. And the answer is simple, it is and you choose not to study it. The information will not come to you. Just as faith did not come to you, Christianity did not come to you, you had to be taught of it, as with all knowledge. If you are waiting for a news special it wont happen (unless it's on a cable channel), no producer in his right mind will broadcast the words "The bible is full of lies" onto a church-going public who imediately turn the channel making the station lose money. Instead what they do is not bring up the ideals of religion at all unless it creates a disturbance and even then is talked about in a third person, disattached from religion entirely because of the fear of offending anyone. All forms of entertainment do this which is what news is. Newspapers, news shows, etc are all forms of entertainment, we read or watch because it's interesting. If anything offensive is brought up while we're trying to be entertained it will be crushed and the people responsible for allowing the offensive remark to be aired will be punished.
Like I said, on the history channel, they even have to put up a warning that said something like: "The following claims do not reflect the History channel, this documentation has been arranged by producers who wish to learn of the real history behind religion, etc"
They put that warning up there so that people wont get offended when people who are being interviewed in the show scream, from atop a skyscraper; "the bible is full of lies". It's also full of many truths, but digging through it all is the task at hand.
So the cultures that dont believe in jesus are just fucked? :) People bash catholics for the same reason they bash Nazis. It's easy. You see an organized group of people who do bad things and it's not hard to hate them in a easy to swallow generalization. But, just like the nazis, we can look at historical data and see a loooong history of very bad things such as genocide which was done by Catholics LONG before Hitler was even idealized in the space/time continuum and we cannot help but ask the question "Why is this religion allowed to do such horrible things?" when they dont even realize that all Christianity is based on their creatilon and ideals. So ultimately, no it is not foolish to have hate for 1 billion people, in fact it's rather unfoolish since it keeps us on our toes and keeps the catholics and Christianity in general from trying to rule the world through fear and greed which is what th entire religion is based on.
He did? Jesus, the earthly man who DIED and BLED the son of the all knowing infinite power of God called himself a GOD? after God told Moses that there are no Gods before me? That there is only one God? Jesus would tell people that HE is a GOD? Gee, doesn't that sound like something a... Roman would say? In fact, it has been proven, that the Roman Catholics (the first Christians) loved to write things in to the bible of what they wanted Jesus to say. The Pope can write whatever he wants in to the bible, he's a god too, doncha know? So tell me, how does it make sense that the son of God would both preach of the one single infinite God and that he himself is also a God? Is it just my understanding or is it to believe in such a thing would be against God's teachings and send you straight to that firey place?
Um... you are aware that the bible is a collection of stories from around the world and through history? And you are aware, that by your very faith, are a product of a religion that took bits and pieces of his teachings and made their own version? To say that you cannot take pieces of info and create your own religion, would mean that you are a Jew who follows the hebrew bible and that Jesus is a prophet... yet you say he's a God..... after God already explained that there is only one God.
If you want to spout bullshit, that's fine. You set them up, i'll knock them down. But please..... elaborate on your points if you wish to have a counter argument.
the most important thing: I do not question your love of God or how you live through his teachings. I do not question your judgement of what is moraly ethical and how you choose to live your life. What I do question is the bible and it's claims and it's amazing sorted history. So if you're going to argue the validity of the bible do so with factual information.
Quote:I don't care about the shroud. I didn't even know about it until my soph year in college. My physics prof actually was working on studying it and teaching was his side job. He was super into it, but I never really understood why. I wish he spent more time on teaching physics, cause I didn't get any of it! If it isn't the burial cloth, so what? If it is, so what? Is it supposed to have some power or something?
I dunno, why do you think of a torture device as holy? When you tell people who have miserable lives that there is a perfection where nothing is harmful and everything is good, people want to get as close to it as possible. If you tell them that a shroud, or a cup, or a piece of wood, or a toilet, touched some physical part of a bieng that is said to come from that God who controls the wonderful perfect ideal, you want to be as close to it as possible.
Quote:About the rest, I'm not really gonna debate this. Lazy, the only the I want to say is this: I do find it kinda ironic that you are convinced the things "religious" people believe are full of crap and have been changed to suit the weather, but you are certain that all that you have read and learned is 100% accurate.
I totally agree. How do i know that I what i read in book X is factual info? I can cross refference with other books to the point of being stupid but after finding the same info from different sources it can be applied as fact. It's why we record history, so that we know where we have been and what we did. And if most historical scholars agree on a particular subject, I am forced to except their findings as factual and try to learn more about it until it reaches a point of 'undeniable' where you have so much factual evidence from so many different sources, even indirect sources, it is formed as fact. So I have scholars, people of sciencees who have spent their lives over the past few hundred years trying to piece together the true history of how things went down, what cultures destroyed other cultures, who rose to greatness and who fell, what were the languages, what were the customs, etc etc And what they find is put to scrutiny and if it passes, it is labeled as fact. Religion cannot do these things, but the bible, a book, can be scrutinized and compared to what we know or understand to be fact.
Quote:somehow you are the only one to have heard of these ideas.
First you ask me how I can trust the information from the books I read and then tell me i'm the only one who who speaks of the problems with the bible? I dont understand... Of course i'm not the only one, there are billions of people trying to figure out their religion and what God is and the best way to do that is to get down to the gritty factual details. Unfortunately, any scholar who searches for truth in history that doesn't make sense when compared to the bible is shunned by every religious leader out there and even has to make do with the fact that billions of people like you will call him a devil for it.
Quote:We live in a completely anti-Christian society these days
Explain this in more detail please. Because what I see is a massive religion that can make any claim it wants without having to put forth in any effort in to proving its validity, a government-like entity that creates huge empires in every culture around the world and absorbs or destroys any previous culture that was there in order to replace it with its ideals on its terms.
Quote:if what you said was true, why isn't it trumpeted from ever skyscraper in America. Less than 1/3 of this country even believes the Bible is true. If there was any real evidence for what you say, why don't I hear about it on the news or in college? But even the most anti-God profs I've had would kinda just hint that they thought that way. I guarantee if they had "proof" they would be all about screaming it every day.
Mind you, I dont mean to put down your friends or college buddies. But they are hardly any credible source for factual info, they do what I did when I was young; ask questions. "Well what about such and such? or how about this?" because they dont understand why you follow something so blindy. And before you tell me you're not blind, remember that what you do is based on faith - the act of hope in something that is not proven. I have faith that my office chair wont break but I have no way to actually know it wont or will.
Even more, you ask why is not talked about more broadly. And the answer is simple, it is and you choose not to study it. The information will not come to you. Just as faith did not come to you, Christianity did not come to you, you had to be taught of it, as with all knowledge. If you are waiting for a news special it wont happen (unless it's on a cable channel), no producer in his right mind will broadcast the words "The bible is full of lies" onto a church-going public who imediately turn the channel making the station lose money. Instead what they do is not bring up the ideals of religion at all unless it creates a disturbance and even then is talked about in a third person, disattached from religion entirely because of the fear of offending anyone. All forms of entertainment do this which is what news is. Newspapers, news shows, etc are all forms of entertainment, we read or watch because it's interesting. If anything offensive is brought up while we're trying to be entertained it will be crushed and the people responsible for allowing the offensive remark to be aired will be punished.
Like I said, on the history channel, they even have to put up a warning that said something like: "The following claims do not reflect the History channel, this documentation has been arranged by producers who wish to learn of the real history behind religion, etc"
They put that warning up there so that people wont get offended when people who are being interviewed in the show scream, from atop a skyscraper; "the bible is full of lies". It's also full of many truths, but digging through it all is the task at hand.
Quote:Let's not get into Catholic-bashing. That's so lame, and I hear it a lot. I'm not into a lot of the religious ceremonies and I think there are some ideas that have been taken too far, but to label over 1 billion people as something is foolish to say the least. Just like every religion, there are Catholics (or Protestants or Budhists or Muslims) who simply follow religious rules without really believing it, and there are a bunch who do believe and who sincerely love Jesus and strive to live a righteous life through God's grace.
So the cultures that dont believe in jesus are just fucked? :) People bash catholics for the same reason they bash Nazis. It's easy. You see an organized group of people who do bad things and it's not hard to hate them in a easy to swallow generalization. But, just like the nazis, we can look at historical data and see a loooong history of very bad things such as genocide which was done by Catholics LONG before Hitler was even idealized in the space/time continuum and we cannot help but ask the question "Why is this religion allowed to do such horrible things?" when they dont even realize that all Christianity is based on their creatilon and ideals. So ultimately, no it is not foolish to have hate for 1 billion people, in fact it's rather unfoolish since it keeps us on our toes and keeps the catholics and Christianity in general from trying to rule the world through fear and greed which is what th entire religion is based on.
Quote:Jesus called himself God
He did? Jesus, the earthly man who DIED and BLED the son of the all knowing infinite power of God called himself a GOD? after God told Moses that there are no Gods before me? That there is only one God? Jesus would tell people that HE is a GOD? Gee, doesn't that sound like something a... Roman would say? In fact, it has been proven, that the Roman Catholics (the first Christians) loved to write things in to the bible of what they wanted Jesus to say. The Pope can write whatever he wants in to the bible, he's a god too, doncha know? So tell me, how does it make sense that the son of God would both preach of the one single infinite God and that he himself is also a God? Is it just my understanding or is it to believe in such a thing would be against God's teachings and send you straight to that firey place?
Quote:You cannot take bits and pieces of his teachings to make some Create-a-god. Even though that seems to be the thing to do these days.
Um... you are aware that the bible is a collection of stories from around the world and through history? And you are aware, that by your very faith, are a product of a religion that took bits and pieces of his teachings and made their own version? To say that you cannot take pieces of info and create your own religion, would mean that you are a Jew who follows the hebrew bible and that Jesus is a prophet... yet you say he's a God..... after God already explained that there is only one God.
If you want to spout bullshit, that's fine. You set them up, i'll knock them down. But please..... elaborate on your points if you wish to have a counter argument.
the most important thing: I do not question your love of God or how you live through his teachings. I do not question your judgement of what is moraly ethical and how you choose to live your life. What I do question is the bible and it's claims and it's amazing sorted history. So if you're going to argue the validity of the bible do so with factual information.