9th December 2005, 3:30 PM
2 very valid points
But you have to realize that I do not question faith. Faith is trust, a trust in the ideal that following a group of rules and guidelines will give you life after death (for you and your loved ones) and bring you closer to the infinitely obscure knowledge of the universe.
Why this is taught confuses me, as we watched Eve take the apple, a key to all knowledge in the universe, God punished them both by taking them out of paradise.
You can ironically turn this story in to whatever you want (which is probably why it's so popular) but let's look at it literally: To gain knowledge is to destroy happiness - ignorance is bliss. Now at the same time, it is taught in the same book that God has all the knowledge in the universe and that by following him, you will become closer to God... so we were punished for learning yet we are told to gain infinite knowledge through God. I'm sensing a double standard.
We could get really deep: Adam and Eve had no soul, lives in nature like animals, a true paradise where the food was abundant and by trying to acquire knowledge, God gives them a soul. But they can’t stay in paradise with this knowledge, they have to suffer the new world of humanity and build something that has not been built before. But more than likely I’m projecting in to the story what isn't there and most scholars agree that the story is a kind of warning or threat: Human beings are always trying to acquire knowledge and understand the world around them which constantly gets us in to trouble. That's basically it.
Okay I rambled, sorry grumbler. I do not question faith, I question the bible. Period. Just as people worshipped and had faith in the shroud of Turin, people worship and have faith in the bible and since the bible is mostly true with some obscene lies (some of them changing the entire scope of the bible) means that people are being lied to, just as the Catholics lied to its people about the shroud.
Miller/ I agree, but there is a process of forensics and the ability to cross-reference. Just as the police will try to figure out a crime scene, people are putting together the puzzles of the ancient world based on mountains of written documents and physical locations. For example, in the bible it mentions King Solomon who was so fucking rich he had his entire palace made of gold, even the NAILS used to hold up the gold plating were made of gold. Now as the story goes, Solomon got most of his gold from a queen as a gift but he also had a mine, a huge gold mine. One would believe that it would be easy to find a giant gold mine but of course the earth heals all scars. Now we did find an Egyptian mine full of copper veins, it's in a place called King Solomon’s Mines :D There are no gold veins in these mines but the name always stuck because, well, wouldn't you want to have a place named after something in the bible?
But after some closer examination of the bible and cross referencing with actual history from around the world at that time we were able to deduce that the gold came from Africa. First we thought we found the ancient city of the queen who gave solo man his gold, but it turns out that's actually an ancient African temple built by Africans as a holy place (at the time it was hard for Europeans to understand that Negroes could build such a thing). But elsewhere in Africa (please forgive me I forget the actual name of the country) we found a culture of people who mine gold... and have done so for thousands of years. The land here is completely ripped up with mines as old as last year but the lay of the land shows us that mines have been dug all around its area, all of them full of gold. In fact, it's the one major source of all gold in the world.
When you take in to account the history and the factual info and cross reference what is in the bible you come to an ultimate conclusion to the point that there is only one way it could have been done. How Solomon would send his people east and they would return west and bring ships full of gold and the process took over a year. Well that puts them smack dab off the coast of Africa, traveling down it's shore line from the ports of the middle eastern waterways - in fact after all this time has passed, there are no gold mines anywhere else nor a record by any other country of a gold mine other than Africa.
Now obviously I didn’t put forth all the factual info in this post but it's out there and in much greater detail. In fact I believe that the studies of the bible and its scholars have all agreed that Solomon's mines are in Africa. But what do you do? Tell the country to stop calling a copper mine the mines of Solomon? That could possibly start a war. so instead the data is compiled and recorded and shelved away available to all. if you want, look up King Solomon online and you can see for yourself, I just wanted to show you that the ability to cross reference and study any and all recorded history and when none is available, literally dig up the earth and search for clues, we are able to find many truths to the bible and many lies.
As a society, we can only achieve a greater standard by learning of our past. That past has been tampered with and we must find clues to the truth. I forget who said it but: "You cannot know where you're going until you know where you have been." The bible produces many questions, things make no sense, and often times completely go against what other scholars, scientists, artisans, cultures etc of the time of the bible recorded in their history. If the bible is saying one thing, there are literally thousands of separate entities saying something different and yet all agreeing with each other. When 30 separate credible sources of data say something happened when the bible said it did not, investigation is the only recourse.
We must all agree on a history in order to move forward with confidence of where we've been, but to say that history is the bible (which most of it is) and taking it all without investigating its data and taking everything at face value (especially when the popes and kings can re-write whatever they want), would.... put us in a 600 year dark ages...... or something. :D
But you have to realize that I do not question faith. Faith is trust, a trust in the ideal that following a group of rules and guidelines will give you life after death (for you and your loved ones) and bring you closer to the infinitely obscure knowledge of the universe.
Why this is taught confuses me, as we watched Eve take the apple, a key to all knowledge in the universe, God punished them both by taking them out of paradise.
You can ironically turn this story in to whatever you want (which is probably why it's so popular) but let's look at it literally: To gain knowledge is to destroy happiness - ignorance is bliss. Now at the same time, it is taught in the same book that God has all the knowledge in the universe and that by following him, you will become closer to God... so we were punished for learning yet we are told to gain infinite knowledge through God. I'm sensing a double standard.
We could get really deep: Adam and Eve had no soul, lives in nature like animals, a true paradise where the food was abundant and by trying to acquire knowledge, God gives them a soul. But they can’t stay in paradise with this knowledge, they have to suffer the new world of humanity and build something that has not been built before. But more than likely I’m projecting in to the story what isn't there and most scholars agree that the story is a kind of warning or threat: Human beings are always trying to acquire knowledge and understand the world around them which constantly gets us in to trouble. That's basically it.
Okay I rambled, sorry grumbler. I do not question faith, I question the bible. Period. Just as people worshipped and had faith in the shroud of Turin, people worship and have faith in the bible and since the bible is mostly true with some obscene lies (some of them changing the entire scope of the bible) means that people are being lied to, just as the Catholics lied to its people about the shroud.
Miller/ I agree, but there is a process of forensics and the ability to cross-reference. Just as the police will try to figure out a crime scene, people are putting together the puzzles of the ancient world based on mountains of written documents and physical locations. For example, in the bible it mentions King Solomon who was so fucking rich he had his entire palace made of gold, even the NAILS used to hold up the gold plating were made of gold. Now as the story goes, Solomon got most of his gold from a queen as a gift but he also had a mine, a huge gold mine. One would believe that it would be easy to find a giant gold mine but of course the earth heals all scars. Now we did find an Egyptian mine full of copper veins, it's in a place called King Solomon’s Mines :D There are no gold veins in these mines but the name always stuck because, well, wouldn't you want to have a place named after something in the bible?
But after some closer examination of the bible and cross referencing with actual history from around the world at that time we were able to deduce that the gold came from Africa. First we thought we found the ancient city of the queen who gave solo man his gold, but it turns out that's actually an ancient African temple built by Africans as a holy place (at the time it was hard for Europeans to understand that Negroes could build such a thing). But elsewhere in Africa (please forgive me I forget the actual name of the country) we found a culture of people who mine gold... and have done so for thousands of years. The land here is completely ripped up with mines as old as last year but the lay of the land shows us that mines have been dug all around its area, all of them full of gold. In fact, it's the one major source of all gold in the world.
When you take in to account the history and the factual info and cross reference what is in the bible you come to an ultimate conclusion to the point that there is only one way it could have been done. How Solomon would send his people east and they would return west and bring ships full of gold and the process took over a year. Well that puts them smack dab off the coast of Africa, traveling down it's shore line from the ports of the middle eastern waterways - in fact after all this time has passed, there are no gold mines anywhere else nor a record by any other country of a gold mine other than Africa.
Now obviously I didn’t put forth all the factual info in this post but it's out there and in much greater detail. In fact I believe that the studies of the bible and its scholars have all agreed that Solomon's mines are in Africa. But what do you do? Tell the country to stop calling a copper mine the mines of Solomon? That could possibly start a war. so instead the data is compiled and recorded and shelved away available to all. if you want, look up King Solomon online and you can see for yourself, I just wanted to show you that the ability to cross reference and study any and all recorded history and when none is available, literally dig up the earth and search for clues, we are able to find many truths to the bible and many lies.
As a society, we can only achieve a greater standard by learning of our past. That past has been tampered with and we must find clues to the truth. I forget who said it but: "You cannot know where you're going until you know where you have been." The bible produces many questions, things make no sense, and often times completely go against what other scholars, scientists, artisans, cultures etc of the time of the bible recorded in their history. If the bible is saying one thing, there are literally thousands of separate entities saying something different and yet all agreeing with each other. When 30 separate credible sources of data say something happened when the bible said it did not, investigation is the only recourse.
We must all agree on a history in order to move forward with confidence of where we've been, but to say that history is the bible (which most of it is) and taking it all without investigating its data and taking everything at face value (especially when the popes and kings can re-write whatever they want), would.... put us in a 600 year dark ages...... or something. :D