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Thread: How true is the Bible?

  1. #181
    Commissar Caligula_'s Avatar The Ecstasy of Potatoes
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    But the Bible is the literal word of God. Why should we, people who are reading His words after the fact, assign His words to being metaphors rather than literal historical facts?
    Luke 4:24 KJV

    You don't believe in men with donkey who like horses?
    Last edited by Commissar Caligula_; August 19, 2019 at 06:53 PM.



  2. #182

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Commissar Caligula_ View Post
    But the Bible is the literal word of God. Why should we, people who are reading His words after the fact, assign his words to being metaphors rather than literal historical facts?
    Luke 4:24 KJV
    Because literal word does not mean you ignore the literary conventions being used. Any work of literature needs to be interpreted as in the literally genre it was written. If written figuratively, then that writing should be interpreted figuratively. The Bible often makes it quite clear that it is in fact being figurative in what it says.

    People often use figurative conventions when talking about literal events. If I said I was went on a camping trip, and it rained cats and dogs while I was there, the fact that it rained on the camping trip is quite literal, I am saying that it was raining as a figurative way of saying I was depressed. But the "raining cats and dogs" is a well establish and commonly understood metaphor. People understand this, unless they are severely socially disabled, like Sheldon in the Big Bang TV show, or they are just being jerks.

    When we say the Bible is the literal word of God, we are not saying that the commonly used metaphors aren't used in it, but that the Bible is more than just some made up writing that merely reflects one man's opinion. When i say it rained cats and dogs, I literally mean t hat liquid H2O fell from the sky, and not that it it was some figurative way of expressing angst and gloom. But I didn't mean that furry mammals were falling out of the sky, as you clearly seem to think.

    PS - Creationist make the same error when they interpret Genesis as being seven 24 hour days as measured by the atomic clock in the National Bureau of Standards. Clearly, the author of Genesis is using Day and Night as a symbolic unit of time, since the Sun wasn't even created until the 4th Day, the author was not talking about 7 literal days as measured by your clock on your desk. Taking the Bible literally, meaning as the writer intended, as in is true for any literary work.. The Bible was written by different authors at different times in different styles and genres.

    Real people mix styles in their own speech, mixing metaphors with literal descriptions. When I say I went camping in Yellow Stone and it rained cats and dogs while I was there, it means that I actually drove to Yellow Stone and pitched my tent there, not that Yellow Stone was some figurative way of mentioning some inner journey of discovery. But it does not mean that furry critters were falling out of the sky. Most people who are not socially challenged like Sheldon have no trouble figuring this out.
    Last edited by Common Soldier; August 19, 2019 at 07:28 PM.

  3. #183

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Commissar Caligula_ View Post
    But the Bible is the literal word of God.
    Yeah, no. All scripture inspired by invisible sky creature. (See 2 Timothy 3 v16)
    Why should we, people who are reading His words after the fact, assign His words to being metaphors rather than literal historical facts?
    Luke 4:24 KJV
    Gill:
    And he said, verily I say unto you,.... Another proverb in use among them, the meaning of which was well known to them, and was very appropriate to the present case:


    no prophet is accepted in his own country; See Gill on Matthew 13:57


    Gill on Mathew 13:57:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    And they were offended in him,.... It was a stumbling to them, how he came by his wisdom and power; since he had not these things from men of learning, and could not have them from his relatives: and therefore, rather than believe he had them of himself, or from God, they chose to indulge at least a suspicion, that he had them from the devil, and so were offended in him: or this offence was taken at the meanness of his birth, parentage, and education, though without reason; for if without the advantage of an education without human literature, and the instructions of men, he was able to expound the Scriptures, preach such doctrine, and deliver such words of wisdom, and confirm all this by miracles, and mighty works, they ought to have considered him as a divine person, and all this, as a demonstration of it, and of his having a divine mission at least, and of his being raised up by God for extraordinary purposes,

    But Jesus said unto them; being unmoved at their offence in him, and contempt of him, which was no other than what he expected:


    a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house; which seems to be a proverbial speech in common use, though I have not met with it in Jewish writings; showing, that a prophet, or any teacher, or preacher, generally speaking, is more esteemed among strangers, who have no personal pique, nor prejudices against him, and who judge of him, not by what he has been, but by his present abilities, doctrine, and conduct, than among his countrymen; who are apt to think meanly of him, because familiarly acquainted with him, and knew, if not his vices, yet his infirmities, and envy him any superior degree of honour to them, he has attained unto. I say, generally speaking, for this is not always the case on either side; sometimes a prophet is affronted and abused in strange places, as Christ himself was: and sometimes is received with esteem and applause among his countrymen, relations, and acquaintance; but this is rare and uncommon; the proverb respects what is usually and ordinarily done, and the truth of it is easy to be observed.
    Last edited by Infidel144; August 19, 2019 at 07:59 PM. Reason: fixed chapter number

  4. #184
    Commissar Caligula_'s Avatar The Ecstasy of Potatoes
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Just seeing where you guys fall on the fundamentalist scale, as in how literally you take the Bible.

    What about the Earth being made in 7 days? Do you two believe in a strict interpretation of those being seven consecutive 24 hour days, or do you think that God instead stretched the "days" into aeons, and they were not each 24 hours?



  5. #185

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Infidel144 View Post
    Yeah, no. All scripture inspired by invisible sky creature. (See 2 Timothy 13 v16)
    2 Timothy doesn't have 13 chapters. So what verse are you referring to?

  6. #186

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Commissar Caligula_ View Post
    Just seeing where you guys fall on the fundamentalist scale, as in how literally you take the Bible.

    What about the Earth being made in 7 days? Do you two believe in a strict interpretation of those being seven consecutive 24 hour days, or do you think that God instead stretched the "days" into aeons, and they were not each 24 hours?
    Yeah, the stupid, it hurts.
    Did you read how I just referred to "God"? Do you regularly see believers (fundamentalist or otherwise) referring to "God" as 'invisible sky creature'?
    Are you just attempting to deflect from you having an incorrect interpretation of the scripture you cited?

    =======
    Common Soldier, that should read Timothy 3 not 13.
    I'll fix it.

  7. #187

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Commissar Caligula_ View Post
    Just seeing where you guys fall on the fundamentalist scale, as in how literally you take the Bible.

    What about the Earth being made in 7 days? Do you two believe in a strict interpretation of those being seven consecutive 24 hour days, or do you think that God instead stretched the "days" into aeons, and they were not each 24 hours?
    My apologies, I thought you were being serious.

    I think the fundamentalist who interpret Genesis as 7 twenty four hour days as measure by an appointment omic clock has misunderstood the writers of Gensesis intent. Clearly, Says was symbolic unit of time, the Sun wasn't even created until thefourth day, so how can you talked about Day and Night before then?

    Even the story of Adam was not necessarily literal, it was more like a just so story, like how the tiger got his stripes and why the elephant has a trunk. Although later booksninntue Bible donseem tontake Adam literally, maybe. You can talk about fictional characters asnif they were real - people talk about the motivations of Ahab in Moby Sick as if he were a real person, and I have heard Harry Potter quoted in graduation speeches. So maybe the writer of Genesis didn't think of Adam as a real person in the same way David was thought of.

  8. #188

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    If I tell the story of the wolf and the 3 piggies, it has a message, and it is the literal word of the author.

    The fact that wolves don't use their blow to take down straw and wood houses, and the fact that pigs do not build houses in straw, wood, or bricks, literally speaking, does not mean that the meaning and lesson of the story is false or a scam.

    There is a reason Jesus insisted in speaking in Paraboles, rather than just give literal commands. He wanted his followers to reflect on his words, as opposed to blindly follow his words.
    It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

    -George Orwell

  9. #189
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    I'm sorry that you guys cannot see the wood from the trees. God has Moses write down how we came to be because the Israelites were ignorant of it just as men today are ignorant of it. Genesis is a literal account of the beginning of our existence. It is not figurative language in any way. In the first chapter God is the centre of creation as each day provides and in the second chapter God concentrates on what He created. After six literal days God saw that it was good and so rested, meaning creation was finished, there was nothing else to be created, and so rested on the seventh day making it a day of rest for all creation. In other words God had finished creating an up and running planet fully matured. Everything was made to its kind and since then nothing has ever been created since. It didn't take billions of years and didn't have to as God is God showing that in creation He never left anything to chance revealing every last detail in the intricasy of each thing created, which science is now coming to terms with.

    So why we might ask, why did He do it? The answer is for His own good pleasure. His time is not our time so what transpires already has done so in His time as the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ confirms it's just that we have to play out in our time what is already done and dusted. Despite the intransigence of man He is still calling out a people and will continue to do so until the very eve of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ when He will bring the wrath of God to bear on all those that rejected Him by dissolving this creation to replace it with a new one. " Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." That is everyone who lives, has ever lived, then faces God's judgement and their destination into eternity. The signs are already beginning to appear with the panic about global warming and the drive to globalism. My hope has been confirmed in the blood of Jesus Christ, has yours?

  10. #190

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    sumskilz,

    Would it then be true to say that God in instituting worship in the temple and synagogues separated men from women with the pirpose of negating any lustful thoughts by either sexes during the services? I'm thinking of Jesus' saying that to even think lustfully is as bad as actually doing it and that's why the separation in worship. What's your thoughts?
    Honestly, I don’t know when that practice started and what, if any, particular piece of scripture it’s based on. Keep in mind, most of what I know comes working with the texts in secular academia, so basically studying the language and historical context. Which a lot of people find useful for religious exegesis, but of course, it’s still a separate field of study from faith-based approaches.

    Sirach, which is considered canon by some Christians but not Jews, gives a bit of a glimpse of how at least some Jews viewed the issue in the Second Century before Christ:

    Turn away your eyes from a shapely woman, and do not gaze at beauty belonging to another; many have been seduced by a woman’s beauty, and by it passion is kindled like a fire. Never dine with another man’s wife, or revel with her at wine; or your heart may turn aside to her, and in blood you may be plunged into destruction. ~Sirach 9:8-9
    I assume this is the passage you were referring to:

    “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into Gehenna. ~Matthew 5:27-30
    Gehenna is usually translated as “Hell” in the King James Version and some others.

    The Orthodox Jewish view is that humans have a natural inclination for sin, which is literally missing your target in Hebrew. The problem with thinking about a sin isn’t that it’s just as bad, but that those patterns of thinking make you more likely to act on it. So traditional Judaism creates “fences around the Torah” so that if you fall short, it’s not so much so that you’ve actually sinned. That seems like what Sirach is talking about.

    Is Jesus saying something different than that? I don’t know, it seems to me like there is a lot of dramatic language in there meant to stress the point. Is thinking really considered as bad as doing? Is that really how Christians understand it? I remember George Carlin making a joke about it along the lines of you may as well do it if you’ve already thought it since you’re going to pay the same price anyway. He was raised Catholic.

    Quote Originally Posted by Infidel144 View Post
    2 Timothy 3 v16
    Where it says “God breathed”, it's obviously a translation of, or reference to, a common Biblical Hebrew expression. You see Samuel 10:10 (for example) usually translated something like “then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them”. In Hebrew, the underlined part is literally “the Breath of God”.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  11. #191

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Religion isn't the cause of wars however religion is one of the most consistent and effective means to justify a conflict.

  12. #192
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by 95thrifleman View Post
    Religion isn't the cause of wars however religion is one of the most consistent and effective means to justify a conflict.
    95thrifleman,

    Paul's letter to the Romans lays it all out with a list of the ingredients that are the root cause of not only wars but all else that is wrong with this planet.

  13. #193

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by 95thrifleman View Post
    Religion isn't the cause of wars however religion is one of the most consistent and effective means to justify a conflict.
    Actually, I don't think that is true. While religion sometimes has been a cause of war,.most of the time it is not.

    Most of th wars of the ancient world were not caused by religion. The Roman, Greek, Persian, Assyrian conquest and wars were not driven by religion. Even the great Jewish revolts we re only partly driven by religion, nationalism was a factor in those revolts.

    And it also depends on the religion - in Islam, it is true religion has been a driving factor in many of of its wars, and conflicts, but by no means all.. However, for Christianity less so, and Buddhism and still others less so. Religion often gets tied upnwith ethnicity. While religion does play a role in the conflict between Protestants and Catholics, there is a strong politics Cal element as well, with Protestants want into to maintain strong ties with UK (why theynare called Unionist). Likewise, the conflict with the Family in Sri Lanka was mostly about ethnicity, the religious difference being an component of the ethnicity difference. In the conflict in Sudan, between the Muslim north and non Muslim south, religion was a component of a wider ethnic difference. In In the case of the Aztecs, their need for human sacrifices did drive a lot of their wars so they could capture prisoners for for their sacrifices, but Aztecs were very much in the minority.


    Religion may play a role in many wars and add to their intensity, but, but they were not the root cause. Islam and the Aztec religions are the exception, not the rule.
    Last edited by Common Soldier; August 21, 2019 at 01:32 PM.

  14. #194

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    All conflict is ultimately religious. Even wars in defense of national security are religious, since "national security is good" is a religious belief, as all morality beliefs are. So the true divide isn't between religion and irreligion, but rather between true and false religion, and true religion doesn't justify any evil.
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  15. #195

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    All conflict is ultimately religious. Even wars in defense of national security are religious, since "national security is good" is a religious belief, as all morality beliefs are. So the true divide isn't between religion and irreligion, but rather between true and false religion, and true religion doesn't justify any evil.
    Simply not true. The American Civil War certainly wasn't about religion, it was about slavery. People of the Confederacy used religion justify slavery, and anti-slavery crowd in the north used the same religion to support their opposition to it. As Lincoln said, both sides prayed to the same God. And neither WW2 nor WW1 was about religion.

    Religion can become a tool of conflict, but not its cause. When you go to war, it is really nice to have some all powerful being on your side, but that does not mean religion was the motivation for you to go to war. Religion merely supports the war you are engaged in because of other causes.

    Take the example of slavery. White many southern whites tried to use religion to justify slavery, slavery was driven by economic and other factors, and these same southerns would have employed slaves and supported slavery even if they were athiest. Those plantations that supported their life style did not run themselves, and they needed slaves to provide the labor.

  16. #196

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    Simply not true. The American Civil War certainly wasn't about religion, it was about slavery. People of the Confederacy used religion justify slavery, and anti-slavery crowd in the north used the same religion to support their opposition to it. As Lincoln said, both sides prayed to the same God. And neither WW2 nor WW1 was about religion.

    Religion can become a tool of conflict, but not its cause. When you go to war, it is really nice to have some all powerful being on your side, but that does not mean religion was the motivation for you to go to war. Religion merely supports the war you are engaged in because of other causes.

    Take the example of slavery. White many southern whites tried to use religion to justify slavery, slavery was driven by economic and other factors, and these same southerns would have employed slaves and supported slavery even if they were athiest. Those plantations that supported their life style did not run themselves, and they needed slaves to provide the labor.
    Religion here doesn't refer to organized or traditional religions, but any transcendental understanding of reality, which everyone has, including atheists. That economic prosperity is good/bad, or that slavery is right/wrong, are beliefs rooted in a transcendental/metaphysical (that is, religious) understanding of reality. All conflict ultimately arises from a difference in moral and transcendental doctrine.
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  17. #197

    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    Religion here doesn't refer to organized or traditional religions, but any transcendental understanding of reality, which everyone has, including atheists. That economic prosperity is good/bad, or that slavery is right/wrong, are beliefs rooted in a transcendental/metaphysical (that is, religious) understanding of reality. All conflict ultimately arises from a difference in moral and transcendental doctrine.

    Again, I don't agree. Many wars are due to economics, the other guy has something I want or I have something the other guy wants but I can't or won't give up. Sometimes it is a case of survival - we both need the same land to survive, either for hunting or farming, etc., and the war is a case of fight of be killed or die. Ideology doesn't come into play. In the case of the American South, the Southern Whites needed slavery to sustain their way of life, and the fear if they didn't keep blacks under control as slaves the blacks would go on a rampage and kill the whites as they did in Haiti, or you would have blacks and whites intermarrying and the white race and their way of life would simply disappear and become extinct. War is often just a type of survival instinct.

    I don't think of wars fought for economic reasons are ideological in nature, although they often assume an ideological justification fornthr war, since it sounds better to fight for some noble cause and ideology than for just plain old greed. It sounds a lot better to say you are fighting for God and country as many Conquistadors did, then to say you are doing it just for plain old wealth, which gold represented. Some Conquistadors like Pizarro, conqueror of the Incas, were honest about doing it just for the money.

    While some wars were fought for ideology and religion, even these often had an economic element. Many younger sons of the nobility joined the Crusades as a chance to get rich and lands and estates that otherwise they would have no hope for. And while the evils of slavery was a motivation for some. To fight against slavery, others opposed slavery because as free men they didn't want to have to compete against slave labor.

  18. #198
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Common Soldier View Post
    ...

    Religion may play a role in many wars and add to their intensity, but, but they were not the root cause. Islam and the Aztec religions are the exception, not the rule.
    Have to agree. Most religions (I think Buddhism is the major partial exception) abet war-making, usually by insisting the low classes obey the elite.

    I think even Islam saw mostly political wars given a religious veil.

    However as you point out most religions do abet warmaking, and can often make it worse.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

  19. #199
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Looking back I find it strange that the greatest empire the world has seen was built in rather a benign way. Yes there were battles but in relation to the land conquered they were few and far between and the stranger thing of all is that all that are now independent still retain a strong affinity and love for us who once ruled them. Along side those times were perhaps the greatest religious acceptance of Christianity and yet it was never forced on anyone inside that empire. It is said that God raises up nations and destroys others and yet the influence that Great Britain gave to these nations still remains despite its demise in greatness.

  20. #200
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    Default Re: How true is the Bible?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    Looking back I find it strange that the greatest empire the world has seen was built in rather a benign way. Yes there were battles but in relation to the land conquered they were few and far between and the stranger thing of all is that all that are now independent still retain a strong affinity and love for us who once ruled them. Along side those times were perhaps the greatest religious acceptance of Christianity and yet it was never forced on anyone inside that empire. It is said that God raises up nations and destroys others and yet the influence that Great Britain gave to these nations still remains despite its demise in greatness.
    Old chap I can't have that. The British Empire in its several phases was a pretty normal brutal cynical affair.

    It began in Ireland where rowdy locals couldn't rule themselves and raided Britain. That's was not a benign matter and the ethnic violence still rankles to this day. Britain expanded into the Americas using piracy and privately run colonies where natives were massacred (often by men trained up in the Irish colonies) and slaves worked the land: the British colonies developed a pernicious doctrine of racist slavery that casts a pall over the US to this day. In India John Company cynically acquired a huge territory where locals were starved (at best through negligence and quite possibly as a punitive measure). In Australia the tradition of massacring locals was quietly allowed while publicly decried. In Africa things were a bit grim, the theft of Boer territories was utterly dishonourable and exploitation of locals pretty evil (made to look less disgusting by the Belgians and Germans).

    The British Empire was not the worst in history (goooooo AZTECS!), it did some good and some evil, but calling it benign is not plausible. Ripping cash out of Hindus and engaging in hateful religious strife with angry Irish was not God's work.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

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