Ahhh, religion...
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Thursday, April 16, 2026 19:08
VIEWED: 10206
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Quote:Yeah, when someone starts saying that the bible is The Word Of God and therefore it doesn't need to question itself, I really ought to check out.
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
I'm stayin outta this one cause I am a Maltheist, in case anyone wondered, and the discussion will be far more civil and informative without my two penniesworth.
-F
I mean, the logical fallacies there are so obvious that, if they need to be explained, there's little chance of successful communication. Can a Believer be made to understand that belief is not fact? Can such a person consider that The Word Of God may be purely an invention of scared little human beings living in a hard-to-explain world? That would involve questioning, and the Word cannot be questioned, because it is the Word and therefore true, and will always remain true because it cannot be questioned...
It's a kind of evolution of thought process, survival of what can't be killed off. If a belief system cannot be questioned, then it will not ever be proven false. Which, really, is why I think religions exist. That, and the superiority factor. (God is like me and I am like God and I'll be going to Heaven na-na-na-na-na-na!)
Oops. I didn't check out quickly enough. Sorry, HappyTrader. I really think you're better than that, but the "Word of God" thing, brought into an otherwise logical conversation, kind of triggers my anti-logic gag reflex.
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Haha, thanks for the compliments. I figured that one comment I made would trigger interesting responses. Mal, I'm not entirely sure I follow ya, or you follow me, so I'll try and clear things up a mite.
I believe the Bible is the word of God transcribed by man as best as he was able. It has to be interpreted in context to make sense. Also, it's taught largely through parables and the like. I suppose I should have been more specific on the questioning bit. We don't question its authenticity, but we ought to question what it means. Why did Jesus try multiple times to cure the blind man if he could have done it in one? There's an answer there, ya just gotta find it. Then, you maybe have to do a bit of transposition to bring the concept into our modern context. For example, sex outside of marriage was a very bad thing, because people married very very young, so if you had sex outside of marriage you were cheating on your wife or husband. Nowadays we can wait a while before we get married and still make babies, and we can have sex without making babies, so I'm not entirely sure how that should be applied to our generation. I do know if it is sinful, it's a sin I commit multiple times every weekend, but nobody's perfect. When I get a better job I might just make an honest woman out of her, but I won't make a commitment like that till I have the resources to fulfill it. Otherwise all I can offer is student loan debt.
I know I went on a bit of a tangent their, but did that clear things up? What I mean by not questioning the Bible, I mean it's not a theory to be put up for approval or disapproval. It's more like a manual on life that takes a little effort to understand properly. Otherwise it's like watching a foreign film with bad dubbing.
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Why shouldn't we question its authenticity?
Should science not question the origins of the fossil record? Should it not question the authenticity of its research?
Would you be satisfied if scientists just started out a conversation with "Well, nobody can question the authenticity of evolution, so let's just accept that as the baseline and move on from there..."?
The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.
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... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.
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As we have established, Religion is not science. It almost like trying to authenticate that red is in fact my favorite color. The religion is based off of God's message as recorded in scripture. Also, I'm curious as to how you would verify its authenticity? Might be this is something we have to take on faith, ya know, kinda like a religion or something.
In case I need to specify again, I ain't telling anyone what to beleive, just trying to help y'all understand why I and others feel the way we do.
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Quote:Right. Got whatcha mean. I don't happen to think that Jesus was Divine, but he was a great man with many great ideas, and I think it equally likely that the middle-men of his day (well, 200 years later) interpreted and recorded his ideas in the way they personally saw fit. I doubt they intended evil, but they thought enough of themselves to try and shape the world they way thought it ought to be. Just look at the place of women in the book, for instance, as Niki pointed out. They had no problem setting that down, to the detriment of millions (billions?) of women over the millenia since.
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
believe the Bible is the word of God transcribed by man as best as he was able.
Quote:Then you aren't really questioning it.
We don't question its authenticity, but we ought to question what it means.
Th Holy Book (any Holy Book) is some good stuff written by both good and bad people and then passed through a game of operator (whisper any message into a line of ears and what comes out the end is vastly changed.) So Jesus curing a blind man umpteen times might have more to do with several fellows liking their dad's particular version of the fable, and all are big donors to the cause, so all their versions have to be set down or the whole project might tank (kinda sounds like Congress, or my last faculty meeting) so a new take an the tale is born. It's all politics.
Who knows. The thing I feel confident about is that people then were much like people now, and people now do stupid shit.
Quote:Question again that which you define as "good" and "bad". For the man, having another man's child implanted in his own family has very bad indeed, as it's an affront to his manhood and his ownership of his woman, Then there's that strange DNA he's forced to nuture.... But he can go diddle something else and claim it's not his. He's got his freedom and his high moral horse too.
example, sex outside of marriage was a very bad thing, because people married very very young, so if you had sex outside of marriage you were cheating on your wife or husband. Nowadays we can wait a while before we get married and still make babies, and we can have sex without making babies,
But to a woman, having multiple fathers puts more variety of traits into her offspring, more chance that at least some of her children will fit the changing times. And, in those olden Biblical days when she would not be able to care for herself, she's got secondary daddies to step up an support her and her brood in main daddy turns out to be an ass.
How knows. Could happen.
So what I see as definitions of Good and Bad in the Bible are most definitely set down by one limited and definitely NOT divine, but powerful group. They write their Word for the good of themselves only. Makes me doubt that source of that message pretty strongly. It's self-serving.
Quote:It helps if you are its target audience, as it seems you may be.
It's more like a manual on life that takes a little effort to understand properly. Otherwise it's like watching a foreign film with bad dubbing.
If you are not, and what you are want is not one of the Officially Approved Biblical Ways Of Life™, there becomes even harder to see the Word as sound, or as necessary. I don't follow it, I don't need it, and yet I'm a moral, kind (mostly), empathetic and responsible person with an awe for what's out there, and not an overly high value set on what I've got inside of me. I'm just a cog having a decent time still rolling. Don't knee no damned book to coninue that alone,
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Yup, we're told by the "believers" that the bible is the "word of god" - and then we're told that parts of it are obsolete and not important.
I was having this discussion with someone the other day, and they kept insisting that homosexuality is against the bible. I asked them how so, and they pointed to Leviticus, in the Old Testament. So I asked them if the old testament wasn't obsolete, replaced by the NEW testament - the part that "christians" claim to follow. At that point, he claimed it was ALL the word of god, and it was all to be followed. So I told him that he was going to hell, whereupon he became incensed and demanded I explain myself. "Well, you shave your face and cut your hair! Further, you have several tattoos, and a couple of piercings. Hence, you're going to hell. It's in your book."
He said that I was wrong, and that no such thing was in there, at which time I pointed him right back to Leviticus, in the passages around the biblical ban on homosexuality, whereupon he claimed that THAT part of the book wasn't meant to be taken literally.
Seems if something was the infallible "word of god", a person should live by all of it, else what's the point?
The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.
AURaptor's Greatest Hits:
Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.
Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.
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Um, I really hope you aren't implying my religion is sexist. I can agree to disagree on several things, but a sexism accusation just might make me loss my cool. My mom had to work her ass off without the benefits of an education to raise me and my sis all by herself and make sure we got an education. She worked a crappy job with no advancement and just about every man in her life was... Well pathetic or they took advantage of her generousity (as in basically stole money, cause we were so rich and all...) She's a better person than any man I've ever met, though I wish she stood up for herself more. Hell, if I were sexist, it would be against men.
Say what you will about nutjobs and the like, but I fail to see how any intelligent person could be sexist or racist. They would be robbing themselves of the friendship knowledge and ideas of a large portion of the population. Much as I am trying to advocate on behalf of all faith's I won't defend anything that is meant to be sexist.
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Old testament is obsolete in my opinion. Jesus made things simple for us. Anyone who believes and trys their best goes to heaven. Basically believe in God and love thy neighbor as thyself. The rest is window dressing. Old testament is about our history, new testament is about our future. And I don't care what any catholic says, there is no one sin that will send you straight to hell. No one deserves to get into heaven, which is why everyone can get in. Ya can't earn it, it's a gift so no one should feel high and mighty or like bragging about it.
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Mal
The worm has relocated.
Really you would be burned at the stake for opposing the power of the Church. The RCC is a dying institution. Try instead to oppose Judaism, and see how far they let you get with it.
Of course, burning people at the stake was for show, to create a spectacle, it's why they have massacres in China. But our modern system is very civilized: We have our mainstream media who will pillory you until the people want to burn you at the stake. If that doesn't work, we have concentration camps full of torture chambers. We've killed far more opponents of Israel in a few short years than the Catholic Church was able to do in centuries.
And of course...
Jump to the other side, and it's no better.
Oppose Islam or Mohammed, and you can be burned at the stake in a number of ways. Including, probably, literally.
So, Christians have changed? Maybe, maybe not. Most christians now are like most christians then. The protestants, so called, I strongly suspect were mostly never catholics. The RCC actual control over Europe was very sketchy, even at the time of the Reformation, numerically, most of the people who joined the reformation were christians who were not yet catholics, and didn't want to be under the thumb of the RCC, so they were all dubbed "protestants" even if they weren't, in fact... so it's all very twisted.
The point being, the Church had a lot of power. It still does. It's just a different church. I'm not sure its leaders are different people. After all aren't we still on a Crusade?
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Mal4Prez was not calling you sexist.
You have noted that there exist some things in the bible that should at least be thought about for better understanding; "is pork evil or is it expensive to raise and in those days hard to cook so it was safe to eat?" "Did God destroy Sodom and Gammorah because of homosexuality or because of the roving gangs of rapists?"
The question of women in the bible, right and wrong and roles expected of them as depicted should raise similar questions for you. Why can't a woman be a priest in the Catholic church? What is the purpose of the institution of marriage?
Your religion is starting to question these things. Kudos. Watch out for the traditionalists who will want to road block you with double standards, and believe on.
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