288 replies to this topic

[Fyxe]

If you're aetheist, you need to have a lot of faith in yourself, and you need to learn to question yourself. No forgiveness for us, we have to live with the mistakes and forgive ourselves. That takes a lot of personal faith.

It's not easy, of course.

The alternate way of looking at things is to believe nothing matters. But that leads to sociopathic behavior. Which pretty much sucks.

[Nevermind]

Or you can be just as sure of yourself believeing nothing's out there.

But as you said, too, it's hardest to gain forgiveness from yourself, no matter how sure you are.

And hey, if you're a sociopath at least hey! No worries!

[Armeggadon]

no... if you don't believe anythings out there than you don't have anytihng to forgive. The only person you have to forgive is yourself for soemthing you might possibly regret which is tougher than just saying "Oh, i'll go to confessional and say my prayers and i'm off the hook." Having the self control to forgive yourself or not do something that you believe may be wrong because you won't be able to forgive yourself afterwards takes work. but just asking for forgiveness from an unknown entity is a lot easier because then you don't ahve to worry about it.

Believing that there is something out there that has all knowing power over everything that happens simply because people pray for it isn't all that difficult. It gives you a good scapegoat to get out of things or a reasoning for things that you don't know about or understand (i've heard "Because it was God's will." as a response to so many things from my friend it's annoying)

I don't want to bash christians because i myself was raised as one. I found way to many faults in it for my taste. i've also found that the bible contradicts itself too many times for me to be able to consult it as a solid reference for anything. the bible is also basically a story told by people and to believe it's infalible and everything in it is absolutely true is just way too out there for me(which even you don't believe fully since you admit to saying a lot of it is a metaphor for something else which is just a way to say "well i don't believe it completly, but if you put it like this it will make sense" which is how the bible was written in the first place)

science has proved that the world has existed for millions probably billions of years. we've found bones and plant life that date back far before the bible says the world was created no matter how you look at it. I'm sorry but i can't just deny the existence of this evidence or that there were things here long before Adam and Eve. whether you just tihnk scientist make it up to make the bible look wrong, or if you just deny it completly it's your opinion. i have mine and you have yours and someone else has theirs. I just don't like having those opinions forced down my throat until you start spouting them yourself like they do in church. I also don't like being told that every other religion is wrong or is going to hell.

[Emiko]

The bible only contradicts itself if you take every story as truths..there are [img]http://forums.legendsalliance.com/public/ALOT.png[/img] of illustrations and stories with a deeper meaning...

Like hell.

the bible clearly states that the dead are conceious of nothing at all and that the payment of sin is death and so on and so on..but Jesus tells the story of the rich man and the poor man..which is a illustration...and in Rev. it says that Death and hades (or hell) are to be thrown into the lake of fire the eternal distruction...how can a literal place be thrown into a nother literal place? well it sounded better in my head.. x.x

[Reflectionist]

where does it say that the dead aren't conscious?

and, romans 3:23 says that although we get what we deserve, we can still inherit eternal life through Jesus.

[Armeggadon]

yes but that's why it's so flawed and fallible... people can interpret it in different ways. the bible is basically a book that has been given a message and people read it with solely that message in mind that it tells the word of god. each illustration as you said is interpreted differently by different people based on their backgroudn in religion or normal life. some people may see god as vengeful, some may see him as fair, some even claim that it was satan doing all the killing in the bible and God was actually trying to stop it by teaching peace.

People worship God because they're afraid of him/her/it/whatever. They don't want to go to hell and they don't want to feel God's wrath so what do you do? You worship him and show him all praise. Tyranical countries use this same philosophy in their rulings... I woudln't exactly call them prophets though.

o and as for your story death and hades are two figures... hades is also referred to as hell but when it refers to them as being thrown into the lake of fire, the eternal destruction it refers to the figures. again different interpretations by different people. You don't ahve to take the stories as truths to see the contradictions. take fo example:

II Samuel 24:1 And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Isreal and Judah.

I Chronicles 21:1: And Satan stood up against Isreal, and provoked David to number Israel.

which one is correct? It couldn't possibly be using a metaphor in one to mean the other? why would the Lord be called Satan or vice-versa... Heres another one


Jer. 13:13-:16 Then you shall say to them, 'Thus says the LORD: Behold, I will fill with drunkenness all the inhabitants of this land: the kings who sit on David's throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will dash them one against another, fathers and sons together, says the LORD. I will not pity or spare or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.'" Hear and give ear; be not proud, for the LORD has spoken. Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the twilight mountains, and while you look for light he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness.
From this is sounds like the lord coudl be quite evil.. but wait...

Psalms 145:8-:9 The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
now it sounds like he's very compassionate and merciful... what's going on o.o

i have a feeling someone is going to tell me some weird interpretation of this or say "o well you didn't read it all" and i can go ahead and tell you i did. it doesn't change the meaning.

[SOAP]

But as you said, too, it's hardest to gain forgiveness from yourself, no matter how sure you are.

And hey, if you're a sociopath at least hey! No worries!

no... if you don't believe anythings out there than you don't have anytihng to forgive. The only person you have to forgive is yourself for soemthing you might possibly regret which is tougher than just saying "Oh, i'll go to confessional and say my prayers and i'm off the hook." Having the self control to forgive yourself or not do something that you believe may be wrong because you won't be able to forgive yourself afterwards takes work. but just asking for forgiveness from an unknown entity is a lot easier because then you don't ahve to worry about it.

Yes it's harder to not have a higher power to forgive you. I have trouble with that myself. But sometimes it's a matter of mustering enough will power to make it on your own and what you're seeing is more and more people depending on themselves. I learned early I could not trust everything my church told me to be true. And I've been different sorts of churches and did not find any sort of peace of mind. It wasn't until I started having more faith in myself and my own abilities that I found I could forgive myself by just realizing that I'm just human and that I don't need to hold it against myself when I don't do it to others.

[Emiko]

where does it say that the dead aren't conscious?

and, romans 3:23 says that although we get what we deserve, we can still inherit eternal life through Jesus.

Ecclesiastes 9: 5 " For the living are concious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are concious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the rememberance of them have been forgotton" NWT

[arunma]

Armeggadon, the problem with Biblical contradictions is that even a half-witted apologist can answer them. For example, the discrepency between the author of the books of Samuel and the Chronicler can be easily reconciled by understanding that Satan is required to do God's will. For example, it was God's will that Satan test Jesus in the desert, and it was likewise by God's sovereign judgement that David be provoked to sin by performing the census. That Satan is sometimes God's instrument is irrelevant.

From a more scholarly perspective, it's important to remember that the books of Samuel were a more contemporary work, while the Chronicles were written after Israel's Babylonian captivity, and the restoration of the kingdom. During the captivity, Job was written, and this was one of the first books to describe the theology surrounding Satan. Before the captivity, the concept of Satan didn't really even exist. Thus, the differences between the perspectives of the two authors is generally attributed to the different theological basis from which they wrote.

As for the "contradiction" between the prophet Jeremiah and the Psalmist, this one is fairly weak. There are a lot of passages in the Bible where God is described as a terror. Christians have always understood that God's wrath doesn't preclude his grace. In fact, that's a major theme in Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans.

[Korhend]

Arunma lemme ask you're opinion on something. You've established that the bible is fairly accurate to its original version, but what about the original? I understand the nature of the book being divinely inspired, but is it possible for the authors to have written differently from God whether do to purpose or error?

[Alakhriveion]

Also, the original cersion was an editting of several texts. It doesn't date back a full 2000 years, or anywhere close.

[SOAP]

Arunma lemme ask you're opinion on something. You've established that the bible is fairly accurate to its original version, but what about the original? I understand the nature of the book being divinely inspired, but is it possible for the authors to have written differently from God whether do to purpose or error?

Yeah, especially since the word "inspired" doesn't mean "dictated word by word."

[Goose]

You have to remember that the bible is a library of books. Not just one book, but a whole collection of them. I dont know if thats even a little bit revelvant, but I said it anyway.

This is the way I think of it, A person wrote down the oral stories in order to keep them alive. People then added to it, inspired from God. People then collated all these works, ommiting the ones that didn't co-incide with their beliefs.

People may have written differently, and from different perspectives, but thats a given. They were written at very different times in existance. The thing you hqve to remember that the stories were written for the societies back then, and they had a certain set of cultural literacies that they adhered by, the fact that women had no rights being one of them.

Korhend, all you need to do is stop thinking about it as one book, and just see it as a library of works.

[Nevermind]

That's one of the problems I have with the way the Bible is set up actually. The "omitting of books that did not coincide with their beliefs".

Which means that the apocrypha are only worthless in the eyes of Christians today because back then "they said so".

[arunma]

Arunma lemme ask you're opinion on something. You've established that the bible is fairly accurate to its original version, but what about the original? I understand the nature of the book being divinely inspired, but is it possible for the authors to have written differently from God whether do to purpose or error?

Well, anything's possible. But as per the religious doctrines of the church, no I do not personally believe that the original autographs of the Bible contained any theological errors, because we hold that the Holy Spirit inspired all of the canonical writings.

That's one of the problems I have with the way the Bible is set up actually. The "omitting of books that did not coincide with their beliefs".

Which means that the apocrypha are only worthless in the eyes of Christians today because back then "they said so".

But it's not as if we're keeping any secrets. The apocrypha is readily available if you wish to read it. Besides that, Jesus created a church, not a Bible. The beliefs of the apostles were transmitted to the church, and that's how they decided what books ought to be in the Bible.

[Nevermind]

But you say "apocrypha" and people go "oh...those.."

[Doopliss]

If you're aetheist, you need to have a lot of faith in yourself, and you need to learn to question yourself. No forgiveness for us, we have to live with the mistakes and forgive ourselves. That takes a lot of personal faith.

It's not easy, of course.

The alternate way of looking at things is to believe nothing matters. But that leads to sociopathic behavior. Which pretty much sucks.

I agree with you, religion is an escape from reality in a certain way..

[davogones]

Wow this thread exploded pretty quickly. Nice time to return to Controversial.

I will take the liberal Christian stance in this thread, because that is what I am accustomed to doing. So I will argue a little bit on both sides.

I do not personally believe that the original autographs of the Bible contained any theological errors, because we hold that the Holy Spirit inspired all of the canonical writings.

It's one thing to say that the scriptures were inspired, and another to say they are infallible. My own view is that inspiration does not necessarily imply precise, clear, infallible doctrine. Rather, God is interpreted through unclear, limited human vision and thus we are given imperfect texts which are only second-hand accounts of a clearer truth. And even if, say, I were a prophet and understood everything completely clearly, this doesn't mean everyone will understand me when I try to explain things to them. Jesus' own disciples often didn't understand what the heck he was talking about.

[SOAP]

OMG! Davo's still alive!

[arunma]

Yeah I know. I'm not jumping with joy and surprise at the moment, because I already did that a couple days ago when I found him on Zelda Storyline. But yeah, it is cool to have him back.

By the way Dave, I'll respond to your thingie soon.

[Nevermind]

The WHOLE first half of this show the guy whined and whined about "I'm not supposed to pray to another God, it's against my religion! *emoemoemocraaaaawlingiiiinmyyyskiiiin*" But then the show goes on to say that Jews, Muslims, and Christians DO pray to the same God, and where they differ is their idea of the prophet (Christians=Jesus, Muslims=Mohammad, Jews="*look at watch* He must've made a wrong turn in Albuquerque or something..."). So yeah... who's right here? The man or the narrator?

Although I don't think he's completely right, I'd have to say the narrator has more the correct idea. It's not so much the God that separates Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but more our practices, our principles, and yeah our belief in the prophet/messiah. The three interpretations of God is where we also differ.

[Goose]

The whole point of The Cristian view point is that we dont see Jesus as a prophet, we see him as the son of God.

[Nevermind]

...and yeah our belief in the prophet/messiah.

Yeah.

[Korhend]

It was St. Peter who created the Catholic (universal) church!

[Emiko]

Why is it that then christians of today beleive that Jesus is for all mankind?

John 10: 16: "I (Jesus) have other sheep, which are not of this fold (Jews); those also I must bring, and they will listen to my voice, and they will become one flock.."

So Jesus said that the invintation to live in God's paradise was extended to the rest of the World, if they would listen to him.

[Goose]

You say he survived the Crucifiction? Please provide the references.

[arunma]

The misspelling of crucifixion aside, I agree. You've got to provide proof if you say that Jesus survived the crucifixion, or that the blessed Saint Paul didn't meet Jesus.

Oh by the way, it was Saint Peter who baptized the first Gentile. He didn't resent ministry to the Gentiles at all.