How do Christians Still follow the bible?

[BillNye]

I was considering posting this earlier, but after This Thread I figure I'll go ahead. As somebody who has gone to Catholic Schooling and taken religion classes it would natural that I would follow the bible. This is not the case though, anybody who has followed Catholicism should understand where I am coming from. The bible is an extremely outdated document which is only still around because the church comes out and says "hmm, the bible says something that make no sense and it has been proven wrong... no biggie, it must have been figurative!" Why would God/Holy Spirit need to inspire people to write figuratively? The argument is that religion is so in-depth and so hard for our minds to comprehend that we must be given figurative stories and metaphors to grasp its deeper meaning. So now that we are advanced, one could assume that the church could rule out figurative/literal on every story, but obviously they dont do that cuz when science proves something wrong they need to beable to label something figurative to keep its credability. It is is extremely annoying to me when people jump through hoops in attempt to make something "make sense" from the bible when in reality, it was written 2000 years ago, and like anything 2,000 years old it flat out dosnt make sense in most cases.

Another thing is, check out the inconsistancy between the old testament and the new testament. Did God change his mind or did people (who I would argue wrote the bible as in w/o inspiration from the holy spirit) change their mind? I go w/ the latter.

I really wanna hear a devout-christian give a good response.

Edit: Basically I don't get how people can blindly follow a given religion in this case Catholics and the bible.

[dknightx]

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The bible is an extremely outdated document which is only still around because the church comes out and says "hmm, the bible says something that make no sense and it has been proven wrong... no biggie, it must have been figurative!" Why would God/Holy Spirit need to inspire people to write figuratively? The argument is that religion is so in-depth and so hard for our minds to comprehend that we must be given figurative stories and metaphors to grasp its deeper meaning. So now that we are advanced, one could assume that the church could rule out figurative/literal on every story, but obviously they dont do that cuz when science proves something wrong they need to beable to label something figurative to keep its credability.


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examples please.

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Another thing is, check out the inconsistancy between the old testament and the new testament. Did God change his mind or did people (who I would argue wrote the bible as in w/o inspiration from the holy spirit) change their mind? I go w/ the latter.

I really wanna hear a devout-christian give a good response.

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i used google, and this page is a decent start:

http://www.bible-knowledge.com/Old-t...testament.html

btw, im not catholic, so maybe you arent looking for my response.

[yukoncpa]

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i used google, and this page is a decent start:

http://www.bible-knowledge.com/Old-t...testament.html

btw, im not catholic, so maybe you arent looking for my response.



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From your link ( when explaining why God is sometimes so bloody in the old Testament ):

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The best analogy that I can give you on this is just imagine you were married, had several children and all of a sudden you found out that somebody was going to try to kill one of your children. What do you think your natural reaction would be? I have heard mother after mother say to me, without batting an eye, that if anyone would try to seriously hurt one of their own children - they would have no problems in literally killing that person dead if they had to.

This right here is the exact same type of wrath and anger that God Himself has when protecting His own. This is why the Old Testament is so bloody in all of the battles that are described in it. Half of those bloody battles had to do with God the Father defeating all of Israel’s enemies in actual warfare and combat.



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So Israel's enemies are not children of God? I thought everyone was God's children. This analogy is no good, because any decent parent is not going to choose favorites among her children, especially to the point of killing her unfavorites. If her children are hell bent on killing themselves, a loving mother, who has the power, will put a stop to the bloodshed, not exasperate it.

[dknightx]

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i used google, and this page is a decent start:

http://www.bible-knowledge.com/Old-t...testament.html

btw, im not catholic, so maybe you arent looking for my response.



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From your link ( when explaining why God is sometimes so bloody in the old Testament ):

[ QUOTE ]
The best analogy that I can give you on this is just imagine you were married, had several children and all of a sudden you found out that somebody was going to try to kill one of your children. What do you think your natural reaction would be? I have heard mother after mother say to me, without batting an eye, that if anyone would try to seriously hurt one of their own children - they would have no problems in literally killing that person dead if they had to.

This right here is the exact same type of wrath and anger that God Himself has when protecting His own. This is why the Old Testament is so bloody in all of the battles that are described in it. Half of those bloody battles had to do with God the Father defeating all of Israel’s enemies in actual warfare and combat.



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So Israel's enemies are not children of God? I thought everyone was God's children. This analogy is no good, because any decent parent is not going to choose favorites among her children, especially to the point of killing her unfavorites. If her children are hell bent on killing themselves, a loving mother, who has the power, will put a stop to the bloodshed, not exasperate it.

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The Israelites are Gods chosen people ... not sure where the whole "everyone is God's child" comes from. Plus I only said that the website was a "decent" start, so feel free to like or dislike its explanation.

[bigpooch]

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So Israel's enemies are not children of God? I thought everyone was God's children.

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John 1:1-13

The Word Became Flesh

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

[Justin A]

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The Israelites are Gods chosen people ... not sure where the whole "everyone is God's child" comes from. Plus I only said that the website was a "decent" start, so feel free to like or dislike its explanation.

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We could probably have a whole thread on this topic.

God creating a bunch of different races and then choosing one of them as his favorites is ridiculous. It's no wonder people of the past have had such an easy time using the bible to justify their racism.

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
The bible is an extremely outdated document which is only still around because the church comes out and says "hmm, the bible says something that make no sense and it has been proven wrong... no biggie, it must have been figurative!" Why would God/Holy Spirit need to inspire people to write figuratively? The argument is that religion is so in-depth and so hard for our minds to comprehend that we must be given figurative stories and metaphors to grasp its deeper meaning. So now that we are advanced, one could assume that the church could rule out figurative/literal on every story, but obviously they dont do that cuz when science proves something wrong they need to beable to label something figurative to keep its credability.



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examples please.



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The flood covered the whole earth
All animals were originally herbivores
Men have one less rib then women (this wasn’t proved wrong until the 1500's and caused quite a fuss)
Bats are birds
diseases, like leprosy, are caused by the wrath of God or by Satan
The value of pi is 3
Earthquakes are caused by God getting mad
The slime trail of snails is them melting

These are just a very small sample of scientific gems from the bible.

[Justin A]

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Men have one less rib then women (this wasn’t proved wrong until the 1500's and caused quite a fuss)

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Wait this isn't true?

[Taraz]

I'm not a Christian and I don't believe in any literal interpretation of the bible, but I don't think the "God changed his mind" argument is an issue at all. It could easily be that God sends messages that will be received well. Maybe humanity was not ready to accept Jesus's message way back in the day.

Think of it like school. You don't teach first grader algebra. You teach him slowly and build upon what you taught him previously. I think it's called Progressive Revelation. This view of religion seems to make some sort of sense to me.

[dknightx]

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The bible is an extremely outdated document which is only still around because the church comes out and says "hmm, the bible says something that make no sense and it has been proven wrong... no biggie, it must have been figurative!" Why would God/Holy Spirit need to inspire people to write figuratively? The argument is that religion is so in-depth and so hard for our minds to comprehend that we must be given figurative stories and metaphors to grasp its deeper meaning. So now that we are advanced, one could assume that the church could rule out figurative/literal on every story, but obviously they dont do that cuz when science proves something wrong they need to beable to label something figurative to keep its credability.



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examples please.



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The flood covered the whole earth
All animals were originally herbivores
Men have one less rib then women (this wasn’t proved wrong until the 1500's and caused quite a fuss)
Bats are birds
diseases, like leprosy, are caused by the wrath of God or by Satan
The value of pi is 3
Earthquakes are caused by God getting mad
The slime trail of snails is them melting

These are just a very small sample of scientific gems from the bible.

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i have no idea where you got 1/2 of these, and the other half, its easy to just say that God causes X via how it is scientifically explained. That doesn't mean God wasn't the catalyst.