Really, honestly, how can you believe that old book???

[MaxWeiss]

For Splendour and the rest of the new gang of preachers... really, honestly, how can you believe it??? I don't know which parts you believe and which you think are metaphorical, but I mean, REALLY, I just don't see how you can put so much into such an old book--and one which has been rewritten numerous times. Seriously, why??

What corroborating evidence is there?? The BEST evidence I've heard is always shaky at best. You would think that things like a world-covering flood and ten plagues would have managed to be recorded by somebody or left physical evidence somewhere. And what about all the magic tricks and angels going around and so on??? Why not so common any more??? Is there any other record of these events???? All of these eye witnesses written about in the bible---did not a single one of these events make the news for any other scholars or writers of the day???

I can understand and appreciate the literary value of the damned book, it's so ingrained in our culture, but even being able to think of it as true in any sense more than I think of Stephen King books as true seems not just absurd but unjustifiably harmful and stupid.

I'm all ears if the defense is better than: 1) the book says it's true, 2) there's plenty of evidence although you personally cannot cite any, 3) you can't imagine it not being true because you have no imagination or understanding of science, or 4) you think as a whole it's a good thing whether it's true or not.

How do we know Rome existed?? We see the ruins, we find numerous independent written texts about it, we find more evidence which points towards it. Multiple different threads of evidence all point to the same thing. That's how. Can anybody even cite any records which say that Jesus even existed??? (Aside from the book itself...) I mean, somebody claiming to be the son of god surely would have been profiled at some point.

I'm fed up with people claiming things to be true that they just cannot claim. I'm fed up with with public policy and school curriculum's being decided by people who think a magician who turns water into wine is worth basing their lives around. I'm fed up with parents who think that immunizing children against harmful STD's is wrong because it encourages sex--as if somehow sex is wrong, but that's another point.

If you can't legitimately defend yourself under scrutiny, shut the hell up and keep your nonsense in your home and to yourself.

This was more of a rant than anything else, but my point and my questions still stand.

[Drag]

I think that it is better to start with one question at a time approach. So that the believers are not overwhelmed.

I’d pose a single question.
Why we have to constantly change our interpretation of the bible?

If it is came from God (who knows everything) then it should be consistent with the modern days science. In reality, the more scientific discoveries appeared the less literal became interpretation of the bible. Why is that?

I have a good explanation: the bible contains the knowledge of the world that was thought to be true by the human writers at the time when it was written. When our understanding of the world progressed some of the things that we previously thought to be true were proven to be false. Such as the Earth rotating around the Sun, local flood vs the Great flood, the evolution of animals vs creation, just to name a few. So, the bible is just a book which was written by people with no communication with supernatural forces (God).
This is a very simple explanation.

Can you propose a similar consistent with the facts explanation?

[MidGe]

MaxWeiss,

I understand exactly where your post comes from. Like me it is an exasperation with people that display a refusal to accept the facts.

Those fact are of two kind: firstly the content of the anachronistic book and, secondly the life as we all experience it in the raw.

On the first kind of facts, the "good" (??) book shows/describes explicitly a god who is a megalomaniac, selfish, insecure, full of anger, in both ancient and new testament parts!

Of the second kind of facts, life as it is experienced, it is full of suffering and not only for human being through their own faults, but also for an immense number of animals. Unlike you get pleasure out of skinning a cat alive I cannot see the benevolence of a purported intelligent creator!

So, to me it seems that I need to shut out those screams of madness that i keep being subject to from people that seemingly have never read the bible or have never looked around them at the facts of life.

It may be that those people are really weak creatures that need to hope against all hopes and could not cope with life as it is, and need construct an imaginary one to be able to tolerate life. To me they are just noisy, confused, distracting and will never be able to do something constructive about this universal suffering until they can accept reality, unfortunately.

[bluesbassman]

The situation is even "worse" than you describe. Some of the believers not only accept on faith the dogma of a revealed religion, for which there is no evidence, but further reject much of science, for which there is.

Observe the absurd, tortuous rationalizations many of these believers put forth to maintain their delusion. If they simply admitted they have faith, but accepted the findings of science commensurate with the evidence, I would have no quarrel with them.

Dr. Kenneth Miller, for example, is a religious person I can respect, even though I don't share his faith.

[Subfallen]

Max -

Do you know any Evangelical Christians? In my experience there are three broad categories.

(1) The average EC who simply has a hyper-conditioned reverence for the Bible. It's extremely familiar to him, he's heard it quoted as authority a million times in a million settings. And you know how wildly people overvalue the things familiar to them.

I would put Splendor, Brad1970, Mempho etc. in this category. Pretty harmless, impossible to take seriously.

(2) The over-achieving EC who has read Josh McDowell and decided it's pretty much a watertight case. Anyone who disagrees is in active rebellion against God. This category, consisting mostly of Calvinists, displays a pathological absence of self-skepticism and honesty.

Very dangerous group. Examples: txag007, Matt R, BTIrish, Bills217, and usually NotReady.

(3) The EC for whom Scripture has catalyzed an authentic spiritual experience. This is extremely rare, first of all because very few people feel the emptiness and estrangement that are necessary for authentic spirituality. You have to have a dark, festering sadness for the human condition rotting out your soul...there are no words for it really. Anyways, some people resolve this existential crisis through an encounter with the Person of Jesus as manifested in Scripture. They genuinely love the Bible for their experience of it.

Type 3 EC's are too deeply compassionate to be a threat to anything or anyone. Examples: occasionally NotReady.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you know any Evangelical Christians? In my experience there are three broad categories.

[/ QUOTE ]

Christian unity as a reality to stare you in the face! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
The EC for whom Scripture has catalyzed an authentic spiritual experience. This is extremely rare, first of all because very few people feel the emptiness and estrangement that are necessary for authentic spirituality. You have to have a dark, festering sadness for the human condition rotting out your soul...

[/ QUOTE ]

As authentic as their narrowness believes (see above [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )
The estrangement is related to an estrangement of reality which is sublimated as a seemingly "authentic" experience.

They genuinely love the Bible for their experience of it and that is the most worrying aspect of it when you read the bible unprejudiced. It describes what have to be the closest to the opposite of love or benevolence. That is true of both the ancient and the new testament, although the later is a bit toned down.

[Subfallen]

Yeah, my category 3 is sort of theoretical; I only included it because it seems like a possibility---and I'm thorough, goddamnit! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

In actuality I've never met such an EC despite knowing hundreds and hundreds of them. At least two of the five Catholics I know do qualify however. (At any rate, I'm certainly not saying this is an "elevated" or---God knows---desirable state to be in.)

[Matt R.]

Subfallen,
Why do you think I am an example of an evangelical Christian? Please be specific. An example of a post I made would be nice.

I also have no idea who Josh McDowell is.

Please feel free to ignore this post once you realize you are stupid. If you do decide to reply, you may accuse me and everyone who doesn't agree with your specific worldview of being intellectually dishonest. This is okay, because I find irony from pompous retards to be very funny.

[diddyeinstein]

[ QUOTE ]
You would think that things like a world-covering flood

[/ QUOTE ]

Now I understand that you can hold other religious texts up to the same critical treatment as you do the Bible, but am I incorrect in my thinking that the story of the flood is an element in several diffent religions.

I vaguely remember a story from ancient Greek or Roman mythology that described a flood similar to that of the Bible. Additionally, I thought it was also a story in at least one of the Eastern religions. Is this incorrect?

I'm not trying to prove the Bible, but I would think with different sources discussing a similar theme, along with our knowledge of geological data that it is likely that there was a world-wide flood at some point in the Earth's past. Of course I could be wrong, and I'm sure you will inform me if I am. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[Edukashun]

There is an old Babylonian story of the flood.
Not that this makes the bible historical correct. In fact far from it, it could just mean they borrowed from their neighbour's mythology ( Edit: meaning the Isrealites).