If you don't believe all the bible, why believe any of it?

reply to post by tsingtao


Because we're not supernatural forces. We're bound to the laws of physics, which essentially means we can't just manifest a solution. We have a partnership with the earth, and that means we respect its limits. Then there's our limits - and unlike some fictional characters I could name, we've made a name for ourselves by winning through hard effort and discipline, not by hitting the "instantaneous victory" button.

the2ofusr1
reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts
I don't think it was meant to be a scientific journal but there have been some scientific discoveries influenced by some of the writings .

If you study religions and philosophies and old esoteric teachings comparatively you will find the reason why that is.

It's only since recently that we classified sciences and knowledge into boxes.

Before, the scholars were polymaths, and astronomy, medicine, architecture and religion where all part of one big "science". Many looked for correspondences at all levels in nature, hence the hermetic motto "as above so below".

Oral societies recorded their knowledge of the world in myths and religions, and when writing appeared, the same was done with religious texts, usually "encoding" knowledge about the world in esoteric interpretations occult to the layman.


The most impressive spiritual texts regarding the modernity of its teaching in comparison with modern science isn't the Bible, it's the Kybalion. You might want to check that one too. It's never good to get too focused on one single source of information. (edit: the Kybalion is most likely a modern text, but it's clearly inspired from older hermetic traditions going back to Arab and Greek scholars and even beyond).

reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts


Although I haven't studied much of their stuff I do come across some of their methods and findings especially in the equidistant letter sequence done on the Torah ....peace

ETA sorry I was thinking of Kabbalah ..different stuff .

reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts


Gems which might have originated with precedent cultures having nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity?

the2ofusr1
reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts

 

Although I haven't studied much of their stuff I do come across some of their methods and findings especially in the equidistant letter sequence done on the Torah ....peace

The Kybalion and Kabbalah are 2 completely different things though...

The Kybalion is a very famous text in Hermetic circles dating from around 1900 and listing 7 principles around which all creation is articulated. Thus you will find these principles all over modern sciences and they are actually quite elegant and helpful to decode the laws of Nature.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts

 

Gems which might have originated with precedent cultures having nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity?

Some of them yes. I have no problem with that, my views on Christian faith are quite open-minded and pragmatic. I know the relations between that faith and previous religions and I have no problem with that because in my view (pantheism), the divine reality I try to get close to is the same in all cultures and spiritual texts.

I just happen to be born in a catholic culture so if I have to identify with a single religion it's that one. But god isn't exclusive to Catholics or even Christians

reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts

Yes I edited my post to show my mistake .What you have shown is what I might be associated with the new age movement .Different from Christianity though ....peace

tsingtao

Krazysh0t

tsingtao

Krazysh0t

tsingtao

AfterInfinity
reply to post by deadlyhope

 

It is believed the Bible is a book from god, not that each and every copy was hand-written in simple terms everyone can understand/no one could debate.

Because no god would ever resort to such infallible, practical, common-sense measures, right? Its ludicrous to think they might actually take steps to prevent a notoriously flawed society from misreading or misinterpreting something so sacred and important. Utterly laughable, right?

aren't we human? lol!

let's put it this way, the bible is filled with fallible, impracticable, nonsensical societies.
heck, look around you! people want to blame God?

bible has been consistent for a couple 1000 yrs. science hasn't, has it?

The whole POINT of science is for it not to be consistent. Why would you point that out as a falling of science when that is what it is designed to do? That's like saying that the Sears Tower in Chicago fails as a building because it is too tall.

You think it is a GOOD thing that the bible has been consistent for a few millenniums? A book written by men whose claims cannot be authenticated since they've been lost too time is supposed to be more credible then science because over the years the message has remained the same? That's absurd. But if we are going by length of time a concept is unchanged as the most credible, I guess that means that the Hindu religion is the most correct, it is after all the oldest and has remained largely unchanged for a lot longer than the bible.

sure, your science changes all the time.

My science? So what science rules your life? Gravity affects you differently or something?

i don't care about hindu. i am a christian.
i don't care about atheists.

That's fine, I don't care about Christianity. That still doesn't change my point. That the bible has no way to be authenticated so it is a poor source of information. Also if you are citing that the bible is true because of its unchanging nature for so long, then I just gave you an example of a religion whose books are FAR older and just as unchanged as your precious bible. I used YOUR logic to show the error in your thinking, and you dismiss it off hand because you can't be bothered to care about that particular religion. So answer me this, WHAT (in your opinion) makes the bible a good source of information?

believe what you want. or don't.

i believe in science, too. DUH!

First you label it MY science earlier in this very post then you follow up saying that you also believe in science, followed by some condescending retort like I should have known all along or something. So which is it? Is it my science or is it universal?

the only absurd thing is science claiming to be THE truth.

Show we were science claims to be THE truth. Everything I've read says that science is used to predict future events based on past experimentation. It uses probability and statistical analysis to do so. I haven't read anywhere that science claims to be the truth. Perhaps you are mixing the term "facts" with the word "truth". Science certainly uses facts (and evidence) to prove its positions, something the bible never gets around to doing.

edit on 25-3-2014 by Krazysh0t because: (no reason given)

well, isn't your science dogma?

No. It's just a bunch of observations about the universe and how it works. It changes all the time. We already went over this, in fact the whole changing all the time part is why I started responding to you to begin with. There CAN'T be dogma if the concepts are ever changing. Don't try to pigeonhole science with the failings of religion.

hell, the way you science guys talk, the bible is fake and you guys hold the ultimate truths.
in my eyes ya haven't done crap.

The Bible IS fake. Science and it's various sub-sciences have disproved the literal creation account, noah's flood, moses' exodus, and the tower of babel. Science has also shown doubts on the miracles performed by Jesus Christ. But even WITHOUT science, simple logic shows that the bible is fake. Contradictions abound in that book. One minute god is all forgiving the next minute he holds grudges for all eternity. So which is it? The historical record is also doing a good job disproving much of the bible as well. As we study history more and more, especially the religions of other cultures from history, we find many of the SAME stories as in the bible, almost like they were plagiarized. Science is just one tool, someone can use to disprove the bible.

All of that being said, that DOESN'T mean that a creator can't exist or there isn't a spiritual side to existence. Religious types have a point that you cannot disprove god. Science may even prove a creator eventually, you just have to accept that the creator that science may find probably won't look like the creator you have pictured in your head (the Christian one). The supernatural is either fake or just the natural except science hasn't gotten around to explaining it yet.

As for the second part of your claim. Until you can produce a majority of scientists who say that science holds the ultimate truths STOP MAKING THAT CLAIM! That is the second time you've made that claim to me and the second time you failed to back it up with sources.

still hunger and suffering in the world, income inequality, wars, hatred, etc.

where is your science to fix all that?


pretty cool, eh?

Show me where science ever claimed to be the answer to all of those problems. Science may be working on solutions to help those things, but that doesn't mean the overall objective of science is to do that. Science just observes and reports. But then again, religion has ruled the world for the majority of the time humans have been living in societies and created those problems to begin with. So explain to me why it is science's job to clean up religion's mess.

The problem with religious folks like you is that you reject science because it doesn't have all the answers, but something claiming to have all the answers is a dubious source at best, it should never be that easy. The universe doesn't work that way. Science comes to its conclusions at its own pace. It may answer the questions and problems you have, but it isn't something that will happen on your time. It happens on science's time. If that happens to exceed your lifetime then so be it. Just be happy with the advances in scientific knowledge that you experience during your lifetime.

the2ofusr1
reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts

 

Yes I edited my post to show my mistake .What you have shown is what I might be associated with the new age movement .Different from Christianity though ....peace

The new age got its inspiration from old esoteric and eastern teachings and turned it into a syncretic hodgepodge, but hermeticism is definitely older than new-age, and has often be associated with Christian esotericism like rosicrucianism.


Yes Hermeticism is not Christian faith, yet both existed around the same period and most certainly influenced each others so there's no reason to dismiss it as irrelevant. If anything, the understanding of Christian texts can only benefit from comparative study with other faiths.

reply to post by the2ofusr1


We are free to believe or my case not believe anything you want. I hope your faith brings you comfort and peace.

Use discernment with absolutely everything, because all of it is slanted and controlled information. Ie. any book, any course or body of information, all government and authority, and never buy into ISM, party platforms, economic platforms, any of it.

Use instead your inner wisdom.

When I was a youth, preteen, read parts of the new testament, at my grandparents, and was drawn to the love and Spirit/Presence, within some of the words, but even then, not all. And immediately understood that man had a heavy hand in the bible, for political reasons, rewrote God in his image. When I read the bible read it as a teenager, rather fast, and was mostly horrified by its primitive horrific psychopathic stuff. Except for the new testament.

But as an adult, was able to do searches, and read up on key passages in the scriptures. And also prayed that my eyes and ears be opened, that I would be guided to the meanings, and see through the world, and help everyone that I can. And prayer works! Because things would come.

There is certainly nothing wrong with realizing all the info in the world found anywhere is slanted, and that you need discernment.

Its a relief to those who know what Love is, knowing that it is an outright and complete LIE to construct a smiting evil god and bear false witness against the true God or Good Family, depending what is really true, because we don't get that information here. But some of us do have glimpses under the veil and some memories of home and Family. I place all that in the Highest Love and Goodness's Hands.

Its wonderful to realize the truth when you start to see it. You free your mind. And soul. And can truly stand up for Love and Peace, the Power of Love versus the Love of Power.

You become a seeker, not just a child.

Even asking such a question, not having it be a relief worries me, because it means someone wants to buy into something hook line and sinker, wants to be lazy and let others do the work for them, telling them what is in a nice little package, albeit a grims fairy tale that twists Love into murder and smiting, for the design of the elite, their purpose of laying seige to souls.

It means being unconfortable with your own inner core of truth, and not understanding HOW LOVING AND KIND LOVE IS, IT DOES NOT SWITCH HATS.

"If you don't believe all the bible, why believe any of it?"

The quick and simple response to this question is that literal belief is not required. I don't understand the focus on the bible because there are some things you must believe in order to be a Christian but literal belief in the bible is not one of those things.

ArtemisE This is for those Christians who don't believe in the literal truth of creation and the bible. But do believe and concierge them selves Christians.

I'm not a Christian and never will be, when I was younger I pretended to be one under duress, but I'm going to answer anyway.

ArtemisE How do you decide what to believe and what not to?

It's a personal matter in some cases. There are plenty of stories in the bible where the author has clearly taken literary license to paint a stark picture in order to set up a lesson. Those instances are obviously not meant to be taken literally and doing so would be a mistake and entirely miss the point the author was trying to make.

ArtemisETo an atheist it looks like cherry picking what people wish were true. While ignoring the things you don't agree with.

Atheists themselves are guilty of the same thing some of them accuse Christians of, holding a belief that can't be proven. How do you prove something doesn't exist? When I have seen Atheists bait Christians I see a lot of cherry-picking, the Atheists pick things out of the bible which obviously aren't meant to be taken literally and then bait the Christian by asking the Christian to defend against whatever the Atheist cherry-picked out of the bible with no regard given as to whether or not the Christian holds a literal belief of whatever he has been asked to defend. Or the Atheist pulls some horrific practice out of the Old Testament and asks the Christian to defend the practice which entirely misses the point of Christianity. Atheists cherry-pick quite a bit and they're also expert carpenters, they can construct a straw man in no time flat.

ArtemisE It seems to me that almost every Christian as a nearly completely different take on what all consider to absolute truth. Logically how can any truth be found when no one even agrees on the fundamentals?

True and they're allowed to. This phenomenon is not limited to the bible. My favorite book is called "The Art Of War", it is a very old, very short book about strategy. Over the last 30 years I have read this book at least 100 times and every time I read it I take something new away from it and see the book in a different way. The bible is no different, nor is any other written work which requires interpretation but the difference is that no one takes people to task for their interpretation of "The Art Of War".

It's funny, Atheists think they're the opposite of Christians but from where I'm standing I don't see much of a difference between the two when it comes to their thought processes. One group calling the other out is humorous to me because I see them as two sides of the same coin.

Krazysh0t
The Bible IS fake. Science and it's various sub-sciences have disproved the literal creation account, noah's flood, moses' exodus, and the tower of babel. Science has also shown doubts on the miracles performed by Jesus Christ. But even WITHOUT science, simple logic shows that the bible is fake.

As much as I agree with most you posted, as much this point in particular makes broad generalizations.

First the Bible isn't fake, it's inaccurate (given its age it's not surprising).
Secondly the literal creation account only represents a minority in the Christian world, probably less than 1%, most in the US. Again, as a remainder, the Big Bang hypothesis was actually proposed by a Catholic priest.
Finally, many accounts from the OT like the flood or the exodus and the plagues can actually be correlated to natural phenomenons such as tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, and science actually was able to make some connections between the explosion of Thira and the exodus for examples.

So science is definitely not proving the Bible as fake, it is in fact helping the Christians who are not stuck with literal interpretations making more sense of the whole story.

reply to post by moresco

Absolutely .I couldn't agree more .....peace

reply to post by the2ofusr1

So atheist don't know, but believe that they cant know . It almost seems like they may be suffering from a form of cognitive dissonance .Pretty brazen bunch to slam people that might choose to believe there is a God ...no ?

That's partly correct. Yes atheists do not know and do not purport to know. They feel that until there is empirical evidence pointing to a god/gods etc., there is no reason to believe that it/they/whatever exists. There are and have been many gods (1000s over since the dawn of man) but there has never been any proof as to the existence of any of 1000s of gods. Athiest say that we have to reason to believe. It's not any kind of cognitive dissonance it is simply using reason and logic to determine whether something is real or not. We have no evidence to support existence of any type of god being so therefore we cannot purport any knowledge of his existence.

reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts

While the old coexisted together the new does as well .always has .The thing nice about it is that we can choose between the two for ourselves ...peace

reply to post by SpaceGoatFarts


The fake comment came from the person I was quoting. I wouldn't have used the word otherwise. And my point was that the bible as written is untrue. Science has shown this to be the case. I'm sure all the stories are based in some sort of truth that developed a cult of personality through the ages as the story was told and retold. I definitely think that that is the case for the story of Jesus.

Goteborg
It's funny, Atheists think they're the opposite of Christians but from where I'm standing I don't see much of a difference between the two when it comes to their thought processes. One group calling the other out is humorous to me because I see them as two sides of the same coin.

This polarization of the debate between atheism and biblical literalism is typical to the American culture and I have to admit I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Both sides are slowly becoming caricatures of their stances simply because they now define themselves not based on their beliefs, but as opposed to the beliefs of the other side. Just like political polarization ends up with two extreme sides vastly different from their original positions, American Protestant faiths are favoring always more conservatism and literal interpretation of the Bible, while many Atheists define themselves strictly in opposition to Christians and start embracing strange philosophies like objectivism or nihilism just because it's the polar opposite of what Christians believe.


Seen from the outside it's a pretty sad sight, and one of the reason for the decline of the American education system (where else in the Christian world is a fundamentalist lobby pushing for the revision of class materials to include creationism ? Nowhere). It could lead to a modern dark age as both sides slowly become more bitter and close-minded and refuse to exchange respectfully.

I mean seriously, is it still possible in the US to claim to be a priest and to be respected by the whole scientific community, like this man was?
en.wikipedia.org...

Today in the US most Christians and atheists are guilty of contempt and generalization toward the other side.

how stupid can people be..the bible talks in analogies.

Its not meant literal.

So you don´t have to believe in any interpretation. And the creationism Interpretation taking the "numbers" literally ..is one of the most stupid interpretations of all.

There is no "this or that" in infinity(GOD) ....physics and spirit are not separated.

So evolution is not the opposite of the theory of creationism.

I believe the whole thing, cover to cover.

You either believe or not.