What is the Human Suffering/Pleasure Ratio?

Originally posted by queenannie38

Originally posted by dbrandt
Isaiah 14
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Do your homework. That's something Jerome stuck in there, a secondary result of the wars going on back then between popes and heretics and what-have-you.

It appears you are choosing to disect the parts of the Bible you like from the parts you don't like.

Originally posted by dbrandt
It appears you are choosing to disect the parts of the Bible you like from the parts you don't like.

Not at all. There is no part of the bible I don't like. It's not about my preferences that I replied as I did. I like to get to the bottom of things, and so I do a lot of research. Not to prove the bible or anyone else wrong, or pick and choose what I want to think is true. I just don't want to be mislead by anyone else's mistakes. Not that said mistakes are purposeful or anything bad, but when you consider how many languages the bible's been translated to and from, it makes sense to want to go back to the source. At least for me, that is.

Lucifer is not mentioned anywhere else in the bible. The fact that, at one point in time, I encountered a lot of people who seemed to feel that any morning star was Satan and something to shudder at--knowing what it says in Revelation about the morning star--I just sought some clarification, through language and the history of the bible's translations.

A true can of worms, as it were. But the bible stands as true and let every man be a liar instead of God. And that includes 'St.' Jerome--surely considering the way that you feel about the catholic church, you are somewhat skeptical of his so-called authority?

Or have you ever investigated it?

Jerome was somewhat liberated in his treatment of scriptures here or there--and it wasn't that he sought clarity, but as any good clergyman of the RCC, he sought to justify and indemnify the reputation of his Pope(s). This is exactly the case with the passage in Isaiah. I don't trust the church's translations at face value--needlessly going from Greek to Latin and back to Greek, then to English--that's confusion and I'm not wanting to be misled by words motivated by other than God's intentions. Really, I can't even say, as many, that I believe the KJV is any more free of murkiness than any other version, even though it is my preferred in English. These days, with computers, it's easy enough to dig down to the roots--the meaning as intended by the writers, as written in the languages of those times. I'm daily thankful for that, because, according to the Koine Greek, the NT doesn't say the same as King James and the rest. I basically have to trust the Greek because that's as far as I can dig...

Once again, I have to point out that for someone so adamantly opposed to the RCC, you don't realize how much of their beliefs and traditions you have inherited, just by be being a christian....