AW yes.... Gods love

[DoktorZ]

You also read your assumptions into that text. Everyone does it. It is a confusing, sometimes self-contradictory text, so it is possible to bring multiple readings to it. That's why there have been so many religions based on it, often with competing claims. Don't go around calling people "ignorant" when the text itself is so obtuse.

Firstly, I am not saying that one of bbrettle's personal qualities is general ignorance. Far, far, from it. I am saying that he is using an argument from a particular ignorance (not used derogatively, simply meaning "lack of knowledge") about the meaning and implication of the text which he brought up to argue his case. Rather than provide an argument to show that Mark 16:15, as originally intended, implies a necessary dependence of God on human beings, he argues that the only interpretation that he can think of implies this. What's more, he readily admits that this is the case.

You, yourself, make a claim about the text, that it is "confusing," "self-contradictory" and obtuse". Would you care to provide an argument for this? Perhaps you really mean to say that we must be skeptical about the original meaning of the text. In which case, again you should give an argument for this. That different people have come to different conclusions about the text's meaning says nothing about the text, whose original meaning may well have been crystal clear to it's first readers (more strictly, hearers).

I have nothing particular invested in this text - it is not a part of the Scriptures I read in any case, since the real ending of Mark is unfortunately lost to the mists of time - but I am invested in the discussion with bbrettle, who has raised an immensely important question from every perspective: emotionally, existentially, rationally and morally.

I'm afraid I don't have time to go over this massive book with you. There are many books, articles, and websites offering examples of contradictions within holy texts. If you are going to continue asserting that this holy text is transparent, and subject to a consistent reading, then I believe you are being disingenuous and frankly aren't worth speaking to. In my experience, most religious people who come to atheist message boards are engaged in conscious acts of deception.