Hello everyone!!

[Daystar]

I guess when you don't interpret scripture literally you can believe and disbelieve whatever bits you like. Or you see fit. Cherry-pick or whatever.
Because the literal interpretation is the only really consistent one. And its obviously bullshit and a lot of it is immoral if you look at the old testament for instance.

Yeah. If you look at the old testament. Which you haven't. So you can't really say. Or would it be inconsitant for me to take that literally?

Look, we have been here before, EVF. I'm trying to help you with your argument. It is typical short sightedness of a Bible critic to complain about the literal / figurative issue. You can interpret anything literally or figuratively - however you want it. I could take your saying that a literal interpretation is the only consistent one as meaning that you think "God's word is all powerful and wonderful in its truth" if I wanted to but to do so wouldn't be correct and to repeat it would be slanderous.

In life, as in the Bible, there are things that are meant to be taken literally and others as figurative, like this for example ...

I can say that "there is no God" or I "Don't believe in God" but I wouldn't say "I KNOW there is No God" Or "I am CERTAIN there is no God". Unless I was half-joking. I CAN however, say that there is no God if I'm speaking de-facto scientifically. Its just annoying to repeatedly say that I believe that "there almost certainly is no God" but thats what I think really. When I say "There is no God" it would just be a shortening of that.
I would never say "I KNOW" or "I am CERTAIN" unless I wasn't speaking entirely literally and/or I was half-joking.

---

Well thanks for clearing that up. I certainly think you are wise to not believe in the trinity and to think that Jesus was just a man.
What is your opinion of the "Holy Spirit" and its connection to God? And do you think it has a [spiritual] connection to Jesus? (Although as you have said you don't believe they are three parts of one God).

The Holy Spirit is Jehovah God's active force. It wasn't until the fourth century C.E. that the teaching of the holy spirit was a person and part of the "Godhead" became an official teaching.

Justin Martyr of the second century taught that the holy spirit was an 'influence or mode of operation of the Deity’ and Hippolytus taught likewise.

It should also be pointed out that in the some translations, such as the KJV at 1 John 5:7 there is a spurious addition to the orignal text which reads: "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one"

The Jerusalem Bible, which is a Catholic translation, has a footnote on this addition which reads: "not in any of the early Greek MSS [manuscripts], or any of the early translations, or in the best MSS of the Vulg[ate] itself." The Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger (1975, pp. 716 - 718) actually traces in great detail the history of this spurious passage, saying it was first found in a treatise called Liver Apologeticus from the fourth century and points out it was also found in Old Latin and Vulgate manuscripts of the Scriptures beginning in the sixth century.

More modern translations - both Catholic and Protestant don't include them in the main body of the text due to their spurious nature.