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May 13, 2010 at 3:31 pm (This post was last modified: May 13, 2010 at 3:33 pm by Watson.)
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(May 12, 2010 at 1:37 pm)Scented Nectar Wrote: You have no way of knowing that God is not a metaphor (like for evil and abuse of authority) and so therefore the teachings are metaphors too, like maybe for evil and cruel laws we should watch out for. How about that interpretation? You can't prove otherwise. God is a metaphor for evil that will trick you and tell you it's good.
How many times do I have to say this; I have experienced God, I have experienced His affects on this world, and I understand His nature. Applying that to the Bible, which was writte by men who believed in God, I can see what they were getting at because I've seen the lessons and the workings myself, in real life.
Quote:If the bible is a fixed reference to you, then you ARE following the bible, and therefore the bible's version of what god is.
Ga!- fu!- Sonuva!- *eyeball twitches*
I am following God. The Bible is a fixed reference because, to me, it does the best job of any holy book of describing in words the experiences I have had and the lessos I have observed about life. It does not get it completely, 100% correct, but it comes pretty damn close.
Quote:Lots of deaths and misery have resulted from people doing just that with your biblebook.
And lots of good, too. Your point?
Quote:I'm glad you have no 'need' for it, in the food and water sense, because I think the book should be mega-mocked, stuck on a pole and displayed in the town square, and certainly not used for guidance. Too much very real harm has been done because of it, and for much too long.
Good for you, I'm glad you could share your misinformed feelings on the Bible. None of this had any relevance. Any of it.
Quote:Yeah, yeah, that's nice, so, um, about those lessons, what lessons specifically has the bible taught you?
Oh FFS! Most of the lessons I've learned and conclusions I have come to have been through real life experience. The Bible has simply reinforced my confidence in those lessons by being a fixed reference which has also observed the same things.
Quote:You are claiming to be a christian, so it's the book you hold above the others I'm talking about.
I don't hold it 'above' any other books; I simply find it more far-reaching than the other books. I find it closer to the truth than any other holy book. So I choose to use it as my fixed reference.
Quote:It doesn't matter that some of the other religions and philosophies out there share some of the ideas/lessons with you.
Actually, it does. It is (subjective) evidence towards the theory that all holy books are an attempt at recording the same life lessons, and that these lessons can be observed in real life to some benefit and understanding.
Quote:And I am hoping that those lessons you learned outweigh the horrible crimes committed in the name of that same book which has helped you so much, but even if they don't, I am curious as to what they are, preferable in the order of their importance to you.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love yourself.
Love others.
Love your life.
Love God(which essentially includes all of the above)
Those are off the top of my head.
Quote:But you are if all the lessons are individual and not clearly the same for everyone.
No, I am saying that everyone experiences them differently, but that they are still the same lessons..
Quote:Then in that case, I expect it to do more help than harm, at the very least a neutral no-effect. The writings of the abrahamic god followers (of which the xtian bible is a part of) have caused serious fucking damage, and are continuing to do so, bigtime!
So have the writings of communists, so have the writings of republicans, so have the writings of democrats, so have the writings of socialists, so have the writings of just about every fucking person ever who's been widely known...your point?
Quote:I'll consider accepting your claim if you first prove to me that we can observe your god's effects on humans, which of course must also show that the god you claim as the causative element actually exists and is causing that effect.
Prove to me that it is actually gravity that makes that apple fall, and we'll talk.
I can make predictions given certain scenarios, such as how people will be impacted by denying or accepting God, what they will do if they act a certain way, in relation to God, but I am not just going to pull stories out of my ass; I don't have the time for that right now. I suggest you re-read the Bible, because- hey, that's what the Bible is for!
Quote:The bible does NOT say the god parts and effect descriptions are true, but the rest is not.
It is fucking implied, that's the whole point of the Bible; to understand it, not just know it. You can't understand what you haven't experienced. It's like saying you're an expert on marijuana without ever having been high.
Quote:And science books don't tend to use made up stories, unless of course it is prefaced by something like, 'the following fictional example is used here to display how such a resulting reaction of object weight on various shelf materials in relation to gravity's effects, and how they might take place in a household environment', etc.
I have never, ever seen a disclaimed such as that on any scientific book ever. I could believe that it might be on some, but it is not necessary for people to understand that the example they are reading is fictional; it's common sense. Ever read a math text book? There are plenty of fictional stories supplied there to demonstrate math problems.
Quote:Ok, fine, but I still can't take your word on it, and I still want to see where the bible makes that clear to me, not you. If it's a holy book, it should at least be clear about what it's messages and facts/metaphors are.
Againl it is fucking implied. That's the whole goddamn point. Ugh!
Quote:
Quote:I'll quote fr0do from a completely different topic here:
Quote:God is one. (Deut. 6:4, Romans 3:30, Galatians 3:20, James 2:19)
God is holy. (Psalm 99:9)
God is spirit. (John 4:24)
God is light. (1 John 1:5)
God is love. (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16)
Hmm, all this time I thought one was just another number, love an emotion, and light a physics thing that I don't quite understand due to never having studied it much.
One as in whole. Love is not just an emotion. Light as in goodness and unphysical-ness.
Quote:Yikes, I think for the sake of debating about religions, I will stick to the part where God is a superbeing who created everything,
Quote:is all loving
, and omnipotent, and wants humans to do certain unecessary things such as think thoughts of praise about him, and wants them to do other things too, like help him fight the evil devil he created.
Bolded what is so ironic, it blows my mind, for you.
Quote:I'm not a scientist, but a science book would more likely have something like: Here at the Research Lab where the author of this report works, we observed that 100% of the apples in our samples (100,000 subject apple trees with an average of 150 apples each) fell at the moment they were no longer supported by the tree branch. This was observed by a team of 10 researchers, recorded on video as well as stop-motion still photography, and the floor onto which the apples fell had a scale which recorded the weight difference when they landed. Air friction slowdown was seen and recorded, in relation to the apples' individual sizes and shapes aligning completely without deviation to the mathematics of such friction, blah blah.
No they wouldn't. Why? Because that sounds ridiculously fucking confusing and assumes that the reader does not trust the book in the first place, needing a shitload of back-up people to say "Oh, yeah, it happened". Readers don't need that if they're being presented something which is supposedly true.
Quote:You've already admitted that you put it through your personal interpretation of what you think are metaphors and what they represent. I will stick to the pre-additional-filter stuff that the actual book itself says.
No, I've put it through my own observations of the real world, examined it under that scrutiny, and found it to be rather consistant with the observations I have made prior.
Quote:Even if you don't, the lessons to be evil to others is still there, the vengence, the justified persecutions, the slaughter, the slavery, etc.
Because the book was written during a time when those things were acceptable and mandatory in some ways. It does not mean that they were the true teachings of God; it just means man's own faults permeate everything he creates; even the Bible.
Quote:Can you think of ANY context where killing disobedient children should be the rule? WTF?????
I am not saying that it should be the rule. I am saying that at the time, it was. You'll have to pin the blame on the men who wrote the Bible for thinking as such, not on God for decreeing as such; God would not do so.
Quote:I would if that book were claiming to be the path to happiness, goodness, and truth and change for the better, etc.
Not if that book was written by men, you wouldn't.
Quote:Then why do you worship a monotheistic god, instead of the original worship of many gods, or even the worship of things other than gods, like ancestors, animals spirits, etc.?
Because I have observed that what was once thought of as many Gods is simply a dividing of one God. Similarly, I do have a certain amount of reverence for my ancestors, animal spirits, and the like. I just acknowledge the parts of them which are 'Godly' to a extent.
Quote:For one thing, it shows that maybe the lizard tale wasn't about commies at all, but maybe about something completely different, and your head made it fit to what you wanted it to be. To you, the Adam and Eve story probably represents the battle against sin, but maybe it just represents one religion taking power from another religion and telling their followers that the old religion's gods were evil through a story. Just one of many many interpretations, and of course that means many or most will not have the commies as being the metaphor's meaning in their lizard story.
Did you read the story about Fahenheit 451 ad Ray Bradbury I posted? I'm thinking you didn't understand it.
It is all about the intent of the author. The Bible's authors intended to write down their observations about God and His nature/ how He works. For them to do that, they had to have observed God in real life, just as I have. Therefore, I can understand what their intent was because I have seen the very same things they are clearly trying to record.
Quote:Then, you are claiming that some guy named Jesus Christ was really God.
I am claiming that every one is God; at least, a part of them is. Therefore, Jesus Christ, who was as much a part of God as you or I and was the prodigal son of God, was more in-tune with God than you or I.
Quote:In other words, here you are taking the bible literally.
No, I am not; I do not know if Jesus Christ ever existed or not. I believe in His existence as a concept; that is, it is entirely probable for God to act in the way He does in the story of Jesus Christ.
Quote:The prediction of a coming messiah happened long before the xtian branching off 2000 years ago. The church found it politically and financially profitable to claim that it was really happening and that they are the right religion to follow. The details on whether a faked death/resurrection occurred, or whether it was completely just written fictually about a hundred years later are sketchy, but either way, it was very beneficial to the church's agenda of being the next theocracy. It worked too!
This is also the exact same reason why some messages in the Bible are not accurate to God's lessons and message; certain parts of the Bible were written merely for political domiation and control.
Quote:Ok, so.... where is that evidence?
As I have stated many times, it is subjective evidence; empirical, scientific evidence is not the only kind of evidence possible.
Quote:What was shown to be accurate and how.
The effects of God and denying/accepting Him have proven to affect human nature in my observances of such things time and time again.
Quote:Why would you need faith in observing anything? Doesn't that skew the results in favour of your predetermined faithbelief?
No, it does not. Trust is an off-shoot of faith; I trust the world around me is how it appears, therefore I have faith it is how it appears. I am then ready to make unbiased observations about the world around me, as it appears.
Quote:All that tells me is that you experienced love, not that an invisible universe creator exists.
I am telling you that love is God, and that love is simply another word for the creator of the universe.
Also, God is not invisible. He is all around us, in forms we must look for and recognize as such.
Quote:Nonsense, I bask and whatever in life without any need for a god or gods, so why would a person need an invisible friend to enjoy life to their best?
Again, God is not invisible; God is all of life. Therefore, to truly apprecite and understand life, one must accept God. This is a simple concept. It is a Christian belief. I don't expect you to believe it, I just expect you to try and understand it.
Quote:You're going to have to. I look and look, but can't find anything but shit in that book.
Because you aren't looking at it correctly.
Quote:Even the heroes who are portrayed as being really good and admirable (and the only ones considered worthy of saving by god) are awful people, like the sexual exploiters of their own children, Lot and Noah. Since you probably haven't actually read the bible, let me fill you in. To protect some visiting strangers to town, Lot offered up his virgin daughters to be raped by the male townfolk, and Noah got drunk and had sex with his own son.
I haven't read the Bible, actually. I don't care to know the details to the stories, because those aren't the parts which are important to the message; the funny thing is, they are the only parts that you focus on.
Quote:Explain this common sense please. I'm not seeing it.
It's called understanding. When you read a book, you don't simply read the book to know what happens within it; you read it to understand what happens within it. Knowledge and understanding are not synonymous nor co-dependent.
Quote:Shit. Jesus Christ Himself is depicted within the Bible as critical of the church!
He was depicted as being slightly critical of the church that the new christ version was trying to take over from. The newer one kept most of the older one's dogmas to use as their own.
He cited the OT for His purposes, so that He could help those He was preaching to understand them better. And no, He was not simply slightly critical; the whole reason He was crucified was for being critical of the church's doctrines and teachings.
Quote:I like the sentiment behind Hindu reluctance to hurt animals, but it does not make me a believer in their goddesses and gods. I would not call myself a Hindu.
What do you mean by, you 'like' some of their sentiments? Go into more detail, please, break it down and super-simplify what you are saying.
Quote:Sounds good, I agree. Let's dump the bible and move on. It's 2010 people.
Want to write a new Bible? Okay, let's go for it! ...Oh, wait. You're an atheist, so...it would be kind of counter-productive to involve you.
Quote:Just because you call yourself a christian, does not mean you get to make up stuff about what their rulebook says.
I'm not making up anything. I'm going off of what I'm fairly certain the believers in God who wrote the Bible intended; they intended similar things to what I would intend if I had written the Bible.
Quote:Hell happens after physical death and god-judgement if that judgement is not in your favour. It is eternal and it is all agony.
You still don't get it, do you? Inter-link all of my beliefs, SN, you cannot take them as individual bits and pieces. They are all parts of the same whole. What I have said thus far is this;
God is a part of you.
God is spiritual in His entirety.
God is your spirit.
'God-judgement', as you label it, is your spirit judging you.
Hell is something which exists here on Earth, as a state of mind, and after-death as an eternal seperation from God/ your own spirit.
Quote:Oh you poor sufferer. The bible says nothing about meaning spiritual 'death' whatever the fuck that is, I mean what has 'died' exactly?
Your...spirit...that is what is implied in the term 'spiritual death.' Fuck, you must really hate reading, don't you? To understand that the Bible means spiritual death, you have to read it as a whole, not as individual parts.
Quote:But anyways, your personal spiritual self growth traumas aside, the bible teaches that the after death&judgement hell is real, not just symbolic of your earthtime sadnesses.
Yes, it is real, in the spiritual realm on which God exists.
Quote:Where does it say that?
Implication. Intent. Rinse. Repeat.
I don't know how many times I have to tell you this.
Quote:You are still making shit up. When you feel bad about something, you will simply feel bad until the situation is either fixed or far enough in the past that it no longer affects you.
You don't always stop being affected and feeling bad about a situation after it is fixed or long gone. Tell that to veterans of Vietnam, who still feel the effects of their time in war. If you can forgive yourself for what occured, or accept that what occured was not your fault/ respnsibility, then you are more feely able to move on. The Christian belief, funny enough, is that God/ your spirit/ the Holy Spirit is the part of you which is utilized in the process of forgiveness.
Quote:Has nothing to do with gods and souls and being punished for not knowing right and wrong. Thinking it's about gods and souls means that you will not get around to figuring out the real reasons you are feeling bad.
This here is just yet another rant with no relevance which gives me nothing to respond to.
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I want to put this whole thing into a hide tag, but I can't seem to. Because, holy shit is it long. This is an interesting discussion, though, I'm enjoying myself!
