(May 14, 2010 at 2:14 pm)John_S3V Wrote: How can you seperate god from the bible?Because they aren't one in the same. The Bible is a book written by men about God.
Quote:As soon as you start saying that the bible may be wrong about some things you have to admit that based on the lack of evidence to support pretty well anything in the bible that it could very well be wrong about everything.It is, in fact, wrong about some things. But from a Christian's perspective, this is just human falliability. Observing God in the real world reveals which of the Bible's doctrines are right and which are wrong.
Quote:You can't say in one sentence that, "you could burn every holy book ever made and every written account of any God and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to God" and then say you "think it's a usefull tool in the history of understanding more about God." Why not? Because the god you worship is the god in the bible. Without the bible you would not believe in YHWH.The God tack and I worship is the God written about in the Bible, not the God from the Bible.
Quote:I can imagine you believing in 'a god'. I'm sure you'd acredit him with creating everything, being loving and looking out for you, but you certainly wouldn't acredit to him even half the stuff that goes on in the bible.Partially true. I'd say some of the things within the Bible can be logically expected of God, but that does not mean that He has actually carried them out.
Quote:But, you start telling me about YHWH from the Holy Bible and it's like, wait a minute, now that I have an issue with because the god from the holy bible is a dipshit and his book is full of contradictions and genocide.As I said before; the Bible is about God, God is not 'from' the Bible. We believe in the God which the Bible is about, but we also believe that the Bble is sometimes innaccurate in describing Him.
Quote:Yes, experience is understanding. It's a common, well known thing called 'Wisdom'. It doesn't require belief in gods or sacred books. In some cases, wisdom is a very personal thing and varies greatly from person to person.I agree with you on this, for the most part.
Quote:The problem with that is that people do a lot of things instinctly and I don't see how instinct or mental programming proves god.It doesn't 'prove' God, except in the subjective sense. Belief in the Holy Spirit, and a soul for that matter, explains subjectively to a person where, how, and why they are able to do and feel certain things they are able to.
Quote:Yes, many people do unto others as they would want done to them, but that's called 'Empathy'. There's nothing spiritual about empathy. It appears that humans didn't have a whole lot of empathy a few thousand years ago. But, for the sake of sustaining the speices, empathy started to flourish.And the Christian belief is that empathy is something gifted to us by God.
Quote:What humans like to poetically call, 'following their heart', is actually a matter of following their brains and genetic makeup.I would argue that the guiding force of the brain and that genetic makeup is the soul, the spirit.
Quote:If you construct some one without empathy you have a psychopath. A psychopath doesn't have remorse for doing bad things. Poetically speaking, his heart tells him to kill people and he likes that.I couter that I do not, personally, believe in such people. Not as 'people', at least.
Quote:It's not like I'm making up hypothetical stuff. This people are real. Rapists usually enjoy raping, serial killers often enjoy killing and kleptomaniacs enjoy stealing.Yes, but look at the usual mental state of such people; they are compulsive, emotionally unhealthy, and generally unwell in the head. This is very telling of the affect such behavior has on the human psyche.
Quote:Who am I to tell these people that they're on the path to moral decay when they've either been conditioned or born with unorthodox desires?Because something tells you inside that what they are doing is 'wrong', right? That's the best possible reason I can think of for locking them away. You see the affect their behavior has on themselves and others, ad you want to help them put an end to their behavior by feeling better or in some way putting a stop to it.
Quote:I don't even understand how these people could exist if the biblical god was real. Course, I'm not saying we shouldn't lock these people up. They're infringing on people's happiness and the majority of people don't want killers and rapists running around. Regardless, as far as I'm concerned these people are proof that there's no such thing as 'inner morality' or a 'core knowledge of right and wrong'. These people have a completely different take on ethics all together.And again; look at the affect their life-styles has on their state of mind and on other's well-being, as well. People react to these things because of the inner morality and core knowledge of right and wrong. At least, that is my belief.
As for your response that was actually directed at me, I believe I've probably answered your questions here.
