Can bible really be interpreted as if there is no torment but you cease to exist

[Minimalist]

Ancient Near East

[Hoptoad]

Hello folks, how are things at the church of atheism (Church defined as a group of people with shared ideas and beliefs, or disbelief as you wish.) all cheerful and tickety boo, good. A unexpected change of location allows me to write this missive.

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FUCK!! tl;wot!;dr

Hide tags are your friend!!

Wot's a hide tag?

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AH, but only dumb from your point of view.

When you come up with evidence for your fucking fairy tale be sure to let me know.... and your occasional brain farts about how jesus talks to you, or some other such nonsense, are not evidence.

I won't be holding my breath. Your kind is easily impressed with god shit.

To Min (I hope you don't mind me addressing you as Min, if you do, snarl negatively and I will desist.)

Your point hinges on what evidence you are willing to accept, you have set your standards on acceptable evidence, to those limits acceptable to you (and quite rightly so) as you an individual are responsible for your own life. I personally would never try to prove the existence of God to you, God is quite able to do that himself. Of course the form that evidence takes is problematical, there is no (as I see it) off the peg, one size fits all, unisex, easy answer that would suite everyone, all seven billion of us. I take it witness statements are out, then how about the practical, the problem with that is when faced with a practical mystery we make up any kind of theory to cover the fact we don't have a clue what is going on. So how's about practical but with the theory thoroughly tested using the tried and understood scientific method, that's got to be good yes, problem there is falsifiability. God is considered un falsifiable, how do you get a scientific explanation when the scientists wont touch the question with a barge pole.

You know it is almost as if something wants us uncertain, searching for an answer.

[The Grand Nudger]

Same as usual, hanging out, not a care in the world, snickering at theists who can't help but make comparisons to churches. I understand though, your inability to imagine a world without such things leads you to interpret the actions or associations of others through the lens of your own peculiar quirks.

[Hoptoad]

Hello Arrdverk, Noah, thing about Noah is, his story is it is told from his experiences and understanding at that period of time, his view point. Most of the story's of the bible are, snap shots of time and understanding. The last major flood of the magnitude in the story is thought to be the end of the last glacial period 12,500 years ago. The world, as we know it, was not covered by that flood But the whole of Noah's world might have been, taken he was situated in a flood area. So what does the story say, Noah gets the heads up that there's a flood coming is told how to survive it and what to store to start again after.

So do you think God should have stopped the ice sheets melting.

I must say it's refreshing to have a Christian who doesn't believe the bible and who doesn't preach too much - well done. I rather like your notion that God's role was entirely passive and that he just acted as some sort of weather man for Noah. As you clearly don't believe the bible it makes it difficult to challenge you too much. Clearly IF we were just talking about the end of the ice age, the population of the known world would have had ample time to avoid the water and they would not have been drowned. Excellent! In your version God kills no one and Noah obviously has some major navigation failure drifting out to sea. That's a much better version. Can you teach it to the other Christians now.

Basically, what your saying about Mao is, you can not make an country without braking heads. The same go's for bronze age Israel.

Sadly revolutions are sometimes necessary but us imperfect humans rarely have a revolution without major bloodshed.

If I were a perfect, omnipotent god I think I would manage to create nations and get people to live in love and peace rather better than your God has managed. I obviously do not believe he exists but I presume you do. Do you think he should have done a better job or is His work good enough for you?

Well that's me off, back to the land of no contact till at least the end of the week. I just hope I can get a break sometime in the future to have a proper discussion.

I look forward to hearing more about your version of Christianity and why you don't believe the bible.

Howdy, Aardverk, sorry about the delay responding but it is the nature of my life.


Humm, belief in the bible. The bible is a book, you don't worship a book, you learn from a book. God is the force in charge. I believe it has everything in it you need to know to live a good and successful life, but not every thing there is to know. It is a good starting place, a good guide, you can go on from there.

The bible was written in times roman, (literary pun there) or should I say edited as a guide for Christians. After around 300 years of persecution and underground existence it was a way of getting everyone to understand what was going on, singing from the same hymn sheet so to speak.

The old testament, a history of the Jewish and pre Jewish people before Christ, Noah was not a Jew there where no Jews before Abraham. Most of Genesis seems to be transcribed from oral history look at the cadences in the generations, how old are those story's, how long has man been telling those story's.

The bible, a history of mans, at least in that area, interrelationship with God and how they interpreted that in the knowledge and understanding of the time.

So do I believe the Bible, yes, do I believe without question no, I question everything, you don't learn if you don't question. Right now I am wondering what language the ten commandments where inscribed in, hands up who thinks it might have been Egyptian hieroglyphics.




Change and the perfect world. The nature of change is that no mater what the change is someone isn't happy with it, some one suffers. Yet without change there is no advancement we would just remain static, that would be so boring.

I used to wonder why God didn't cerate a perfect world, every thing peaceful, every one happy no problems to overcome. Then I realised he did, the perfect world for us to develop in to develop into what we can become and we can become so much. All the problems we over come, every victory over disease, poverty, injustice, every tyrant overthrown, we advance, learn, become a better people. We have come so far but still a long way to go.

Why is man in this world? It's our world, we are the maintenance men the gardeners of this world, you don't get a gardener and cut the grass yourself. Noah had to build his own boat, there is no free ride. That world you spoke of the perfect one, we can do that and one day we will, with a bit of guidance.

I will try and catch up at a later date, as time allows.

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Only comparing numbers not personality's, I happen to like God but I cannot see him in one of those hats.

Strangely, there are many people who say the same thing about Mao.

(I see you have a little appeal to hypocrisy tucked in a couple of responses down, nice. See above. Can we avoid excusing atrocities committed by men in our attempts to excuse the similar myths of your god?)

"Mao killed more people, Mao wasn't such a bad guy, ergo Buddy Christ."

Oh come on Mao, definitely suited that hat, he was a fashion icon in that hat.

In response to your later post, Imagine a world where people did not gather together? Bit of a lonely world that

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Basically, what your saying about Mao is, you can not make an country without braking heads. The same go's for bronze age Israel.

Except there is no indication from archaeology that "bronze-age Israel" was "jewish" in any sense of the word we know. What it was, was Canaanite, complete with the full pantheon of gods which had developed in the ANE.

Fair enough, early iron age then.