Why do so many of you quote the bible and do nothing what says in it

[EGross]

You are free to make that claim and consider yourself a free thinker without any knowledge of what the Bible teaches from a real assessment of what it teaches, but I won't respect you. I think that would be more like an atheist propagandist than a philosopher.

@jstrodel

For page after page you are ranting, telling others that they don't know as much about the bible as you do. You expound about how much you know and, therefore, in your opinion, everyone here, including myself, obviously have never studied like you have, and, in your opinion, others are not as worthy as you to speak since you have studied more than they.

Either you have a self-inflated view of yourself, or a diminshed view of others based on your erroneous assumptions.

And based on this, I find it highly unlikely that you ever did anything more than a cursory review of such illuminaries as the Rambam, for example - based on your writings. You know the name, but that's not the same as learning his introduction to the Mishneh Torah - something that I, for example, spent the last few weeks doing, comparing the two translations from the original Arabic that have since been rendered into Hebrew.

You made a poor theological argument based on Scripture, claiming that the Torah shows that God hates rape, and I exposed the flaws in your assertions, showing that your interpretation was based on assumptions; a disease that seems to plague most of your posts. One who truly did have a daily discipline of Scriptural learning would wither have not made such an error, or would have interacted further to discover where he had erred in order to learn.

Instead, you completely ignored my simplified explanation because you rally are not interested in learning, just in regurgitating.

Take a look at your last half a dozen posts on this thread. You have spent your time here doing nothing but dismissing everyone else as almost illiterates, because, in your own world, you hold that you alone have spent more time learning than anyone else here.

Bullshit.

There are those of us who dedicated out lives to such learning over many years, something that some of us have done from morning to night, and sometimes to the rising of the sun. Some of us came to this decision, not because we are ignorant, but because we are not.

One who truely learns Scripture, will embody it. One who loves the Lord will preach that love. But the diletante, the one who learns a bit of this and a bit of that, but grasps little, who then does the equivilant of standing on a street corner and calling the rest of the world "Fools!", is not a true student of Scripture. (Matthew 5:22 is relevant to you here).

[jstrodel]

Egross, I respect your studies of the scripture. I do not mean to say that all atheists lack Biblical literacy, but many do. A lot of the other responses have not been along the lines that you have said. Another response is to say that "atheists don't have to understand the scriptures because it is a book of lies".

I have had some Hebrew. I will admit, I am not a Hebrew scholar. I have devoted the last 8 years of my life to studying the Christian faith with seriousness and sobriety. Although I am unsure about many scientific and philosophical issues, I would not go on a message board attacking others beliefs without having some knowledge of science. I would not attack science and then say it is foolish to study science because science is a bunch of lies, and actually, I don't have to understand it, because I know it is lies.

I think that this is fundamental to being a good person, to proportion your certainty and advocacy to your evidence and experience. I think this is a fairly reasonable thing to ask.

Since you are a Jewish scholar, what does the Talmud say about rape? Do they understand the Torah to sanction rape? Do you have a citation of rabbinic writing in which rape is accepted?

I do not see where you have proved that the Torah sanctions rape, I am still convinced that it punishes rape with death. Honestly, I respect your studied of the Hebrew language, but I do not trust them. Do you have some other source that is a mainstream, Jewish or Christian source (such as the Talmud, a serious commentary on scripture) that accepts your reading?

I take it you grew up as an Orthodox Jew. Modern orthodox Judaism does not accept rape. Do you have evidence that it did at one time?

[ThomM]

One who truely learns Scripture, will embody it. One who loves the Lord will preach that love. But the diletante, the one who learns a bit of this and a bit of that, but grasps little, who then does the equivilant of standing on a street corner and calling the rest of the world "Fools!", is not a true student of Scripture. (Matthew 5:22 is relevant to you here).


[/quote]


The problem with the above claim - is that the word "Scripture" is a word that simply means "religious writings". THere are such writings from hundreds of religions - and even the xtian religions do agree on what the words actually are - or what they mean.

The problem with scripture is that there remains NO way to embody the CONTRADICTING and often vile and inhuman things in it - for a truly thinking person. One can usually contradict anything claimed by someone quoting the bible - with another quote from the bible - as an example.

The idea that you need an education fails to note that STUDIES by Xtian groups have shown that the people who actually know most about religions are those who DO NOT BELIEVE IT>