the so fallible Bible

[Captain Colostomy]

If we didnt value our fellow humans we would have no need for words like "ethics", "humanism", "altruism", ''philanthropy''....

No, If we did value, we would have no need for these words.

[Lion IRC]

You two [gratuitous insult deleted] are embarrassing yourselves.

The OT was based on an "eye for an eye" whereas......[blah, blah, blah]

The collective, mutual agreement of a society to follow "an eye for an eye" was an expression of fairness and equal treatment under the law, and as such most certainly comes within the principle of treating others the way you expect you will be treated by them - if/when you break the exact same law that applies to your neighbor.

You want some more schooling here in the thread or via PM?

[Minimalist]

I want you to pull your head out of your ass and understand that your barbaric goatherders were not absorbing the lessons of Greek philosophy that your so-called xtians stole and wrote out for your godboy to speak.

Like I said...you better take it up with those other xtian assholes who know a fuck of a lot more than you do.

[Lion IRC]

I want you to pull your head out of your ass and understand that your barbaric goatherders were not absorbing the lessons of Greek philosophy that your so-called xtians stole and wrote out for your godboy to speak.

Like I said...you better take it up with those other xtian [inflammatory content removed]

I hate to school you again in public but the first Christians were Jews.
And the Torah predates Greek philosophy.

[Minimalist]

I know what your fables are. Evidence is what is lacking.

As far as your dating horseshit. When you can produce evidence that your bullshit OT existed before the Hellenistic Greeks wrote it down, make sure you let us know.

Don't stay up all night looking. You won't find it.

BTW, that did not happen until the 3d century BC.

Feeling stupid yet? You should.

[max-greece]

---

Oh boy Drich - you have so gone off into the deep end on this one its just impossible to know where to start.

Now the story of creation is not the story of creation but the account as it would have been seen from the garden.

I have not gone anywhere this has been my position from the beginning.. and here we go again. Because what I say does not fit your idea of theology you say I am the crazy one, rather than even considering questioning your own understandings. If the roles where reversed and you knew the God of the bible, and you said something like this to me, and it that totally altered my understanding of a foundational belief of what I thought Christianity was based on (whether I was a believer or not) I would ask you why you thought this.

Then you would reply: Read Genesis 2 starting at verse 4 'blessed one.'

Then I would ask why not start from verse 1?

You would reply: Because Genesis 2 1-3 is still speaking from the initial seven day account started in verse one. Verse 4 starts back over and then branches creation off into a Garden account, meaning everything written from that point on refers to what happens in the Garden.

Then I'd be like; you so stupid, because when I went to sunday school they didn't teach me this.

Then you: Again that is the difference between biblical Christianity and religious christianity. READ Chapter 2 starting at verse 4:
4 This is the story about the creation of the sky and the earth. This is what happened when the Lord God made the earth and the sky. 5 This was before there were plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the earth, and there was no one to care for the plants.

(What is about to follow is a detailed account of when the Lord made the Earth and sky, but before He made plants. so some time on Day two.)

6 So water[a] came up from the earth and spread over the ground. 7 Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and made a man. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nose, and the man became a living thing. 8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East,[c] in a place named Eden. He put the man he made in that garden. 9 Then the Lord God caused all the beautiful trees that were good for food to grow in the garden. In the middle of the garden, he put the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil.

So before God made plants on the earth He created the Garden. Which means everything that happened in the Garden was separate and apart from what happened on the rest of the planet.)

Now continue reading, everything else described is from a garden perspective.

Then me, but I though you said everything (including chapter 1) was written from a Garden perspective.

Then you, I misspoke, please forgive me.
What I meant was, all that was recorded in chapter one was still from a single man's perspective. In otherwords it was what the writer of Genesis saw, as it happened during the creation of the world. And then the Garden perspective is underscored in Chapter 2.

Aside from this meaning that the garden would have to have existed prior to the creation of anything else its just not supported in the text.

Again chapter 2

I know this doesn't bother you - we've been down this road before

Actually we haven't. To prove it seriously take a look at what you thought/represented what I said, verses my actual explaination of what I said. You have created a strawman of everything we have discussed inorder to 'walk down this road.'

(Mary's examination,

Mary's examination was based in deu 22 and the law concerning the verification of her virginity, or the persecution of joseph, and of her (Which did not happen which means her virginity was verified.)

special bricks used for Babel,

Not special bricks. I simply said we do not know what the bricks were made of.
Then I provided proof that until this year we did not know what 2000 year old roman cement was made of, so how could we possiably know what was in the bricks of a tower that was never built?

billions of years for the garden to run alongside evolution...)

Not billions of years. Simply that there is no time line between Genesis 2 and 3. Which again could have been a day or a trillion years.

but I'd say its pretty obvious you are leaving the Bible behind in your belief.

Again everything I have said is backed by the bible and by history. You have recreated my arguments in your own mind and changed them ever so slightly to invalidate me without having to question anything. This is pride my friend. To simply assume that I am wrong because what you believe must be correct.

Well all power to you in that but it does kinda remove you from Christianity, not just as I know it, but as it presents itself to the outside world.

Other than that.

You do know that everyone of your examples that supposedly 'removes me from Christanity is actually based in Judaism right?

OK - show me where you got Mary's examination from.

We've done this already. it starts with establishing the the fact that having sex with a girl before marriage is a terriable sin in that time, with very severe consenquences per deu 22:18-30.

Then we established that they were not married. This is done for us in
Mat 1:18

Then we establish they went before the proper authority to be married (Some priest had to sign off that the marriage was legal)
Mat 1:24 says He married her as the angel to him to do.

Which again means they went before someone to validate their marriage. At which time this priest would have seen her baby bump.
"But before they married, he learned that she was expecting a baby."
is what I am calling her baby bump.

This would have lead to a question of who the father was. Why? Because one or both would have been in serious violation of the OT law at this point. To which we can rightly assume that Mary would have told her story of virginity to the priest, as She told everyone else. This escaliates things. Why? because they went from public disgrace to open blaspheme. Which makes her a candidate for stoning as virgin conception was a well known precursor to the Messiah.
Isa 7:14

This forces someone to check her story.
Mary knew full well what this all meant when she told her story, and she knew that because of the seriousness of her claim she would have to stand behind what was said.
She lived in a time where men looked to persecute and oppress one another and anything that challenged the authority they had to do this through the law would have been carfully scrutinized and examined, as per how Christ was treated.

Nice dodge on telling me what nice stories I tell - but Ireland is an example of people going to war over Christian interpretation - which was the point.

Which was lost on me because I had no idea what you were talking about.

Pride has nothing to do with thinking you are in error, and error doesn't necessarily mean you haven't tied up all the lose ends - which you are very good at, but more and more I see pride in you that has seen you append to your own religion things that are your own inventions.

It is not pride that has you question me. What makes you proud is the assumption that you are right and I am wrong simply because our understanding of the bible does not match. The fact that you are not willing to question and research, but just jump to the conclusion I am wrong makes it a matter of pride.

Questions in of themselves are why I am here. It is when the questions stop because you can not defend your personal version of Christianity, and start name calling is what make this a discussion of your pride.

Again - no skin off my nose, but as we exchange messages your personal religion appears to get more personal by the minute. In other words - from what you have described so far you must be the only person that believes exactly like you do.

Which is what? what do I believe? and again to further the point I was making about your pride, why do you assume I must be the only person on the planet that believes this??? It is simply based on the fact that if you were a Christian you would not think this way?

Again there is a huge difference between Christianity as the bible describes it and the traditional stuff based off of catholisim. about the 13th century the pope at that time made a sharp left turn from the bible and every pope since then never looked back.

That, my friend, is ego, you even now regard yourself as an expert....and I'm the proud one?

Again, where have I made myself an expert? I have underscored a critical flaw in your logic. In that when I make a statement that you can not readily defend with traditional atheist properganda, you default to a personal attack to try and dismiss me without having to address content.

That is what this whole last post is about. You are moving to dismiss everything I have said, because you are trying to not have to address the content of my message.

I have defeated enough arguments over the last 8 years to know the easiest way and the most effective/complete way of doing so. The easy way is to call the messengers intergrity into question that way the whole message can also be dismiss without having to address what he or she says. However this only works when the persons are so radical and so basless that nothing can ever hope to be verified, OR the audience you are pandering to is also looking for a reason to condemn said person with out having to produce any evidence as to why you/they are defaulting to pride.

The most effective way to defeat someone is to disprove everything stated line by line with proof and or reason. This is how most of you start out, but when the goto atheist arguments end, the personal attacks begin...

Now if I were some crazy person then why not just focous on content. would that be the easiest way to show a person crazy? that their content does not follow any logical or realistic patterns? Then why skip that and move to discrediting a person with nothing to back anything up?
Or better yet why is a crazy person able to take the vast majority of the arguments presented and disprove them with proof or reason?

Take an honest survey of who actually engages in discussion, the content they use, and how long they stay in the conversation before hitting the panic stop button and makes a personal accusation.

Most people here are afraid to try, until a dog pile starts then members I though were no longer on this forum anymore, come out of the wood work to get their pound of flesh.

---

[Brakeman]

Your evolution + literal Garden theory implies that God *planned* to throw humanity out of the Garden. For A&E to successfully mate with "monkey man", they would of had to enter the real world at a *specific* point in time when "monkey man" was genetically compatible. Assuming that God isn't 100% incapable of creating something that fails, he must have timed the entire ordeal so that humanity wouldn't die out with A&E (via inbreeding) but instead gave them the opportunity to populate earth by mating with monkey men.

It really doesn't matter how you slice this Christianity deal. Moral of the story: God is evil.

According to who's standard?

According to the bible, god's.

God gave mankind the knowledge of right and wring despite it being of poor quality. Adam and Eve immediately covered their nakedness because they thought it was wrong after eating the magical fanciful fruit. How it was "wrong" to be naked when god had them perfect and "right" to cover their naughty bits from god's view afterward is not explained. However it is said that the quality of morals obtained was equal to god's.

Gen 3 22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Eat cake!

[max-greece]

Brakeman,

Great point. How strange was knowledge that the first thing Adam and Eve realized was that they were naked and that this was somehow something to be ashamed of.

What could Adam and Eve possibly known of clothing? If you have never known clothing - why be ashamed of being naked?

Interestingly the account of Eden states that they were naked and not ashamed - as if that were something odd. I think we have definitive evidence of the human origins of this story and that it must have been written long after humanity developed the notion that clothing was for covering shame as opposed to merely keeping warm.

That probably puts the account a few thousand years after the events supposedly took place.

[xpastor]

Well, we quickly saw how the canon of scripture is determined: the Word of God consists of those writings which are used in your own church. Now I'd like to move along to my next question.

Why is the God of the Bible such an evil bastard?

I'll give just three examples, but I could multiply them many times over.

14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." (Numbers 31)

1 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'" (1 Samuel 15)

11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. (Deuteronomy 25)

You will note that the first two examples involve what today we would call war crimes and genocide. All the women are killed and the children right down to nursing infants. In the first case from Numbers young women who are still virgins are spared to be used sexually by the Israelite warriors. Fundamentalists, please do not demean your own intelligence by telling us that they wanted virgins just to help their wives with the spinning and cooking. The third example is so horrible, so reminiscent of the Taliban, that it needs no comment.

Since my deconversion the thought has often occurred to me that the ancient Israelites appear to have invented genocide. Such horrors are described among other ancient peoples. Homer, for instance, mentions infants being killed at the sack of Troy, but not nearly so often, and here is the big difference: Other ancient peoples certainly looted, raped and murdered in their wars, but so far as I know the Israelites were the only ones to present it as right and proper and pleasing to God. Today when a modern military commander orders what God is supposed to have ordered, he is arrested and brought before the International Criminal Court.

There is a thread on genocide in the Old Testament. In one post Lion IRC argues: "In a world which has atomic bombs, and has used them on populations much bigger than Canaanite cities, it's a little precious to hear physicists like Krauss moralising about biblical wars." The argument is easily countered by noting that the Americans gave no orders to kill everyone including even infants, so presumably if the ancient Israelites had had modern technology, they would have murdered far more. However, that does not go to the heart of the matter. The Old Testament represents God, supposedly the standard of all morality, as a genocidal monster.

Why do so many of the Old Testament writers present God as an evil bloodthirsty tyrant? I used to say the reason was that the Bible was written by barbarians, for barbarians, about barbarians. There's an element of truth there, but it is not the whole story.

Most of the Old Testament was actually written centuries after these events were supposed to have taken place. These texts such as Numbers and Samuel received their final form ca 600—500 BC. That was after the Israelites had their collective ass kicked by the Egyptians, the Assyrians and finally the Babylonians. This stuff is propaganda about a supposedly glorious military past when the Israelites were kicking ass. It never happened. It's rather like the Germans nursing a grudge between the two World Wars, except that for the Israelites their revenge never came. What followed was that the Greek Seleucid empire kicked their ass and then the Romans did.

[Drich]

Drich,
You are reacting as if you are talking to a fellow theist and we are arguing over interpretation. I am not a theist, so I reject the biblical account. What I am trying, still to do it to understand YOUR interpretation. My pride doesn't really come into it.

Actually it does when 'my interpretation' is dismissed outright without an attempt to understand it, on the grounds that it is different from what you understand Christianity to be.

Now I have to be honest and say you have completely lost me on the creation story. Am I to understand that you have withdrawn the previous statement that the whole thing is from an "as viewed from the garden perspective"?

No, Genesis 1 through Genesis 2:3 is a chronological account of the creation of this world. God sat the writer of Genesis in the middle of all of what was being created, and the writer wrote down what he saw as he saw it happen.

Genesis two to the end of genesis three has been written from a garden perspective only and is not in series with what was written as an over view in Gen 1. Meaning it is not in the order genesis 1 and the first couple of verses genesis 2 set fourth. It is an account of man made in the image of God, and the creation of the garden apart from everything else that happened in the initial account. The Garden and Man happened seperatly than what took place on the rest of the planet. Which furthers my theory.

If I have understood any of your writings you have previously claimed that chapter one is chronological and chapter 2 a more detailed, but not chronological account. This now appears to have reversed.

Not at all two separate accounts of two separate things. One the creation of the world and again as Genesis 2 starts out between day 2 and day 3 man was created and the Garden was created, before everything else was 'made.'

Moving on:

If I have created a strawman of your position it was not deliberately. What would be the point?

to find my work in error as to dismiss what I have said without serious consideration.

I am trying to understand your beliefs - have you not understood that?

The questions and time spent asking them leads me to believe this but what you have understood and your final premature conclusion speaks differently. Let say your efforts are alittle bit confusing.

At the same time I don't want you to think you might be able to convert me - its academic interest.

I can't convert anyone nor do I seek to try here. That is all on the Power of the Holy Spirit and the condition of your heart. All I am looking to do is answer the questions you ask to the best of my ablity.

To be honest this is not an argument, at all really, but it is not one you can win.

Then debate, call it like you see it.

All you can really do is show me that you have a logically consistent basis for your faith.

which is enough.

If I am going to be more honest still - I can't fathom a reason for you to do this, other than possibly solidifying your own position.

I am trying to be faithful to what I have been given. Nothing more.

This is not the first time I have done this - its my curiosity more than anything. You might want to confer with Godschild as I did it with him too.

again I'm not looking for anything from you, just the next question. When you stop I will stop.

Now, some of your other points:

Mary's examination:

Yes - I was aware of the law regarding confirming virginity. Whether or not it was actually applied I have no idea, nor do I know the level of conformity, nor how people "got round" the problem but I'd guess money changed hands when needed.

The fact that she was not stonned means she was checked. Look at what they were willing to do to Christ when he claimed to be God:

53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?

54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God:

55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.

56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Now, and here' the problem, there is no account in any of the gospels of Mary's examination. This means either, the gospel is guilty of the error of omission, or, Mary was not examined.

That was not needed in that society, for if two or more people gave the same account then it was established as truth. Details like hymen exam would have been omitted in that society. Again the fact that she claimed to be a virgin mother made her a blasphemer and would have been stonned to death if her story could not have been verified.

Your story is based upon Mary showing (the much mentioned bump), which she may not have been.

So what she took a home prego test and that is how she knew? Remember two thousand years ago there were very few ways to verify pregnancy.

If Mary was examined and found to be still a virgin why would God send the angel to Joseph with the explanation?

She would not have been check till they were married or to be married. Before that Joseph would not have been able to check himself (nor did it seem like he wanted anything to do with her after he found out.)

Surely, on the other hand, having received and believed the explanation Joseph would not require any further proof.

I can't speak to the mind of Joseph and neither can you, but God can and He Gave Joseph what he needed to get back with Mary.

At the same time if Mary were examined and found to be both a virgin and with child, word would have got out. Remember we have the story of Herod panicking and murdering babies to try to stop the Messiah being born - how hard would it have been for him to find Mary if she has been examined?

Read that account again, Herod did not start to murder babies till after the wise men came to him looking for the new 'king.' This did not happen till after Christ was born.

So - for you to be correct we have an introduced error in the gospel (omission - yours), a risk of word getting out (which apparently it didn't), a functionless visit by and angel and a heightened risk of Jesus being killed at birth.

-Or for this to be correct you and your understanding of the chronology of Herod's rampage must be in error. In that Herod's rampage did not happen till after Christ was born. again remember it was the wisemen who triggered this rampage, and it wasn't till sometime after did an angel appear before joseph and told him to get out of there.

Just doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Because you have taken your version of Christianity and are holding to it as if it were the absolute standard in which all other versions are measured by.

Catholicism:

Nicely dismissed there. That's a billion Christians who you imply have taken a wrong turning. Kinda feeds into my comment on how easy you find it to dismiss other Christian belief's.

Ask any catholic and they themselves will tell you that the pope's authority as a living apstole gives him the authority to change the bible. If the pope changes the bible then that version of Christianity is based on the papacy and not the bible. I said I have not spoken out against Any Bible based version of Christianity. Catholoism is not a biblical based form of Christianity. It's bases comes from the pope not the bible.

"Again, where have I made myself an expert? "

Erm......the mechanic with 20 years experience and me the lowly owner - ring any bells?

That is a relative term. What is a mechanic with 20 years in relation to an engineer with 20 years? what is a simple engineer with 20 years, compared to someone who hold several doctorates in the field being discussed?

All I was say there is that a mechanic with 20 years knows alittle more than what you do, in his field, however when compared to everyone else involved in his field he is the furthest link in that chain from being an 'expert.' Or rather the top expert in the line of work he is in.

The rest:

I'll skip the part where you tell me how to discuss with you too. Suffice to say I really don't think there were any real ad hom's in there for you to complain about. I find you strange. If I say that its not a personal attack.

One thing I do have to pick you up on is the definition of madness. Would that it were so easy to show a sufferer the absence of " logical or realistic patterns."

Often delusions are finely crafter over decades - they can be very difficult to puncture logically in any sense. At other times logical flaws can be exposed - but getting the sufferer to recognise them as logical flaws can be almost impossible.

Again the goal is to simply get you to address the logical flaws with a decernable and defensiable standard, rather than a move to dismissal.

---

According to who's standard?

According to the bible, god's.

God gave mankind the knowledge of right and wring despite it being of poor quality. Adam and Eve immediately covered their nakedness because they thought it was wrong after eating the magical fanciful fruit. How it was "wrong" to be naked when god had them perfect and "right" to cover their naughty bits from god's view afterward is not explained. However it is said that the quality of morals obtained was equal to god's.

Gen 3 22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Eat cake!

Adam and eve covered their nakedness because of what happens to a man when in the presents of a naked woman. Adam was covered to cover his errection and eve was covered to prevent Adam from having one. why? Because it would be difficult to say the least to pretend everything is as it was. They were trying to hide from God what they did.