A few questions that have been bugging me...
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 8:13 pm
Hey everyone.
I am new here, and joined this forum through the amazing testimonies presented at God and Science.org
I hope you guys can help me answer this person's questions sufficiently. Thanks.
I am new here, and joined this forum through the amazing testimonies presented at God and Science.org
I hope you guys can help me answer this person's questions sufficiently. Thanks.
"there are entire websites dedicated to apparantly conflicting passages in the christian bible.
and you determine the validity of the claimed contradictions by.......reference to the bible. god can't be wrong, because he is perfect, therefore there must be something wrong with a/ the interpretation b/the translation c/the person stating it. d/any combination of the above.
prophesies? pah. no chance that jesus was aware of these prophesies, coming as he did from a priviliged background (no, not a carpenter. rich middle-class bloke. translation error, okay) and then acted in such a way as to fulfill them, even did a switcheroo on the cross? 16 billion people think so. they're called muslims. but they must be wrong, because your bible says so, right? (but the quran makes exactly the same claims as the bible about it being the word of god, full of prophesies, just about the same amount of tolerance for other religions, quite positive towards women, same god talking, btw) more on this below.
all very open to opinion. how many generations from david to jesus? one gospel gives 28, i think , another 34, or something other different number like that. (guess what? i never studied the bible. well, not the christian one, anyway)
infanticide: go kill all those kids from another country, but just the boys, do what you like with the girls
genocide:kill them for me because you are my chosen people and they are not
jealousy:you shall not worship false gods (all right, maybe he's insecure and likes a bit of affirmation and reassurance)
weird proxy stuff: how did mary get pregnant again?
obtuse commandments/double bind stuff: i made adam and eve,i told them not to sin, but i knew they would sin because i am onmipotent, however i let them sin because i knew the devil would trick them, so i will punish them. oh, and i love them, they are my children.
does any of that help locate these not so pleasant attributes of some people's christian god? sorry, i'm tired.
so, what happened to grumpy wrathful OT god? did he just change his mind and stop smiting? that would imply his previous actions were wrong, wouldn't it? but he's infallible, so...oh yeah, refer to a/b/c/ or d/ above.
okay this is how it looks to me...god knows everything, makes everything, makes a man and a lady from dust, they don't do what they are told, he punishes them for doing what he knew they would do and could have prevented them from doing, it all goes wrong, god gets angry and smites a whole lot, decides he's going to kill everyone, with a flood, changes his mind and just kills most things (including animals, except fishes and birds, who i guess he just felt like smiting) then he brightens up and he sends his son, who is also him, to be killed by the people he is saving. if they accept him taking their punishment (dispensed by god) for them, then they are saved, if not, then they will burn in hell forever, because god loves us. the only way to avoid gods punishment (for a crime that adam and eve...or perhaps our ancestors...did) is to believe in god. the only evidence for god is the bible, which tells us all about god, because he wrote it.sorry, told some people to write it. at the same time, innumerable other religions are telling us similar things, but they don't count because they say nasty things, but the nasty things our god did or said don't count because he says they don't, but the bad things the other religions say do count because he (or his ministers) says they do.
but this is all meaningless, to me, anyway. Mostly, the christian bible makes no sense to me at all. not even the good bits. any time you use the bible to convince me (and i'm not alone) of the veracity of the bible, it's self-referential logic that just makes my brain recoil in horror at an infinite loop of faith.
like this:
the bible is true> the bible says god exists>god exists>god says the bible is true>the bible is true> etc etc.
can you understand that?
it's similar to this:
a/the following statement(b) is true>b/the previous statement (a)is true, because it said this statement(b) is true> statement (a)is true>the following statement is true etc etc....
continued statement of truth, where it refers to itself, does not provide evidence, only repeated assertion.
if i assert that the great goddess ERIS, lady of chaos, created everything, and planted false evidence of all the other gods, just so we'd argue about them, because she like arguments, you can't refute it. i have a bible that tells me this. there are no valid contradictions in the principia discordia, no false prophesies, no unsound logic. in fact a heck of a lot more sound logic than you'll ever find in a christian bible. but it won't make sense to you. even if i offer arguments as compelling as those you believe you offer me, you won't get it. it has as much evidence, truth, honesty, and humour as your bible. just because i believe it wholeheartedly 23% of the time (when i'm not a taoist or an atheist) does not make it false 77% of the time. it is absolutely as true as the bible.
science, on the other hand, looks for evidence beyond supposition or assertion. it has discovered many things about the universe, and it would appear that some of the bible is inaccurate. (depending on your interpretation. if you choose to believe an interpretation of the bible that concurs with current scientific knowledge, apart from the existence of god, well, i guess that makes you pretty mainstream, not a creationist. cool. goodnight. "