Religion

After a lifetime of studying the Bible and other texts of a historical and ancient nature. I have often said, that the more you dig into the Bible, the closer you get to the Truth, and the Truth is God. I do sincerely believe, that I have ascertained as close to the truth as I can right now. Call it a gut feeling, if you will. My belief in Christ, is as strong as I believe that you exist. I do believe He was here, and for the most part, did what they say He did. If I was to base my philosophical belief system on Zen Buddhists, it would carry the same weight with me. In fact, some of my system derives from that.

Seek thee the answer above. Again, call it a gut feeling. I wish I could be more specific then that.

Well, to some degree, that is true. I was much younger, but I do recall seeing Christ, and He told me that 'everything would be alright'. It's not too uncommon to have these visions, as others besides me have.

Not but what I have spoken on. I don't want to claim an authority, as I don't really believe in one or the other. Again, it's up to the individual to come to their own conclusions.

I am a Follower of Christ, not so much a 'Christian' as I find so many 'Christians' do not follow Christ and His simple message. IMO, of course. Some may in fact, do as Christ would have, and call themselves 'Christians'.

I have been asked before, why do I do this, especially after what has happened to me by so called men of God. It's because I firmly believe in turning the other cheek, and doing onto others as I would want done to me. To forgive others, it's key to me.

I have come to the conclusion, that God or not, Christ the Man had some very sound things to say, and it's wise to follow what He said.

 

Follow-up question: Why the Bible? There are lots of books whose adherents believe were written by god. Why one and not another?

 

The Bible fascinates me. Because there are so many variations, so many translations, that I tend to dig into it deeper. I have read of Christ in other books, and use that as well. In the Bible, is tales of murder, sex, temptation, betrayal, goodness, evil...I mean, it covers a lot of human emotions and acts.

 

I would venture to say prophecy and archeology also.

Wildkow

 

Wow, sorry man!

It's like this, last week a group of guys at a Bible study I go to were discussing who was going to help at a local homeless shelter over Memorial Day weekend, not who we were going to burn at the stake for being a witch.

Some people calling themselves Christians have done some atrocious things with God as an excuse, very true, but I personally believe that if religion didn't exist then there would just be some other excuse.

Nazi Germany, for example, believed in the debunked science of eugenics and the "superior aryan race". They gathered up the cripples, gays and jews, gassed, killed and piled them up or simply sterilized them, all in the name of social Darwinism.

There are some who look at that history and conclude that any Darwinistic idea is therefore evil, but that's crap. Nazis just grossly twisted and distorted science to support an evil agenda, much like religious authorities of old twisted and distorted faith to support conquest and political goals.

Look, the world is an evil place, and humans do some pretty screwed up things to satisfy their selfish ambitions, and that to me is the precise reason we need something pure to guide us. That guiding force, to me, is God, and Jesus who I believe came to save us from the mess we're in.

I know that question was directed to TJ, but I want to say that some of the reasons I believe in the Bible over other books is the wealth of archaeological evidence and histories that corroborate certain details of the Bible. That alone doesn't prove everything in the Bible is true, but it at least shows that it's not all based on pure fantasy. It's hard to argue that Jesus wasn't, at least, a real person, and it's interesting to see the Bible prove accurate in certain disputed details after archaeological digs.

Have you ever read Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ"? It's a fascinating look at the evidence for the Bible that exists outside the Bible.

 

why not read books by joan collins, they have all of the above..in either case they both have too much violence for me, i only read that which enlightens me and talks of life, not murder, love not sex, honesty not temptation, loyalty not betrayal, yes goodness, but not evil...just by the nature of your interpretations it seems that people with those views will have that kind of intention in the real world...murder, sex, temptation evil, etc

 

Given your temperament, your fascination for Jesus as a person is understandable. But your consistent reference to him as "Christ" shows that for you he is more than human. Yet I don't think there are any records of Jesus contemporary with the man, so the only information we have about him comes from his followers much later.

Archeology confirms that some of the places referred to in the Bible actually existed at the time it was written. This does nothing for its credibility. There is zero evidence of any prophecy in the Bible ever being fulfilled except that the Bible itself says it was.

As noted above, the only thing archeology has confirmed in the Bible is that certain contemporary places actually existed.

But so much of the Bible has been demonstrated to be false that it is utterly preposterous to regard the book as inerrant. The fact that there are some accurate details of history in it does nothing whatsoever to support the claim that unsupported statements are credible.

Sam Harris points out that most of the people in the world believe that the creator of the universe wrote a book. The problem is that there are many such books, and they contradict each other. All of them contain some verifiable truths and a lot of good advice along the lines of "Be nice to each other." All of them, having been written long ago, demonstrate a complete ignorance of how the world works. All of them contain stories that nobody with a modern education could possibly believe. And yet people are willing to murder each other and be murdered because the myths of one are incompatible with the myths of the others.

There is nothing uniquely credible about the Bible. An open-minded study of comparative religions shows it's a crap shoot which book you choose to put your faith in.

The simple fact is that for 99% of the people who believe that god wrote a book, which book they believe it was depends wholly on which book their parents believed it was. And that depends principally on which culture was the most recent to invade the homeland of their ancestors and murder in cold blood everyone who refused to accept the invaders' book as the "right" one.

Harris points out that human knowledge grows steadily with time. Our understanding of the stars, of chemistry, of earthquakes, of weather, of biology, of how to surgically correct various ailments such as the atrial fibrillation I suffered from for a year or two, all grows with time. We study, we experiment, we learn.

Nobody would trust a surgeon whose understanding of the human body was derived from thousand-year-old texts.

And yet in matters of religion, people put their faith in a book compiled over a thousand years ago, from texts written between three thousand and two thousand years ago, and which have not changed except for the numerous copying errors which can be demonstrated by modern study of the differences between extant versions.

Except for TJ, who has read the books of many religions, and chosen the one that gives him a "gut feeling" of being cool (my term), the rest of the Bible believers are mostly ignorant of competing claims, and believe the Bible over the Rig Veda or the Quran because somebody murdered the neighbor of their great great grandfather, and allowed the great great grandfather to survive only on the condition that he accept the Bible. Not exactly a reliable method of learning the truth. But then, neither is "gut feeling" an especially reliable method.

Religion is the only field of discourse where people trust the writers of a thousand or two thousand years ago, or more. Religion is the only field of discourse where people close their eyes and ears to all evidence developed in the course of history and put more faith in earlier claims than in later ones.

Religion is, in short, the greatest font of ignorance in the world today. When religion finally goes the way of alchemy we'll all be better off for it. Only then might the human race have a chance of survival.

 

I cannot imagine that a God exists, Who would allow so much evil, error and human suffering exist just so that we (or a small subset) will eventually get the worshipping right.

At the same time, I cannot imagine that a place like the Earth could exist, with fantastic improbability of just the right cometary water imput, moon to stabilize climate, large outer planets to shepard away large impactors, and all the rest of it, absent a God of one sort or another.

Therefore I can only conclude that the limitations of my imagination are at fault. Therefore I can only treat other people as well as possible, and act to improve human dominance of this unusual place, within all my other limitations. This is all I can imagine to do with my gift of life. If additional worshipping is required, I have no doubt that I shall fall short, and to what end I know not. Too bad for me.

After reading all 9 pages here, have to say that I liked RAmen best. I live in China now and it struck a chord somehow.

DAS

 

I posted a minor rant over in CleanMPG about religion and
leadership, and people are giving me crap for it. Hard to believe.
.
Quick summary is that voting for ANY politician, in the US and
probably plenty of other places, is furthering the continued
entanglement of church and state. There are no alternatives
we've been offered.
.
I'm continually stunned at the number of otherwise correctly-
thinking, seemingly rational people that actually buy into this
stuff. It is frightening. It's also 100% fabricated by humans,
unfortunately all too often for personal gain despite its
nominally spiritual or emotionally supportive origin.
.
_H*

 

That's an awesome book!

 

+1 Exactly my thoughts on that matter. The same thoughts always get the best of me as well.
But I can imagine a world being created out of the sheer improbability to sustain life as we know it. After all, there are trillions of other solar systems out there and by the smallest of chances Earth happened to be the planet where life now exists.
But because creating and sustaining life is such a complex matter it might very well be that we really are the only one planet in this universe with inhabitants as we know it. But then, maybe we're not alone

 

Sure, and that's all that archeology really does is confirm that a place existed or that some event happened.

But let's assume that the text of the Bible is true. What would you expect to have in order to trust its portrayal of certain events in the ancient world? Well, you'd want the architectural evidence, which we have, you'd want third-party historians referencing the events and figures of the Bible, which we have and you'd want throngs of people and books retelling the story, which you have.

Does this conclusively prove that the Bible and its stories are all true? Hardly, but many of the pieces are in place for if it were true.

Seriously, I bet you'd like "The Case for Christ", though I'm sure you'll find issue with its claims.

I disagree. Not all faiths are created equal in this respect. Take the Book of Mormon, for example which the Smithsonian Institution claims "has found no archaeological evidence to support" the book.

 

I don't need to read John Collins though. It's all in the Bible. It allows me to have certain insight into the way the mind works. It's all rather complicated. I'm sure I am not making sense here, but suffice to say, if I am going to relate certain people, I need to know what makes those certain people tick.

I also am well versed in several areas of human behavior, vis a vie many years of taking courses on human psychological behavior.

 

Jesus Christ is His name, as far as I am concerned. Like first, last. If his name was George Smith, I would call Him that. And yes, to me at least, Christ was more then a human, He was/is God at the same time. I know, I know, believing in that may seem foolish, but with so much of this universe left to unknown origin, I just choose to go with this. If I'm wrong, so be it. No skin off my nose.

There is texts that support the existence of Jesus Christ outside of the Bible. No ancient writer is more important to study of the New Testament than Flavius Josephus, who was a Jew, not a Christian, who wrote about Jesus.

I use the term 'gut feeling' as a way to try to convey, what the Holy Spirit does for me. And I know that mentioning the Holy Spirit leaves to even more questions, so I left that off the discussion table.


When I was younger, and raised a Catholic, I got used to using some terms, that stick with me to this day. Old habits, I would suppose.

 

Many indigenous cultures have similar stories of radical events in their past and there is archeological evidence that confirm the physical event but the REASONS or INDIVIDUALS responsible for the event cannot be verified and due to the very inventive imaginations of humans we are not likely to verify any of them. The only difference between the biblical events and those carried on in indigenous cultures is that people in the fertile cresent wrote them down and eventually became the "dominant" culture. Had the Mongols carried something akin to smallpox during their expansion we might now be arguing a totally different religion. The point is, just because an event detailed in a book actually happened does not mean it happened for the reasons listed in said book. The Indians of the Pacific Northwest have oral traditions concerning the tsunami of circa 1700 but I highly doubt their explanations incorporate plate tectonics theory or megathrust earthquakes. lol

 

Let's say I write a book, in which I say that in Fargo, North Dakota, an angel of god arrived in a burning chariot and taught classes in the prevention of parasites in cows for a semester at North Dakota State University (NDSU). Now let's say that my book is discovered in a thousand years, and archaeologists make the startling discovery that Fargo, North Dakota, really existed, and that NDSU was an actual institution of higher learning, dedicated to the agricultural sciences.

Does this discovery of the existence of Fargo and NDSU prove that an angel of god really taught there for a semester? Of course not!!! Many of the places named in the Bible really existed, and many of the historical events happened, because people were writing about contemporary places and events.

But what's notable, is that the Bible also contains many stories that have been clearly demonstrated never to have happened, and many explanations of natural phemomena what we know now to be hogwash. If the Bible were the inerrant word of god, everything in it would have to be true, and indeed the fundies think it is. And yet there is much in the Bible that is hogwash. That means that nothing in the Bible can be accepted without evidence, and there is no evidence for any aspect of the Bible that we are disputing, such as whether or not god exists.

The Bible contains both truths and falsehoods. Does this sound like the inerrant word of god to you?

If your point is merely that there's some good stuff in the Bible, we are in agreement. But if your point is that assertions in the Bible for which there is no evidence can be trusted, then we are not. I have this in common with TJ: We both feel there is some good stuff in the Bible, but we also both feel that merely being in the Bible does not necessarily make an assertion true.

 

I've sometimes wondered if 1000 years from now there will be a group of people who worship Luke Skywalker. They will have evidence of his existence from some badly deteriorated VHS tapes which they will find buried in Old New York which is of course below New New York.

 

This is an entertaining, albeit probably inconclusive, discussion.
But how about another slightly uglier real-life angle. Take the
phrase "god bless america", for example.
.
Think about that for a second.
.
They even say it all the time on national TV. It is rare for
any message from our highest leadership offices to conclude
without it. But where does anyone get off thinking that's
the only valid combination? How is this any more valid than
"FSM bless america"? How about "allah bless america", or
"buddha bless america", or "god bless iraq"? Who's to say
any of those other combinations of platitude are any more or
less, uh, "right" or appropriate? Doesn't anyone think that
when W walks into a *mosque* 2 days after 9/11 and mouths
his favorite phrase on national news, that someone might be a
little taken aback? I sure as heck was, and you can already
tell I put no credence into any of it. Many people counterargue
this sort of pointed juxtaposition of the absurd with some concept
of "respect", but what exactly are we supposed to be respecting
here? One person's meld of imaginary friend and geographical
location over someone else's, blindly accepted?
.
C'mon.
.
This may sound like a minor point, but it is one we have to
deal with all the time, regardless of who we happen to be.
One's own path to spiritual fulfillment and inner peace is
fine, but when I have to look at a frighteningly pervasive one
I don't care for every time I spend money on something [which
frankly should read "in profit we trust", because that's about
the only provably true alternative text], it's all gone way
too far. Never mind all those plastic ribbon stickers on the
back of all the minivans and pickups.
.
Today I decided to leave the Prius in the driveway and finally
dust off the bicycle, and dodged a few spits of rain to go
tooling around the neighborhood in a way that I could stop
much more easily to look at interesting things. That's not
easy in a car, especially when I'm usually heads-down just
driving in or out and not even looking down any of the side
streets. At one point I wound up on the eastern shore of a
nearby lake in the late afternoon which was mostly overcast,
but there was one of those typical storybook holes in the
clouds with a huge spread of golden rays streaming down through
it and reflected in the water. I stood there and stared at it
for a while. Like an idiot, I hadn't brought the camera along
so I can't really share the moment, but it was a very pleasant
and thought-clarifying one. I didn't feel any compulsion to
assign an anthropomorphic entity to it.
.
_H*

 

Something that had baffled me for a long time was why people would continue to regard a bible not just as their most important but ONLY guide for life even when shown its inconsistencies and errors, until I finally recognized what distinguishes a bible from all the rest of our recorded knowledge: its imprimatur. It alone (whether KJV, Koran, Book of Mormon or L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction) is handed to the newcomer with the promise, hardened by centuries of repetition, that it is NOT fallible man's handiwork but the work of something greater than man, and so therefore represents THE truth, raw and untainted. No other work that claims authority, legitimately or illegitimately, also claims transcendent authorship that lifts it clear of man's natural prejudices, ignorance, guile and incompetence.

For the personalities that have difficulty handling ambiguity, and little confidence in their own judgements (and therefore by extension little confidence in the judgements of others), such a book is a literal "godsend". Never mind that believing its supernatural origins requires squelching reason; here is an unimpeachable authority that has maintained its imprimatur across thousands of generations (or in the Mormons' and L. Ron Hubbard's case, thousands of printings). The need for something absolute trumps something so squishy and abstract as logic and theory, and in the dimension of human intercourse, the LEAST studied of all natural phenomena (probably because we're terrified of what we'll discover if we look too closely), all we've got is rickety theory. If we REALLY had a handle on things such problems as war, crime, mental affliction and excessive appetite would have been conquered long ago.

So we're never going to convince a bible believer the book has problems, because to do so would require acknowledging a universe WITHOUT an absolute beyond man's mendacious reach, and for some, such a place is too uncomfortable to ever contemplate - that sheer brain chemistry makes the concept literally unthinkable.

 

It's been my theory that 1,000 years from now Christ and Elvis will have blurred into a single historic personality. No other human figures are hung on so many walls (usually as black velvet paintings) as objects of adoration and awe. What stronger evidence for resurrection is there, after all, than all the Elvis sightings? And vinyl lasts forever.