It's odd how those who want to attack the Bible seem to be very familiar with darker recesses of the Old Testament but apparently know little or nothing about the New.
If you bother to check the Evil Bible website you will find that the New is just as evil as the Old. To save you the effort I will provide a link... http://www.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm
Well yeah. If it was the Archbishop of Canterbury telling people to look to the latest issue of Asian Babes, then that might be worth a raised eyebrow, at the very least.
Bloody religious - stuck in the dark ages. Has he never heard of the internet?
As we are free to question the even greater stupidity of doing that.
People are free to portray themselves in whatever light they chose and their choice of language will often be a strong indicator ..... that applies to all posters, of course.
I can tell you the meaning of life, it's to reproduce. Just like bacteria. Failing that, go out and get rat arsed everynight.
I think though that as human beings we are uniquely positioned to be able to impose some of our own meaning on to life. As far as I know we are the first species to evolve with the ability to conceptualise and to comunicate in abstract ways. We are equpped to be able to perhaps get more out of life than the simple biological imperative to reproduce.
Faced with such huge possibilities it is little wonder that we have turned to religion and invented gods to ease the burden of trying to define what meaning we should be ascribing to life. It is easier for us in some ways to arive at a set of rules and dogmaticaly adhere to them and convince ourselves that it is the will of god and thus our true meaning for being on earth.
The truth is I think a little more scary but nevertheless extremely liberating and that is that we can define what life is supposed to be about without the nescessity to hang it from any particular religious framework. We can if we so wish live our life motivated by whatever we choose. With any luck we will realise that it is in our best interests all round to look after one another rather than to compete and destroy each other through xenophobic fears.
God and gods have been a useful tool for humans to be able to get our head around certain things that our animal minds would not have been equipped to deal with. However I think that now we have reached a point where we are sensible of a great many more things than at the beginings of society and that we do not need to cling to religion for very much longer and that it will certainly reachj a point where the religions and our adherance to their dogmas will do more harm than good. I would argue that this has already started to happen and has in fact been well under way in a number of instances. Not that we need religion to fuel wars or that getting rid of religion would stop war happening. Religions are not really the main cause of conflict, they just provide convenient conduits along which ideologies are imposed. If it weren't religion it would be something else.
The meaning of life for us humans is a bit more open ended than simple reproduction. However being a pessimist I think that our growth in some areas has outsripped our ability to control properly what we do and that as a result we will destroy ourselves. I'm a bit surprised that we haven't done it already. I hope we don't and that we find a way to live with each other and to preserve the natural resourses of the planet we rely on.
It sounds so simple yet in practice seems almost impossible. All we have got to do is not wipe each other out through violent conflict, (there I think we might just make it despite ourselves) and not strip the planet of it's ability to sustain us. (This is where I think we wil fail because it is a more abstract thing to deal with and cause and effect are not always obvious in an immediate enough way for us to take notice. The damage we do to the environment always happens at several steps removed from the sources of the problems)
If we do make it through the next few hudered years I think we have an amazing potential but I think it's fairly close to crunch time and the next 2 or 3 centuries will I think seal our fate.
So the meaning, or at least the purpose of human life at the moment should be to simply survive and save the palnets resourses so that we can survive indefinitely, or at least a lot longer.
But that makes no sense. Why would God put certain rules, laws or teachings in the Bible if he didn't want you to follow them? If he did, then how are you supposed to know which to follow and which you can ignore? Is it not a bit strange to be second guessing God?
We were given free will and nothing else. The laws that God supposedly put in the Bible were not put there by any deity, they were put there by people wanting to exercise control over the masses. If there is a God, then I suspect that it is a massive source of power that creates and then moves on. I don't believe for one minute that it cares enough about the life it creates on any one planet enough to make a set of laws and pass them down to people who could then interpret them and present them in any way they see fit.
Regardless of religion the world would be a much nicer place if everyone followed that.
Bloody religious - stuck in the dark ages. Has he never heard of the internet?
I did once come up with an awesome conspiracy theory about how the internet was only created so the Pope could get his hands on porn without anyone knowing. I mean, who could you trust to go to the shops for you and not tell anyone?
We were given free will and nothing else. The laws that God supposedly put in the Bible were not put there by any deity, they were put there by people wanting to exercise control over the masses. If there is a God, then I suspect that it is a massive source of power that creates and then moves on. I don't believe for one minute that it cares enough about the life it creates on any one planet enough to make a set of laws and pass them down to people who could then interpret them and present them in any way they see fit.
That (the bit I highlighted in bold) is pretty much what the Deists beleive. Ironically, many of America's founding fathers were Deists. Modern Americans, therefore, are turning their backs on these great men by following the so-called Christian Way.
But that makes no sense. Why would God put certain rules, laws or teachings in the Bible if he didn't want you to follow them? If he did, then how are you supposed to know which to follow and which you can ignore? Is it not a bit strange to be second guessing God?
It's odd how those who want to defend the bible claim it's the word of their God and then want to try and forget bits and direct people towards just the good bits that they have decided to follow.
You both talk as if the Bible was actually written as a rulebook by an actual super being called God. But you know it was written by people like you and me.
You have to read it in the context of the culture and times that it was written - a more barbaric time than now in many ways. You can find God's word in there - but not if you approach it as if it were written yesterday.
You need to be careful with phrases like 'Word of God' too. We're dealing with poetic imagery, not factual statements that can be deconstructed for scientific accuracy.
That (the bit I highlighted in bold) is pretty much what the Deists beleive. Ironically, many of America's founding fathers were Deists. Modern Americans, therefore, are turning their backs on these great men by following the so-called Christian Way.
I am not surprised that the Americans are turning their backs on it. America is a nation highly divided socially between extreme want, poverty, crime and despair, people who are utterly obsessed with religion and the very rich who don't really care.
I think those who follow the Christian Way are afraid...of dying...of there being nothing at the end of life's journey. A lot of people become very fervent through fear and once fear takes hold, rationality and debate go right out of the window.
You both talk as if the Bible was actually written as a rulebook by an actual super being called God. But you know it was written by people like you and me.
You have to read it in the context of the culture and times that it was written - a more barbaric time than now in many ways. You can find God's word in there - but not if you approach it as if it were written yesterday.
You need to be careful with phrases like 'Word of God' too. We're dealing with poetic imagery, not factual statements that can be deconstructed for scientific accuracy.
I've always thought of it more as a book ABOUT God than a book BY God.
It's odd how those who want to attack the Bible seem to be very familiar with darker recesses of the Old Testament but apparently know little or nothing about the New.
All of the differences can be summed up by saying that the Old Testament begins the teaching, or revelation, while the New Testament finishes (or completes) that same revelation. In other words, the story is incomplete without the New Testament. The completion that is accomplished here is not just referring to a completed Book, but something more. The complete revelation of God to man, and of God's finished work of man's redemption, is completed in Christ - Who is God in the flesh. The New Testament is God's infallible record of what Christ has done - and will yet do.
Other Differences Between the Two
1. The Old Testament deals largely in pictures and types.
Much of the truth about Christ that is in the Old Testament was hidden or unknown until Christ came. While they did know that everything relating to the Tabernacle and the Temple was to be made "according to the pattern," most of them probably did not understand that the Pattern referred to was Christ Himself. The New Testament, however, reveals what many of the things in the Old Testament meant.
A couple of the events of the Old Testament were prophetic through their illustrated truth, and of which the New Testament tells us that they were types (pictures) of Christ:
A braham's offering of Isaac - pictured the Father Who willingly offered His only begotten Son and of the Son Who refused not to die – both believing that God would raise him up – which is exactly what happened in Christ’s case
M oses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness - pictured Christ being lifted up for us, and putting Satan and his power to death.
M oses striking the Rock - he was to do it once because it pictured that Christ would be smitten once, and from Him would flow living waters.
2. In the Old Testament, once the Temple was built, God dwelt in the Temple - distant (the place of His revealed presence), but in the New Testament, God lives in the heart of each believer - close and personal, showing that the fellowship with God has been restored.
3. The Old Testament begins with God calling out a people-nation to Himself (Genesis 12), while the New Testament shows Him beginning with that nation, through 12 Jewish apostles, and calling unto Himself the whole world.
4. The Old Testament largely deals with the Law of God, but in the New Testament, the focus is on the grace of God. This is not because God had changed in any way, but it was because the complete Sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins had been accomplished - Christ died for our sins.
5. The Old Testament shows God remaining largely hidden, and access to Him could only be gained through the Temple , and with an animal sacrifice. The New Testament shows that Christ has given every believer free access to the Throne of God.
But didn't Jesus say he came to fulfil the laws (of the OT) :
(Matthew 5:17).
So the Christians are in the same boat as the Israelites ? - in terms of their acceptance of cruelty and torture ?
Are you actually asking if Christians accept cruelty and torture?
Or are you doing this thing that some non-Christians do where they define what Christians must believe in for them?
If the Deists are right, and God created everything then moved on, Jesus could not be son of God. The whole Christian belief system would be built on a false premise.
I'm not religious but I have tried to read the bible to be informed about things in general. I'm not a stupid person and I have a fairly good relationship with English, despite my awful spelling and I can understand most things I read.
Why then is the bible written in such antiquated and impenetrable language. I know it's the King James translation but isn't it about time for a newer, more modern and more easily understood translation. The language used is overly flowery and uninteligable which I think is completely unnescessary. It should be taken back to basics and retranslated from the earliest transcripts available so as to be as undiluted as possible.
Things will always be reinterpreted in translation and it is never an exact science but it doesn't help for definitive christian bible to be in such impnetrable language. I'm not advocating putting it into text speak, just refreshing it so that it doesn't read like a foriegn language despite being in English.
Are you actually asking if Christians accept cruelty and torture?
Or are you doing this thing that some non-Christians do where they define what Christians must believe in for them?
So Christians can reject parts of what Jesus said, and accept other (parts) ?
If you bother to check the Evil Bible website you will find that the New is just as evil as the Old. To save you the effort I will provide a link... http://www.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm
Good link. Jesus was also quite a racist, who ignored the pleas of a poor Canaanite, explicitly telling her he was sent only to the Jews, before comparing the woman and her people to dogs. (Matthew 15:21-26) He eventually ends up helping her, either because the omniscient God changed his mind, because he requires that non-Jews demonstrate greater faith than Jews to win his favour, or just to shut her up.
When the Pharisees came to test his consistency in following the Mosaic Law by asking him what should be done to a woman who had committed adultery, he said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". (John 8:3-8) Sounds nice enough on the surface, but you can understand why they thought him a madman when you consider the consequences of the statement. He is not teaching Mosaic Law is wrong, not teaching that adultery should not be a crime punishable by stoning, instead he says only the sinless have the right to punish. But in such a world, how could you establish justice? How on earth would we punish murderers, for instance?
He gave terrible advice to his followers, saying they should pay no heed to worldly possessions, to give no thought to the morrow. (Matthew 6:31-34) Following that advice would be ruinous to society, and lead to people being unable to support themselves and their families. It provided the inspiration for various mendicant leech orders - the medieval version of benefit scroungers who possessed no desire to work.
I'm not religious but I have tried to read the bible to be informed about things in general. I'm not a stupid person and I have a fairly good relationship with English, despite my awful spelling and I can understand most things I read.
Why then is the bible written in such antiquated and impenetrable language. I know it's the King James translation but isn't it about time for a newer, more modern and more easily understood translation. The language used is overly flowery and uninteligable which I think is completely unnescessary. It should be taken back to basics and retranslated from the earliest transcripts available so as to be as undiluted as possible.
Things will always be reinterpreted in translation and it is never an exact science but it doesn't help for definitive christian bible to be in such impnetrable language. I'm not advocating putting it into text speak, just refreshing it so that it doesn't read like a foriegn language despite being in English.
There are many translations into modern English. See:
If the Deists are right, and God created everything then moved on, Jesus could not be son of God. The whole Christian belief system would be built on a false premise.
And that would terrify most Christians.
My mother used to say that God wasn't a person, that God was all around us in people, the world and the universe. She believed in a Source of Power who created and then moved onto the next creation and it made such a lot of sense in what she said that after due consideration I do feel the same way.
That wouldn't necessary mean that Jesus didn't exist of course, just that he was born and was a good man who tried to use his powers of oration for good and died before his time. I do believe that, but I don't actually believe that he was the son of God.
Comments
If you bother to check the Evil Bible website you will find that the New is just as evil as the Old. To save you the effort I will provide a link... http://www.evilbible.com/do_not_ignore_ot.htm
Regardless of religion the world would be a much nicer place if everyone followed that.
Bloody religious - stuck in the dark ages. Has he never heard of the internet?
People are free to portray themselves in whatever light they chose and their choice of language will often be a strong indicator ..... that applies to all posters, of course.
I think though that as human beings we are uniquely positioned to be able to impose some of our own meaning on to life. As far as I know we are the first species to evolve with the ability to conceptualise and to comunicate in abstract ways. We are equpped to be able to perhaps get more out of life than the simple biological imperative to reproduce.
Faced with such huge possibilities it is little wonder that we have turned to religion and invented gods to ease the burden of trying to define what meaning we should be ascribing to life. It is easier for us in some ways to arive at a set of rules and dogmaticaly adhere to them and convince ourselves that it is the will of god and thus our true meaning for being on earth.
The truth is I think a little more scary but nevertheless extremely liberating and that is that we can define what life is supposed to be about without the nescessity to hang it from any particular religious framework. We can if we so wish live our life motivated by whatever we choose. With any luck we will realise that it is in our best interests all round to look after one another rather than to compete and destroy each other through xenophobic fears.
God and gods have been a useful tool for humans to be able to get our head around certain things that our animal minds would not have been equipped to deal with. However I think that now we have reached a point where we are sensible of a great many more things than at the beginings of society and that we do not need to cling to religion for very much longer and that it will certainly reachj a point where the religions and our adherance to their dogmas will do more harm than good. I would argue that this has already started to happen and has in fact been well under way in a number of instances. Not that we need religion to fuel wars or that getting rid of religion would stop war happening. Religions are not really the main cause of conflict, they just provide convenient conduits along which ideologies are imposed. If it weren't religion it would be something else.
The meaning of life for us humans is a bit more open ended than simple reproduction. However being a pessimist I think that our growth in some areas has outsripped our ability to control properly what we do and that as a result we will destroy ourselves. I'm a bit surprised that we haven't done it already. I hope we don't and that we find a way to live with each other and to preserve the natural resourses of the planet we rely on.
It sounds so simple yet in practice seems almost impossible. All we have got to do is not wipe each other out through violent conflict, (there I think we might just make it despite ourselves) and not strip the planet of it's ability to sustain us. (This is where I think we wil fail because it is a more abstract thing to deal with and cause and effect are not always obvious in an immediate enough way for us to take notice. The damage we do to the environment always happens at several steps removed from the sources of the problems)
If we do make it through the next few hudered years I think we have an amazing potential but I think it's fairly close to crunch time and the next 2 or 3 centuries will I think seal our fate.
So the meaning, or at least the purpose of human life at the moment should be to simply survive and save the palnets resourses so that we can survive indefinitely, or at least a lot longer.
Happy new year folks.
I'm surprised Apple haven't released the iBible. I'm sure it would sell well and under the terms of the deal 15 percent of the sales would go to God.
We were given free will and nothing else. The laws that God supposedly put in the Bible were not put there by any deity, they were put there by people wanting to exercise control over the masses. If there is a God, then I suspect that it is a massive source of power that creates and then moves on. I don't believe for one minute that it cares enough about the life it creates on any one planet enough to make a set of laws and pass them down to people who could then interpret them and present them in any way they see fit.
I did once come up with an awesome conspiracy theory about how the internet was only created so the Pope could get his hands on porn without anyone knowing. I mean, who could you trust to go to the shops for you and not tell anyone?
There are enough iSheep around already.
That (the bit I highlighted in bold) is pretty much what the Deists beleive. Ironically, many of America's founding fathers were Deists. Modern Americans, therefore, are turning their backs on these great men by following the so-called Christian Way.
You both talk as if the Bible was actually written as a rulebook by an actual super being called God. But you know it was written by people like you and me.
You have to read it in the context of the culture and times that it was written - a more barbaric time than now in many ways. You can find God's word in there - but not if you approach it as if it were written yesterday.
You need to be careful with phrases like 'Word of God' too. We're dealing with poetic imagery, not factual statements that can be deconstructed for scientific accuracy.
I am not surprised that the Americans are turning their backs on it. America is a nation highly divided socially between extreme want, poverty, crime and despair, people who are utterly obsessed with religion and the very rich who don't really care.
I think those who follow the Christian Way are afraid...of dying...of there being nothing at the end of life's journey. A lot of people become very fervent through fear and once fear takes hold, rationality and debate go right out of the window.
I've always thought of it more as a book ABOUT God than a book BY God.
So to whom does the Old Testament apply to ?
The Israelites it was written for.
The Main Difference Between The Two
All of the differences can be summed up by saying that the Old Testament begins the teaching, or revelation, while the New Testament finishes (or completes) that same revelation. In other words, the story is incomplete without the New Testament. The completion that is accomplished here is not just referring to a completed Book, but something more. The complete revelation of God to man, and of God's finished work of man's redemption, is completed in Christ - Who is God in the flesh. The New Testament is God's infallible record of what Christ has done - and will yet do.
Other Differences Between the Two
1. The Old Testament deals largely in pictures and types.
Much of the truth about Christ that is in the Old Testament was hidden or unknown until Christ came. While they did know that everything relating to the Tabernacle and the Temple was to be made "according to the pattern," most of them probably did not understand that the Pattern referred to was Christ Himself. The New Testament, however, reveals what many of the things in the Old Testament meant.
A couple of the events of the Old Testament were prophetic through their illustrated truth, and of which the New Testament tells us that they were types (pictures) of Christ:
A braham's offering of Isaac - pictured the Father Who willingly offered His only begotten Son and of the Son Who refused not to die – both believing that God would raise him up – which is exactly what happened in Christ’s case
M oses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness - pictured Christ being lifted up for us, and putting Satan and his power to death.
M oses striking the Rock - he was to do it once because it pictured that Christ would be smitten once, and from Him would flow living waters.
2. In the Old Testament, once the Temple was built, God dwelt in the Temple - distant (the place of His revealed presence), but in the New Testament, God lives in the heart of each believer - close and personal, showing that the fellowship with God has been restored.
3. The Old Testament begins with God calling out a people-nation to Himself (Genesis 12), while the New Testament shows Him beginning with that nation, through 12 Jewish apostles, and calling unto Himself the whole world.
4. The Old Testament largely deals with the Law of God, but in the New Testament, the focus is on the grace of God. This is not because God had changed in any way, but it was because the complete Sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins had been accomplished - Christ died for our sins.
5. The Old Testament shows God remaining largely hidden, and access to Him could only be gained through the Temple , and with an animal sacrifice. The New Testament shows that Christ has given every believer free access to the Throne of God.
Credit: Bettridge
Thanks, stoatie (and Jezebeth).
But didn't Jesus say he came to fulfil the laws (of the OT) :
(Matthew 5:17).
So the Christians are in the same boat as the Israelites ? - in terms of their acceptance of cruelty and torture ?
Are you actually asking if Christians accept cruelty and torture?
Or are you doing this thing that some non-Christians do where they define what Christians must believe in for them?
Why then is the bible written in such antiquated and impenetrable language. I know it's the King James translation but isn't it about time for a newer, more modern and more easily understood translation. The language used is overly flowery and uninteligable which I think is completely unnescessary. It should be taken back to basics and retranslated from the earliest transcripts available so as to be as undiluted as possible.
Things will always be reinterpreted in translation and it is never an exact science but it doesn't help for definitive christian bible to be in such impnetrable language. I'm not advocating putting it into text speak, just refreshing it so that it doesn't read like a foriegn language despite being in English.
So Christians can reject parts of what Jesus said, and accept other (parts) ?
How odd and bizarre
Good link. Jesus was also quite a racist, who ignored the pleas of a poor Canaanite, explicitly telling her he was sent only to the Jews, before comparing the woman and her people to dogs. (Matthew 15:21-26) He eventually ends up helping her, either because the omniscient God changed his mind, because he requires that non-Jews demonstrate greater faith than Jews to win his favour, or just to shut her up.
When the Pharisees came to test his consistency in following the Mosaic Law by asking him what should be done to a woman who had committed adultery, he said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". (John 8:3-8) Sounds nice enough on the surface, but you can understand why they thought him a madman when you consider the consequences of the statement. He is not teaching Mosaic Law is wrong, not teaching that adultery should not be a crime punishable by stoning, instead he says only the sinless have the right to punish. But in such a world, how could you establish justice? How on earth would we punish murderers, for instance?
He gave terrible advice to his followers, saying they should pay no heed to worldly possessions, to give no thought to the morrow. (Matthew 6:31-34) Following that advice would be ruinous to society, and lead to people being unable to support themselves and their families. It provided the inspiration for various mendicant leech orders - the medieval version of benefit scroungers who possessed no desire to work.
All in all, Jesus is a pretty awful role model.
http://www.kencollins.com/bible-t2.htm
And that would terrify most Christians.
My mother used to say that God wasn't a person, that God was all around us in people, the world and the universe. She believed in a Source of Power who created and then moved onto the next creation and it made such a lot of sense in what she said that after due consideration I do feel the same way.
That wouldn't necessary mean that Jesus didn't exist of course, just that he was born and was a good man who tried to use his powers of oration for good and died before his time. I do believe that, but I don't actually believe that he was the son of God.