This Guy's Bible

.....nobody was. But also don't think all Christians are bad. There are just bad people out there that shouldn't define everybody else.

I know, but this guys up there... Ugh.. Nevermind

There's a difference between hardcore and extremist...

I'll have to agree with you, prohandholder. This is pissing me off

Just because your bible is marked up and falling apart doesn't mean you're an extremist, it just means you're reading your bible a lot/doing bible studies and etc.

And just because you do that doesn't make you or your life better.

Of course it doesn't..sorry if my comment sounded kinda pushy, I was just trying to say that a marked up bible doesn't mean someone is an extremist or something like that, they're just reading their bible a lot.

Ahahahha no no it's not your comment that sounded kinda pushy, It was the original "People who's Bible is falling apart usually have a life that isn't." that kinda felt wrong

Ohhhhkay but yeah, just because you're Christian doesn't mean all your problems go away, that's what people want to hear but that's not the truth.

Correct, loki. We face the exact same problems that everyone else does (kind of), but we know how to handle our problems correctly, because God tells us how, in scripture. :) For example: How many of you have speeding tickets? Some of you probably do - you chose to speed, got caught, and literally paid the penalty. Romans 13:1-7 tells us (everyone) to be obedient to civil authority (cops, court officials, our bosses, POTUS, etc). I choose not to speed excessively (I'll admit to doing 5 over the limit most of the time - not saying it's right; I'm just making my point) and as a result, I don't have to pay money to the state of Ohio for speeding... because I choose not to speed (excessively). My point is, is that God tells us how to live a life here on earth for our own benefit, despite what we (as humans) may think about civil authority. Christians who choose to do things exactly as God intended live the best lives possible, because God's way is RIGHT, every time. :)

I dont need a God to tell me whats wrong. You act as if if there was no God telling you to respect authority, you wouldnt respect. Thats like saying if God hadnt told me not to rape, I would rape people. Well fuck no, I chose if I want to be good or bad. And I'm not good because God told me to (btw I was raised Christian but I'm agostic) because I want to be good. I want to respect authority because its the right thing to do, I dont want to rape because its the right thing to do, according to me, not according to a God.

According to you, hmm? :/ I'm sorry you won't give God the glory, not to mention the respect, for who you choose to be.

We are having a civilized debate, so dont come here to look down on me for not glorifying your God.

"Christian or not"
If you're not Christian you have no moral obligation because you simply don't believe.

My parents made me and gave me a great childhood, not a supernatural being. I thank my life to my friends, family, and teachers. Give credit to people that deserve it

Here's my counterargument to guest.
You're right that God wasn't the one who gave you a good life. Not directly. He wasn't there to band-aid your boo-boos and rock you to sleep. What (according to my beliefs) he did was give you those who WOULD band-aid you and read you bedtime stories and play games with you. He wasn't your friend necessarily, but he gave you friends.
Sort of like people who pull through what should have been a fatal injury. God didn't save you. God gave you a doctor who could save you.
Sort of like that post a few weeks back about how a drowning person refused help twice because he claimed that God would help him. Then he died. Then he asked God why he didn't help him. To which he got the reply "I did help you. I sent you help twice."

And for giving us those who do help us, we should be thankful.

Oh, trust me!!! ... you DO have a moral obligation. And actually, God IS the author of all good things. James 1:17.

In reply to the first comment in this chain, just because you're a Christian doesn't mean your troubles will go away and you'll have a great, happy life. It may get harder; people might become bitter to you for your faith and you might be put down. But when the hard times come, and they will, you have this feeling in your heart that you have backup (in a sense) and that somehow, everything's gonna be alright. That someone's always there for you. Just this uncontainable joy that can't be put out..I choose to believe it's God's love. People say that when you become a Christian, His love fills your heart and it kinda sounds cheesy but once you experience this joy..
I'm just sad to see how many people are missing out on that.

@lokihasthephonebox - Correct. :) It's called the Holy Spirit. :) Acts 2:38.

yep yep
that's what I was trying to say xD

If you don't believe, you by definition have no moral obligation. I don't believe in the Great Pasta Monster or whateverthefuck that fuckin creature is. I have no moral obligation to give any sort of anything to that piece of hellspawn. Same with those who don't believe in God. To these people, God simply doesn't exist. To us believers, we see it as a moral obligation and believe that everyone should give thanks to God but to them, why would they give anything to something that (obviously) doesn't exist? It's like giving real dog food to your imaginary dog. It's a waste of time, money, and space.

With respect, I disagree entirely, tylerchu. Actually, let me make entirely sure what you mean by "moral obligation". Hmm, okay, I've thought about this and this is what I've come to: God gave everyone free will. With that of course comes the choice to believe in God, or not to. If people do believe in God, read their bible, understand everything they need to about Christ, etc, then they certainly understand the moral obligation that they have to serve Him faithfully. If the person does NOT believe in God, then don't feel any moral obligation, naturally. Is that the difference you were meaning? NOW... Allow me to be absolutely clear... if someone doesn't believe in God, that does NOT remove the penalty of unrepentant sin. Atheists, agnostics, etc, etc, etc, are guilty of sin. :( Me? I'm not. You know why? It's NOT because I'm some great person, but because Christ died for me. God went 99.9% of the way for me to earn my salvation!!! :D I have to give Him my .1% of faithful service...

... during my lifetime, and I'll spend eternity in Heaven with Him and everyone else who chooses to do the same. Folks, negativity as a CONCEPT, WON'T, EVEN, EXIST! Boredom? Nope. Disappointment? Nope. Hunger? Nope. Disease, illness, injury? Nope. The LAST thing that Christ will conquer is DEATH. No death in Heaven either. :) Trust me, ALL OF YOU, you want to go to Heaven. :D I want you to go to Heaven when you die, or when Christ decides to return. Don't wait! The bible tells us exactly the steps needed to get there, if you'll just listen, and believe. :)

So I'm going to give a tldr from two points of view. Believer and nonbeliever.
Believer: Everyone should give praise to God.
Nonbeliever: Why should I praise something that doesn't exist?
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Everything you've said is correct from the believer's standpoint. Everyone's a sinner, everyone needs Christ's intervention in the Final Judgement. But if we look from a nonbeliever's place, there might not even be life after the Mortal Realm so why bother preparing for it, regardless of who's God is in control?
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My personal stand:
I'm a Christian. The Christian side of me believes that what you've said is correct. But the "practical" side of me (which you see in my previous comments) points out that there's no point in worshipping if you don't believe. The jump in logic I didn't say is that if you don't believe you're never gonna believe unless something miraculous happens. Therefore it's pointless for "ordinary" people to try and convert others.

Of course, we're excluding the special ones who have a spiritual compulsion to convert. I probably will never actively try and convert anyone, but if anyone wants to discuss religion with me I'm open. So...I'm sort of a passive-converter. Open if you want to learn, but not gonna say anything if you don't because what's the point? I'm not gonna get anywhere with you.

We're told to preach the gospel. :) By standing up for what's right and telling how people are to save their souls, you're ACTIVELY converting. :) If I preach the gospel and NO ONE obeys the gospel (is baptized, properly), than I've done my job. We plant the seed, God gives the increase.

I suppose you're right. It's just not in my nature to preach.

Not all are called to be teachers, preachers, etc. Read James 3. :) We are told to go out into all the world and spread the gospel. Matthew 28:19. The internet happens to be a convenient place for that. :D

Look, we agree that you believe in your Bible, c31107, but I suggest you live by the overall message of it, which is pretty much to be good to those around you. You have to remembers the Bible was, according to Christian religion, not written by God or by Jesus, but transcribed and put together by male priests. In fact, there's a while website dedicated to all the stupid shit the Bible says http://www.dumbshitthebiblesays.com
So I suggest you stop trying to convincente everyone your God is the right one be cause you were raised like that and you chose to believe it and respecto that 1) The Bible isn't perfecto and you shouldn't live by it word by word 2) We can believe whatever we want. If I want to be a muslim, so be it. It doesnt make me more right than you or you more right than me, because the truth is we will never know until we did. So stop trying to convince us that we are wrong and try to be a bit more open minded.

Since we're on that topic, I'd also like to point out a passage that Garlog once gave me that explicitly is anti-homosexual.

Actually, the bible WAS written by God, because it was written by divinely-inspired men, not by "priests" as you suggest. You're right, you're certainly capable to live how you choose, as God gives you that capability. Yes, homosexuality is condemned by God, tylerchu. Romans 1:18-32 is a good place to start. Also in 1 Cor. 6:9.

A reply to your earlier comment:
We are just slightly more intelligent ape, living on a pale blue dot orbiting a very average star. We are just another species this planet is able to support. There's nothing special about us.

I love how you all quickly go condemn homosexuality because your magical and totally-not-biased-to-the-people-who-wrote-it-and-totally-not-exagerated-in-any-way book told you it was wrong. But when your book which is totally not out of date when it comes to actual law condemns gossiping (Leviticus 19:16), Eating A Ham Sandwich (Leviticus 11:7-8), Women Speaking In Churches (1 Corinthians 14:34-3)... And maaaany other stupid things everyone does every day and nobody says anything. Even the fucking Pope knows most of the Bible is extremely outdated bullshit. Don't you think that for a God that made us all equal, he was a pretty sexist motherfucker in the Bible? So good that he allowed slavery to happen, even said how to punish slaves. So motherfucking good he killed more than a million people... IN THE BIBLE. HE MURDERED CHILDREN FOR THE SINS OF THEIR PARENTS. 10/10 WOULD VOTE HIM GOD AGAIN.

Alright. First of all, old testament is not allowed to be used as an argument for how bad Christianity is. Secondly, we have to remember that Old Hebrew was a very exaggerated and metaphore-like language. You didn't say "don't be public about your achievements". You say "don't let your left hand know what your right is doing". Of course, there are several (many) passages that no matter how you look at it, seem to go against what is commonly acceptable, such as your woman example. And these parts I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna deal with in my spiritual life, but for now I'm just gonna go with "if you can't be nice, at least don't be a dick".

Look, I've been raised a Christian. My whole family is Christian, but once I finally read the Bible, I kinda realised it was pretty stupid to justify todays actions with a book that was written 2000 years ago for the society of that time. Everything in the Bible is extremely sexist, but nowadays we see that as being wrong. Its homophobic, but nowadays, we see it's wrong. Because the individual events or quotes are not 'up to date', I mean slavery? Come on. So I believe everyone should leave with the message of "love thy neighbour" instead of things like "God says I can hit my maid with a whip as long as she doesnt die" Finally, I'd like to ask everyone to please stop preaching their religion. Why do you think it's so obvious to Christians that Muslims are wrong and obvious to Muslims that Christians are wrong and every other religion is too? Why this sense of unnecessary pride? You believe it, congrats, you'll have your reasons, but it's a belief, you can't know if you are right.

@prohandholder - All of the things you've stated as being "wrong" with Christianity and the bible are a perfect example of someone who knows nothing about God, and certainly nothing of CONTEXT. So many people today rip passages out of the bible and say "BAM, THIS APPLIES TO THIS THING CAUSE HERE IT IS IN THE BIBLE!" When in fact, they're wrong because they don't consider things like context, the author, the audience, the situation, nor the purpose of what's written, etc, etc. People today say that it's wrong to eat ham. NO, it's not. The OLD law (involving the dietary restrictions) DIED with Christ 2015 years ago. Every, single, thing, that you stated as being wrong involving scripture is entirely based upon your own IGNORANCE, your own DISBELIEF, and your own apparent hatred for the truth.

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all worship the same God. I did my senior theology project on these three Abrahamic religions. Christians who say Judaism and Islam are false are the incorrect ones. Same with the other two viewing everyone else.
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Both of you have a valid point and they don't necessarily contradict each other. Prohandholder claims that the Bible is out of date (when taken (close to) verbatim). c31107 claims the Bible verses should be taken in context.
Of course the Bible is taken out of context. I'm pretty sure the Bible also has a myriad of mistranslations from the original Old Hebrew.
Of course you need to take the Bible in context. But make sure your context is matching the Bible's context. I'm pretty sure most of the homophobic verses are actually in relation to male prostitution, not homosexual practices as a whole.
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I'm curious as to c31107's religious education and background. For context purposes.

Me too, I'd like to know his religious education and background . I do believe as well the verses were probably modified. But still, if we ignore the Old Testament, there's some pretty wrong stuff in the New one Too.

Don’t Get Married: 1st Corinthians 7:27 NASB
Prayer (not doctors) if You’re Sick: James 5:14 NASB
Women Should Shut Up in Church: 1st Corinthians 14:34 NASB
The Wealthy Will Be Condemned by God: James 5:1-5
Sure, all these are out of context, but I you have read the Bible (such as myself) you know context doesnt particularly do much. So don't say its my hatred or my ignorance. The Bible is obviously outdated, in fact, it has happened many times that when something the Bible says is so obviously wrong that everyone just goes ahead and says its a metaphor (the world being flat, the creation of the world etc)

All that is why I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the Bible and I'm just gonna go with what I said before, "if you can't be nice, don't be a dick".

Happy to help, sir. :) Though what do you mean by "the other side"?

The nonbeliever side.

Ah.