This is something that puzzles me. Surely if a god exists, then it has properties, it performs actions and it has wishes (which are like commandments or at least suggestions). These are then facts, on which personal opinion has no bearing. In the same way I cannot choose/decide/vote on how much energy the sun produces, I cannot choose/decide/vote what a real god wants. How am I to know which bits of the bible are true and which ones aren't?
If you don't believe in the Bible much, then I don't think you are really a catholic...if you believe that it's God's word, then you should believe that all of it is true
I'm assuming you were talking about 1st guest? It said agree not believe. As in, there are parts where guest doesn't agree with whether it be completely or a little bit.
Yes, but not agreeing with what God is telling us through his word is a sign of unbelief in him. As a christian, you should not only believe in God, but you should agree with everything he says to you, otherwise your faith isn't real.
I'm the guy who wrote the long comment above. I think that the bible is a poorly written book, self-contradictory, and many of its claims are demonstrably false. Furthermore, its "morality" is dubious, if not utterly obscene, but it doesn't matter since it makes no sense to begin with. My point is: people should make sense, and cherry-picking the nice bits because it feels good is totally arbitrary. I'm an atheist, and I have more respect for the fundamentalists than for the moderate, because at least the fundies are trying their best to be consistent (even though they're bound to fail), while the moderate make no sense and should just stop pretending.
Where does it contradict itself? What about its morality is obscene and what doesn't make sense about it? There are a lot of people that like to cherry-pick parts of it, I agree with you there. When people say stuff like the guest above did, they are proving that, but I don't agree with your others claims about the Bible itself.
there really wasn't a whole lot of thought that went into the making of that chart. So many of those contradictions are far-fetched and are merely just a matter of realizing the original intent of the writers. Also, many of them are saying that the old testament and the new testament contradict each other, when really God is fulfilling his covenant, meaning that because Jesus has died for our sins, God requires different things from us in the new testament than he did from the old testament Israelites.
They're still contradictions in a book that's supposed to be literal, indelible truth. As son as you have to start interpreting thing creatively and taking the human authors into account, the book loses all validity.
Also, He revised his own indelible words? Haha.
The Bible is not all literal. Most of it is, but there are many parts where there are prophecies and revelations that are not meant, and were never meant to be taken literally. When John writes in revelation about the beasts, he is using the beasts to secretly stand for the Roman empire...he doesn't mean that a beast is literally going to come out of the sea. Taking the human authors into account is very important because they had an original intent in their writing. A lot of Christians take verses out of context, such as Jeremiah 29:11, because they think that God was literally telling everyone who ever existed and everyone who will ever exist that he has a plan for them that doesn't include harm; however, he was originally talking to the Israelites as they were going into bondage. The reason why it is important to look at the original authors is because otherwise, a lot of verses will get taken out of context.
Also, there is nowhere where he revises his own words....I never said that. He only fulfills them through Jesus. In the Old Testament, God gave the Israelites specific commands that were meant for them because they had not been saved by Jesus yet. They had to sacrifice in order to make them clean, whereas now, as Christians, we have Jesus who has made us clean. Also, many non-christians take verses out of context in the old testament, such as the verse about not getting tattoos. They think that this should apply to Christians too, when really, God was commanding the Israelites not to do this because back then, tattoos were a sign of belonging to and worshipping other Gods. You have to understand the context of the times that the Bible was written in to understand what it is God is telling us.
If it wasn't actually written by God there's no reason to be concerned about what written in it. I'm not concerned bout what a bunch of middle eastern people wrote down about what they say happened 200 years earlier and father back than that supposedly to the beginning of time. Maybe there' a God and maybe there isn't, but I have absolutely not faith in that book.
I know that if I were to hand in an essay or a report to my teacher/boss, and that my work were as confusing, unclear, erroneous and inconsistent as the bible, I would not be taken seriously. Some people have incredibly low standards when it comes to judging the work of their gods.
Garlog already posted a list of contradictions. Let's talk about the unclear and confusing bits then. There are about 41000 Christian denominations. That is 41000 official interpretations of the same text. 41000 ways of disagreeing on the meaning of at least one passage. 41000 different understandings of what is supposed to be the word of a single god. That number keeps increasing with time, whenever groups inside a denomination start to disagree. If that is not enough to say, at least, that the bible is confusing, I don't know what is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations
So many of those denominations are small groups made up of only a few churches, first of all and secondly, most of these denominations disagree on small little things, whether it is what kind of songs to sing in church, or how communion should be done. However, most of these denominations can all agree on the Bible's fundamental truths: that God created the world and that he sent his only son, Jesus to save us from our sins and that if we believe that, we will have eternal life with him.
A FunSubstance comment thread is a claustrophobic environment for discussion. There are plenty of resources in which Guestt may be interested. For example http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/, where the bible is read with exactly the same amount of skepticism as is applied to other religions and supernatural claims from homeopaths. Imagine you're an alien coming on earth and discovering the bible, scribbling in the margin as you're trying to reconcile it with itself and the rest of what we know about the world.
When belief turns into action then it becomes other people's business, you're right. But as long as it stays in your head, or you share it with consenting adults, I see no problems.
What are you talking about? Satanism, Extremist Muslims, Old Wicca, Baphomet Worship, there are plenty of tribes in African and South American jungles who practice things like human sacrifice, hell have you read the bible? Anyone who take it literally would be stoning gays to death and taking slaves from neighboring countries.
Sure, but then we circle back to me asking "But no one should give a shit about it?". Are you going to answer with something different than "Okay, theres no religion that supports those types of things so I don't think we need to worry about it."?
I see. So, to clarify, your okay with people worshiping a deity who promotes, murder, rape pedophilia, or any number of bad things, as long as these people don't actually practice these things, and you think, optimally, no one else should care either?
Cool, we actually agree here. Thought crimes and whatnot.
Just out of curiosity, does this apply only to religion, or does it also apply to opinions in general? For example, is it okay to think rape is not a bad thing, as long as you don't rape?
how can people claim to belong to a religion, yet dont "agree" with parts of the bible?! You might not agree with it, but that doesnt mean discount it all as rubbish. if you actually studied the bible you would see the harmony throughout, and although we might not like some of the 'rules' God made for us, they ultimately protect us. But then most "religions" and people who claim to belong to them don't ever read the bible, and they arent used in their churches, either. How can you have "religion" without God? Memes like this are great at sussing out the ignorant.
You can believe in a god ( regardless if it's the Christian God or Allah or Buddha etc) because it makes sense for you, something created all of this, and some people just don't, they believe there was a Big Bang and before that nobody is sure. But you don't have to follow all the rules that are set up by the bible or the Koran because I think that everybody can have his own vision on how this was all made. And there are some really good basic rules for life in the bible (and probably also in other books like that) but it is up to yourself. My mom for example, she believes there is some kind of God. But she doesn't go to church and if she bumps her head she yells God dammit.
I am not sure if people get this because I'm quite rubbish at English and this is probably against what many people believe. So I'm sorry if I offended anyone and I'm sorry if this was extremely un clear.
The reason for people disagreeing with you is that these religions don't allow for you to make your own adjustments. For example, with Christianity, you either believe that Jesus saves you or you don't. If you decide to believe only some of what he claims, then you don't really have faith in him, and are not saved as a result. Basically, you can't change the Bible just so it fits how you want to live.
Yeah ok ik get that but my point is that you can believe in a god who created this all but without being Christian etc. But yeah that's how I see it. I really don't have a clue what I believe and the be honest it sometimes drives me mad thinking about it and I'm only 15 so I probably haven't seen enough and do t have enough experience on this topic
Yeah, I understand that, I'm only 19 and I've been a Christian for most of my life. It's impossible to know everything about God and what is coming after this life, but I have faith that God is real and that I am saved by him and that I'll go to heaven when I die
Although I really don't know what I believe, I think it's great (and also beautiful) how so many people can trust something like that with that little proof
I don't think religions deserve respect. Bullshit is bullshit, even if billions of people think it. You would not (or should not) respect my claims that pink glittery pixies live in my garden, why respect any other demonstratively-wrong statements?
This would be the ideal situation. The thing is, religion has been deeply ingrained within almost every society for thousands of years. When you think about it that way, it's kind of incredible all the change that has happened within the last century. Change takes time and we are slowly getting there. Maybe not this year, nor the next, maybe not even in the next 50, but someday soon, acceptance and true equality will prevail.
I think some people take the bible too literally
https://sciencebasedlife.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/biblecontradictions-reasonproject.png
Also, He revised his own indelible words? Haha.
Just out of curiosity, does this apply only to religion, or does it also apply to opinions in general? For example, is it okay to think rape is not a bad thing, as long as you don't rape?
I am not sure if people get this because I'm quite rubbish at English and this is probably against what many people believe. So I'm sorry if I offended anyone and I'm sorry if this was extremely un clear.
And I'm just sitting here masturbating