Proof the Bible is Garbage?

[MetalHeadz]

You're not arrogant you're just a moron.

Heh, sorry did you have a point or did you just want to call me a moron without challenging one thing that I'd said (a little bit convenient eh cos you'd get fuckin' owned newblet).

[HeavenSent]

You do realize Catholicism is the root for all Christianity right? Ever been to a Catholic mass. You're such a bloody git.

As a matter of fact, i was baptized Catholic at the age of 13 against my will (just to make my mother happy) and from there completed their indoctrination of Catechizism. The head pastor (a good friend of my mom's) came to our house every Monday for 2 years to instruct our whole family of four. Also during that time, I worked in the Church rectory on the weekends taking various ceremony appointments and counting the money from the offerings & taking it to the bank. (just some FYI trivia... this is the hometown of that famous rock group 'Chevelle')

At 21, I was baptized a Protestant by full submersion.
At 27, for the following 5 years, studied very intently & obsessively as a Theologian; to which the courses were: world history, ancient world religions, church history, biblical archeology, Hebrew/Aramaic & Greek language, biblical eschatology & symbols.

I think I have more qualifications than anyone here to speak on this subject.

The Catholic Church, as it is now, began with Constantine. Before then, It wasn't the Catholic Church. Christians before then practiced their faith in secrecy and there was no hierarchy, only a representative for each group of worshippers called a bishop. The first Christian church in Rome dates to the year A.D. 56, established by Linus, the son of Britain’s King Caradoc. The first Bishop given the title of Pope (Universal Bishop or the Bishop of Bishops) was in A.D. 610 by Emperor Phocas. The emperor did this because of the Bishop of Constantinople, Bishop Ciriacus, who had justifiably excommunicated him for causing the assassination of his predecessor, Emperor Mauritius. Gregory I, was then the Bishop of Rome and had refused the title but Boniface III, who came to be the Bishop of Rome after Gregory I, accepted the title.

Edit:> It was in the year A.D. 48 when Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus died. After her death, a larger wattle building, about 60 feet by 26 feet was built over and around her wattle home (Glastonbury England). Mary was buried beneath the floor of this building which became known by several names: Lignea Basilica, Vetusta Ecclesia, Ealdechurche, Old Church, Culdee Church and the Church of the Refugees. It was also called St. Mary’s Chapel as well as St. Joseph’s Chapel because after the death of Joseph (July 27, A.D. 82), he too was buried in a crypt beneath the building. Not only that, but it was also known as the Tomb of the Saints since many of the early pioneering disciples are buried there. Roman Catholicism didn’t begin until after A.D. 300, and many Catholics, before the tradition of the Feast of Assumption, which came a few centuries later, called this precious site Our Lady’s Dowry. The Culdee Church was the first Christian church in the world, established between A.D.39-41. Historians who know this area call this place the most hallowed ground on earth.

Dbl edit:> It was during the life of the biblical Nimrod when Truth was hijacked and became 'religion'.

[HeavenSent]

The bible is really telling the same story over and over and over again. Each time on a larger scale with more detail.

With that thought in mind, some think that the moon was a piece of the earth and at some point in the very distant past broke off when worlds collided. It's believed by these thinkers that there was another sister planet to Earth... that these 3 planets (earth, mars & X) were so close, and civilization at this time was advanced enough to allow regular travel between them. Planet X collided with Earth, creating the moon from earth and the asteroid belt from the demolished debris of planet X and life on Mars becomes extinct.

The original story above repeats (in allegory) below:

It starts with the story of a couple.
It tells the same story again as a family.
The same story again with a nation.
Again the same story with the world.

It's meant for his heavenly children to understand. To everyone else, it's a mystery; a religion.

[Foreign]

Very informative, HS. Amazing the things I never knew about the history of my own beliefs.

Your forgetting that the biggest absurdity of religion is that a God is supposed to exists. Giving God as an answer only creates a bigger question of how God came to exist.

Mhz you have to realize how pointless that question is, though.

If God exists, there is no way to prove it between one person and another. The argument of His existence surpasses rules of logic and human interpretation of facts because God is considered to be more advanced than we are.

When it comes down to it, a supposed creature cannot define its own Creator, and whether it chooses to believe the existence of that Creator doesn't have any affect on the Truth.

There really isn't an argument to be had on the existence of God. Either you believe it or you don't. Sure, there is a conflict because what causes one person to believe wouldn't be enough for another, but you're not going to make any progress trying to make people forget what they value and instead take on your values. This applies on both sides of the argument.

I grew up believing in God and, today, despite all of the education I have and courses that I took that told me I had a choice between believing science and believing God, I still choose to put my faith in God. The least of the reasons for doing this is that science can't do anything for me. It's man's explanation of how the world works. I also don't understand how those who believe in science can sit and say how inaccurate religious works are because they were written by imperfect people yet put their beliefs into scientific documents also written by imperfect people until observation proves otherwise.

To me, science amounts to a lot of documented observation that can generally be trusted. The laws of science aren't 100% proven, just 100% accurate as far as we know at predicting the behavior of objects in the physical world. It is entirely possible that we could wake up one day and the rules have changed caused by something unknown to us. Science has the potential of being shattered. And if my faith in God is shattered--if I die and things don't go the way I thought they would--I haven't lost anything by believing.

[genocidal]

Whatever dude.

I also find the tone of your statement a fuckin' joke.

His tone was serious. He actually thinks that insulting religion is a bad idea - it wasn't a joke. You are a joke.

I'll tell anyone religious to their face that I think they're belief is irrational.

*their
And we're all in awe of your gall.

It's called freedom of speech you fuck nut, not that you'd know much about civil rights - bible bashing douche.

If he were Bible-bashing then you wouldn't have a problem with him.

Edit: In the UK - obviously not in Muslim countries (backward fucks).

I'm not going to get into a cultural argument but let's just say, because I'm sure 90% of the people on these forums can agree with me, that calling largely Islamic nations "backward fucks" says more about you than it does about those countries - that you're ignorant.

Lmao, the fact is your stigmatising every religious person as someone who would actually defend their beliefs violently. As if they couldn't handle criticism.

*you're
Stigmatizing is misused - you mean something along the lines of "pigeonholing." But I guess you knew that since you're "better read."

This is exactly what I fuckin' hate, the unwarranted respect we have to pay to religious opinions, you're a disgrace to humanity.

Who says you have to have "unwarranted respect" for religion? You clearly don't and nobody cares because your opinion is worth less than 70 year old prostitute.

This is the problem with democracy, no one will ever speak out against a big enough electorate but it's about time we that we had some legislation imposed to make religious criticism widely acceptable - just the same as political criticism or ethical criticism is.

Yeah, great idea. I can imagine the bill now:
"Being that Metal Headz has come up with this brilliant idea, and being that there are a lot of religious people, it is resolved that religious criticism is 'widely acceptable' - meaning not only that you have to listen to retards spouting their anti-religious bullshit but you also have to come up with your own anti-religious bullshit despite your actual opinion. It is resolved that this is the only exception to 'freedom of speech,' which President Metal Headz clearly respects to the utmost degree."

I don't care if I'm arrogant because I'm more intelligent than you and I'm better read than you. AKA, I'm better than you.

I don't know about the guy you're responding to, but you most certainly aren't "better read" (I guess you mean more well-read) than any significant portion of the population. When people call you out on being an idiot over and over it usually means that you are one.

[Cumulonimbus]

6) Most of the fossil record we have are sedimentary which means it would support a Great Flood happening rather than an ice age that happend over thousand of millions of years.

The Arab people are the offspring of Ishmael, Abraham's son through his wife's Egyptian maid Hagar. During her pregnancy, God said to her, "He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." (Genesis 16:12) Later, God says to Abraham: "Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac.." (Gen.17:20-21)

[HeavenSent]

ROFL :wub:

[Zerzera]

For me the 'innate' tendancy to believe is a misfiring of an evolutionary predisposition. Not some mystical transcience or spirits in the human 'soul'.

In the past, in accordance to Darwinian theory and some of my own elaborations of his work, it was beneficial to believe rather than to disbelieve - even in the irrational. AKA, you are more likely to survive if you believe irrationally than if you always think rationally. For example, if you always assume that rustle in the bushes is a lion or that the cliff edge is unstable, even contrary to visual evidence, there's a statistically increased chance of you surviving and thus passing on your genes and behavioural characteristics to future generations.

Moreover, I think this is emphasised in children. A child is predisposed with a socially and biologically evolved tendancy to believe whatever it's told. Hence their vehement belief in the tooth fairy/santa claus. Simililarly this was due to a 'misfiring' of the biological precondition to believe whatever their parents told them. 'Don't go near the fire', 'Don't go near the snake', 'Don't go into the dark' - all things which, had they believed it the first time they were told, would have seriously increased the chances of a child surviving.

Like the tooth fairy and god however, irrational belief can be controlled by conscious and logical thinking.

Don't delude yourselves.

I think that saying we as human beings don't need these automatisms anymore, and that we could and should control our fears -and 'irrationality' in general- to be pretty damn arrogant.
If we ever get to that point, it will probably be the end of men. Because if you think rationally, why the hell would we reproduce? There is nothing rational about us. We don't need to exist...

I am an absurdist and I have a damn hard time to get through this life. I wish I would be able to believe in a God.

Or maybe I just believe in God and all these people claim to believe in God have clouded my judgment and heart.

[screamo]

Lol, that's such a bullshit thing to believe. "Oh, I realise that science sounds a little more logical than religion but I really still think God exists so let's just say that it was mans misinterpretations where it falls down scientifically. Hah, look, I'm completely exempt from criticism now, how convenient" - Jesus fuck, get a grip.

Your forgetting that the biggest absurdity of religion is that a God is supposed to exists. Giving God as an answer only creates a bigger question of how God came to exist.

How did the "Big Bang" come to exist? Couldn't God have said something like, oh I don't know, "Let there be light", and then there was light, and it was good?

You try to find an answer for EVERYTHING. The problem is, you can't always find an answer for everything. What you do instead is take what is man's best attempt, or closest explanation for everything, and spout it off as fact. You've never once admitted what science states so clearly: That it can be wrong. Stop telling me that my religion is wrong because man can't explain it to your satisfaction. And stop telling me that scientific theories are also facts.

Once you admit to yourself that it can be wrong, and that the people you look up to (great minds, scientists, Darwin, etc.) can be wrong, you'll lose power over the world you're in. I think that's what you're so afraid of. You have what you think is such a clear grasp on reality and the reasons why the world is the way it is. I wonder what you would do if anything you believed in was proven wrong and your arguments were shook to their very core and foundation.

You arrogantly state that religion is wrong because it doesn't make sense to you, yet you deny the scientific facts that back up religion. Are you aware that The Bible is the most historically backed textual document known to man? It has over 10x the sources that Homer's Iliad has, yet Homer's Iliad is taught in schools as the actual works of Homer himself.

[Kolar]

How did the "Big Bang" come to exist? Couldn't God have said something like, oh I don't know, "Let there be light", and then there was light, and it was good?

You try to find an answer for EVERYTHING. The problem is, you can't always find an answer for everything. What you do instead is take what is man's best attempt, or closest explanation for everything, and spout it off as fact. You've never once admitted what science states so clearly: That it can be wrong. Stop telling me that my religion is wrong because man can't explain it to your satisfaction. And stop telling me that scientific theories are also facts.

Yes science can be wrong, nothing is ever set in stone within the scientific community, and I don't approve of Metals ways on this forum. But I don't think you understand what a fact really is or what a scientific theory is.

Homer's Iliad and The Odyssey are used as literary materials and are not taken literally in modern times nor is the mythology compatible with modern organized religion. The Trojan war is thought to either be an extreme exaggeration of a small conflict between two towns or it never happened. No one in antiquity studies or archeology would cite it (much less the bible) as a source in their respected fields.

[Blueblaze]

Neither science nor religion can give you a factual answer to origins. Evolution may provide you a theory on how we have progressed from one period to another, but it cannot tell you how nothing became something, when time started, etc...

Everything that deals with origins -must- be taken by faith. You must either take faith in a deity [Allah, Hindu, Jesus, etc..] starting this universe or take faith in a non-living being. [Big Bang or other similar theories] Either way, you're dealing with faith, since none of us were there to see the origin, and the only being that possibly recorded it, would be a being which his existence can be denied. It all boils down to what you want to place your faith in. Whether you choose to believe in a deity or non-living origin, ultimately, it will take faith, and you ultimately will be responsible for where you place that faith.

Regarding the preservation of the Bible, as Heavensent stated, the Dead Sea scrolls, which I've seen personally, verify the [supernatural] preservation of the Old Testament and other lesser known documents will verify the New Testament, though not as aged for obvious reasons. The preservation of the Bible isn't hottly disputed anymore because of the Dead Sea scrolls, but of course you can always dispute how accurate it originally was written, so that's up to you.

[Zizu]

This thread is so fucking useless, You don't have to prove that ur beliefs are correct or not. Who cares, just believe what you want and let others do the same.

[Kolar]

The key difference Blueblaze is that between a deity and natural phenomenon in our universe we are understanding how it worked by studying background radiation and other pieces of evidence. And with some really complex math we're able to go beyond the singularity even before the big bang happened. Science can not give acknowledgment to any deity because supernatural phenomenon is not recognized to exist or occur in our natural world, by its very definition it can not be quantifiable or falsifiable. The only way that can conflict with your world view is if you misinterpret the goal of science which is to further knowledge. While most people who are not indoctrinated into a religion reject the existence of any deity(s) or supernatural occurrences I believe you're over simplifying their belief system by implying it is (or can only be) built on what is known about our universe today, right now.

The ordering of the universe is not a concern of mine, even though life is a rare occurrence in our universe I do not consider myself special or my species and because we understand only a fraction of the nature of the universe and our existence so to the individual it also shouldn't matter. If the bible gives you some sense of moral obligation to your immediate surroundings and society as a whole then it's done it's job. It however is not necessary to create moral or right minded humans.

Edit: Evolution also does not deal with cosmology or the origin of the universe, that would be the Standard Cosmological Model. Evolution is a theory within biology.

[T3l Ca7]

To say Bible holds the truth is like to say those are dogs ...

[Mythrandir]

I may be a bit forceful here, but I'm not out on a personal attack, I would value an honest (and equally forceful) response. I'm using analogies which can be invalid. If so, please point out why.

Neither science nor religion can give you a factual answer to origins. Evolution may provide you a theory on how we have progressed from one period to another, but it cannot tell you how nothing became something, when time started, etc...

Neither can the theory of gravity explain why the sky is blue. Evolution is about the origin of species... Gravity is about why things fall down. Evolution is not a philosophical position on existence. Gravity is not a philosophical position on existence. Find anyone who claims that evolution is the answer to the Ultimate Question, then I'm convinced you're not attacking a straw man.

Everything that deals with origins -must- be taken by faith. You must either take faith in a deity [Allah, Hindu, Jesus, etc..] starting this universe or take faith in a non-living being. [Big Bang or other similar theories]

Both perspectives on the origins aren't actually about the origins. The Big Bang presupposes a singularity point. Creationism presupposes God. Neither explains why something came from nothing. One need not to have faith in the big bang, since there is good evidence that the presupposition of the big bang is valid. Is it equally valid to suppose that God is holding us by our feet so that we don't fall off the earth?

Either way, you're dealing with faith, since none of us were there to see the origin, and the only being that possibly recorded it, would be a being which his existence can be denied.

(emphasis mine). Why? Obviously, any claim can be denied. But I can imagine a universe in which the existence of such a being would be more obvious than it is now.

[supernatural]

Minor semantic pet peeve of mine. If the supernatural exists, it can't be supernatural since it acts on the natural world - making itself natural by definition.