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Journal btlzu2's Journal: Polling for Jesus 63

Journal by btlzu2

I'd like to preface this as being a data mining task for my curiosity. Unless you'd explicitly state that you'd like me to, I will not respond, argue, puke, debate, or shun your views in this JE when you post. This is a btlzu2 promise. I'm even allowing ACs in this JE....

Ok, I've been pondering my ex-religion again lately and all the things I couldn't accept (like God being perfect, creating a perfect world, but then we had free will, then WE screwed up by eating a damn apple/fruit, but God was perfect and we were perfect, but not really, but God *is* perfect and he never saw it coming that we wouldn't act perfectly even though we were perfect because he was perfect. That makes us crap. AMONG other things....) ;)

Then I thought, why is it that current Christians cannot see how utterly confusing and self-contradictory the Bible is? I know *I* didn't because I was effectively brainwashed to believe and not question (same old story). However, I realize that a lot of Christians are a) smart b) independent thinkers c) don't act like intolerant assholes as a large majority of Christians do.

So, then me gets to thinking. If you had a text book and every chapter was confusing and numerous contradictions or blatant fallacies were present, would you trust that book at all? I'm hoping the answer is "no". Seems straightforward, no?

Then, why all the effort at suspending disbelief when it comes to the Bible--a book that is supposed to be a guideline for your faith--how can you pick and choose what to believe and what not to believe? Even the foundation for salvation is confusing. Jesus says in one area, the path to salvation is following the commandments. In numerous other areas it is "believe and be baptized".

The poll in two parts:
1) If you had a text book and every chapter was confusing and numerous contradictions or blatant fallacies were present, would you trust that book at all?

2) How can one form a foundation of faith on a "confusing/misleading/self-contradictory" book such as the Bible?
a) never think about the contradictory stuff, I get out of it what is important to me
b) there ISN'T contradictory stuff, you're just an evil heathen
c) I've solved all the inconsistencies
d) the bible is perfect
e) it's just a rough outline of faith (let me say, I have a very hard time with this choice, but I've heard it said)
f) other -- explain at will

Thanks for any opinions and views. Again, I will not engage in argument--hopefully others will respect this.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Polling for Jesus More

Polling for Jesus

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  • Bring it on, un-Christian boy!
  • ... where most Christians get it right is they take their mythology literally. Most practitioners of most other religions don't make that mistake.

    Why so many followers of religions, and Christians in particular, cannot understand the proper role of mythology, and that it's not supposed to be taken literally is something I cannot fathom.

    A holy man once pointed out that, in every religion, they give stories to the dimwits, and teach the concepts behind the stories to the more advanced practitioners.
  • The bible was written over a looong period of time (especially between the old testament and new), where each book was written by someone completely different. They were influenced by religion to write it, but didn't have any chance to get together to make sure everything worked well together.

    This is why the Bible is messed up with contradictions and such.

    But after reading the Bible, you can come across some main points:
    Love one another
    God forgives if you ask him
    The foundation of laws
    etc...

    So, to
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • How DARE you insult my beliefs! I could see some pinko liberal doing it, but you sam?!?!?!


        Naw, I'm just playin witcha StB... its allll good :)
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • 1.) sam, if he emails you, i don't get to hear how he's doing. Hey, FK, how ya doing over there?

            2.) Smoochy:

            first, the bible WAS written over an extensive period of time. It is NOT a textbook.

            It's a cultural anthology, large parts of which come from jewish cultural history, and other parts of which come thousands of years later.

            It is not a 'guideline'.

            It is over a hundred 'guidelines,' to different sects and groups, crammed into one book. Badly. With sections deleted over the years between, sections transla
  • http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5259900- 9 9939,00.html [guardian.co.uk]

    Comment:

    Unholy strictures

    It is wrong - and dangerous - to believe literal truth can be found in religious texts

    Karen Armstrong
    Thursday August 11, 2005

    Guardian

    Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light

    • Thanks for the article. I would say that article was thought provoking; however, I had a fundamental problem with it. It appears to blame "modern culture" or "Internet culture" for it's lack of "true understanding" of the Bible. For me, it has NOTHING to do with that and more to do with growth as a species. We're starting to question what has been passed down as fact.

      I had doubts regarding Christianity since I was 5--but was always shut down in my questions. it really has very little to do with the int
  • scare me to death.

    It's a guide.

    Why is this so hard for people to understand? Especially atheits and non-believers.

  • To answer your questions here:

    1) Confusing, contradictory, and full of fallacies? That sounds like my psychology text book in school, but I still had to use it. :) But, I don't see the Bible in that way. Hey, that's just me.

    2) F) only because how I look at the Bible is a basis of many many things. To keep it short, here is how I look at it. The Old Testament is historical documents and Jewish law, which until Christ, was the way to salvation. Do these "X" things, you are saved. Now, reading through the
  • First off - I am decidedly agnostic. I have been (through parental training and/or choice) Lutheran, Krishna and Roman Catholic prior to settling on agnostic. I'd be very interested to see if TechnoLust chimes in, as he is known to study the text as well. Second, this mostly agrees with what FortKnox and partly what HokieSeas had to say, but also hopefully expands on it.

    1) If you had a text book and every chapter was confusing and numerous contradictions or blatant fallacies were present, would you trus

    • Well, here's what I'm thinking about using the Bible as a basis for faith. Since you're decidedly agnostic, I figure I'm not picking a fight with you nor will I offend you. :)

      The very idea that something as powerful as "God" as established in the Bible goes through all the drama of "sending his Son" who is him, but not him to die for our sins is absolutely ridiculous.

      Let me see, we have an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God who wants to "save" his children. So, he goes through this whole mess of prov
      • I find it interesting how many of the basic visualizations of the 'Bible based religion', are not entirely based on the Bible at all, but instead have migrated in from other cultures and religions.

        Obviously, your 'fluffy white cloud' comment dismisses 'faith'. And the descriptions of the 'ascention' are pretty close.

        I'd be very carefull deciding amongst 'silly' basis for religions. I mean the various creation stories are extremely odd.

      • It's preposterous. Hence, the questioning of it as a basis for faith.

        But you're missing something. The bible isn't the basis for Christian faith, nor can it be. The bible is the word of God. Why? Because God says it is. Where does he say this? Why, in the bible of course. So here we have a book that claims divine inspiration, and the only evidence for that is in the book itself. It takes faith to accept that in the the first place. Thus the bible isn't the basis for faith, it's merely a codifying of a fai

        • We have a winner. You have successfully and completely brought me to understanding. I'd daresay you "win". :)

          Seriously, I had it wrong and you've clarified it for me...thanks. Your explanation makes the most sense to me.
  • My wife still is. Around the same time that I met my wife, I became a literal-truth-of-the-Bible Christian. Not sure why. Lasted about 3 years strongly, and all the way to about 3 years ago, whereupon I reverted to my previous agnostic beliefs. Much of the time, I got my understanding from the radio and television evangelists, and they naturally don't mention the inconsistencies. My wife and I agreed whole-heartedly that if there were any errors in the Bible, then it could not be the Word of God. If i
    • Thanks for sharing that and that STINKS about your wife man. :( Really poor behavior from a "Christian" if you're to believe the bits about any man sleeping with a divorced women committing adultery.

      Anyway, I've done a lot of questioning of my faith to the point of utter abandonment of it. If a Christian can't step outside and question his faith, how strong is that faith? Also, how honest is it?
    • I was engaged to a man whose family were devout Born Again Christians. We were living far away from them during our two year courtship, and he was anything but dogmatic or devout. However, once the ring was on my finger and he had left to do his fellowship back home in Canada, I was unable to reach him for five days. The next person I did speak to was his mother.

      She told me that I and any child I would have were going to Hell unless I "made my commitment to Christ." and joined her church. The next time

  • i still think if you would just put some gottdamn pineapplely goodness on your pizza... things would get a whole lot better and easier to understand.

    and yummier.
  • Josephus, an historian from the first century, described three sects of Judiaism: The Pharasees, the Saducees, and Essenes.

    The Pharasees (known as the M'Farshim in the Talmud) saw the faith as an interpretive one. They figured that an almighty god wouldn't waste the bandwidth trying to explain the obvious. Thus, everything was alegorical.

    The Essenes (known as "Sinnim" in the Talmud) were actually a cult of mystics. They believed in everyday miracles. They would wait for these miracles to happen before d
    • To me, this is the most compelling argument yet.

      And as to your faith, I must point out that I find the number of pirates vs. global temperature average chart to be quite compelling. I will be considering this faith seriously, and doing some deep soul searching.

    • Why have a religion then? What's the point? Is it not more simpler, saner, and more elegant to have morals-sans-religion?
      • Where do you think morals come from? Why do people follow them even when it's not to their personal advantage?

        Without religion, we would not have ideals for our societies to strive for. Societies of laws tell us what we should not do. Religion tells us what we should try to be.

        Charity, for example, is hard to rationalize in the context of a society of law. However, as a feature of religion, forming bonds with new people, extending helping hands where possible, it makes sense.

        Yes, you could have rational
        • Where do you think morals come from?

          Same place religion did (or, rather, much earlier than religion, as all social animals have morals whereas we are the only ones stuck with religion). We made them up. They are part of our social contract.

          Why do people follow them even when it's not to their personal advantage?

          Prisoner's dilemma [wikipedia.org]. It's always in your advantage to live morally, for a secular humanist value of "morally", because it's in your advantage for everyone to live morally. Altruism is the most
          • I think we're bumping in to a definition problem here in addition to our disagreement.

            However, I can't help but ask you a few questions: You say that trying to tie charity to religion only degrades charity. How does religion degrade the concept of charity? Assuming that we're talking about real charity here (not evangelism), is there really any difference because of why a person was motivated to do the same act?

            Most people brought up today know nothing more than the "God in sky" aspect of religion. In f
            • I think we're bumping in to a definition problem here in addition to our disagreement.

              religion - n. belief in the existence of god(s) or the supernatural, including associated conceptual baggage

              I prefer to avoid the metaphorical meaning [answers.com] because it legitimizes the literal one. Besides, there are perfectly good words for the metaphorical meaning we can use.

              ideology - n. a system of beliefs

              philosophy - n. a system of thoughts and ideas and the pursuit of elaboration of the same

              Assuming that we're ta
    • Great post.

      My only problem with Pastafarianism is the lack of ninja representation and emphasis on pirate regalia.

      It just offends me. Ninja > Pirate. It is Absolute.
  • by the US currency, you know they put in God we trust on it just to piss me off. I'm suing, and I'm only paying for things by paypal or credit card.
  • I just can't believe that stuff , I mean the Jewish and Christian god(Islamic too ) comes off as a real bastard.
    To take a few examples ... first when people don't do what he says he either..
    Floods the earth .. fire bombs your city , kills your children , Dams you for all eternity or casts you out of paradise for snacking.

    So for some odd reason , round about 0 BC God has a change of heart and decides he was being a bit nasty ... the god who is described as without flaws and perfect has said oops ... how can
  • I'm a fundie pretty much when it comes to doctrine and theology. I'm pretty liberal in regards to lifestyle - but anyways - that's not really core to anything here.

    I would have to disagree with characterizing the Bible as being full of contradictions, errors, etc. In fact most of the times I hear of such, I am amazed at the lengths people will go to ignore the normal use of language to try and generate such issues. They often clearly have a position prior to looking at the evidence, or they have
    • Thanks for expressing your views. You seem to understand (being liberal in regard to lifestyle) that people don't necessarily believe the same things, so I hope I haven't offended you. Personally, I think it takes a lot of faith to not have much doubt when it comes to the Bible. Sometimes, I do truly think I'm missing something--then logic kicks it and swamps me with all the realizations of the problems I have with the Bible.

      I studied the Bible for 18 years straight believing everything I read--on one ha
      • Thanks for your thanks. You have most certainly not offended me. I'm an evangelical - I live for conversations like this. I consider engaging others in meaningful discourse on spiritual things to be one of the primary reasons I am on this planet.

        I find it just as interesting that two humans, capable of rational thought, speaking the same language, can look at the same book and hold these different views on it. That kind of thing used to bother me. But now I expect it and respect it. (Not just
        • By choosing not to cast non-believers from your tribe/village, then you have learned to move on from the gloom and doom of the old testament, and heed the words about judgement, according to Matthew.

          Being a former religious, myself, I have little tolerance for gloom-and-doomer's that call themselves Christian (which, sadly, many self-proclaimed evangelicals are this way). I, for one, find your attitude very productive.

  • The Bible as a text, or any other thing has the meaning to which we, as readers, assign it. Joseph Smith created the World's fastest growing religion by "reading" God's word out of a hat! Without it's charismatic leader and rabid following, The Book of Mormon would have fallen into obscurity as did many other religious texts of the time.

    Human curiosity created the need for our Bible. In many ways it is a living document, which has evolved over the centuries to keep up with newer versions of human curiosty

    • Oooh, that was a good essay you wrote. I was exactly there recently. However, I sense my views changing as I delve into evolution and Darwinism, which, sadly, I was never taught in school.

      May I recommend a book? The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins. This book may explain, specifically, your concerns about the eye--and a whole lot more. I'm reading it the second time now to absorb it. It fairly conclusively and convincingly rules out divine intervention for the development of the eye and an understanding of

  • Textbooks and faith (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ra5pu7in ( 603513 ) <ra5pu7in AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @05:46AM (#13387602) Journal
    1) If you had a text book and every chapter was confusing and numerous contradictions or blatant fallacies were present, would you trust that book at all?

    You're starting off with a rather glaring assumption - that the book you are referring to was intended to be crystal clear, precise and accurate. You are referring to the Bible - a book accepted by most Christians (and, at least in part, by most Jews) as being the written word of their god. It is not really a single cohesive book; rather, it is a compilation of various writings over a long period of time. Some are histories, some are books of law, some are songs or poems, some are prophecy, and some are letters from church representatives to various congregations. Even if a perfect and omnipotent god guided its creation, imperfect human hands did the writing and fallible human minds chose which books to include and how to translate from one language to the another.

    That said, I don't trust any book fully - not even textbooks. For example, quite a few facts in my high school chemistry textbook were already proven to be wrong by the time I studied them and that's a pretty solid science. Calculus textbooks can be incredibly confusing unless you have studied prior mathematical theory. History and social studies textbooks are notorious for blatant falsehoods and omissions. However, there are valid facts in every one of these books worth learning - kernels of truth, you could say. So, while I don't trust any books, I also don't find it necessary to reject everything. Instead, I read for those things that ring true to me or that I can test and verify for myself. The rest I store for some later time when the validity can be determined.

    The level of confusion, contradiction and fallacy depends a great deal on our perspective. Much of the Hebrew scriptures make a lot more sense if we understand the peoples of those times, the general culture, the other gods and religions that existed, and so on. Many of the contradictions are based on narrowly picked verses with little context or varied interpretations of translated words. From the perspective of a devout Christian, these are the fault of the human hand not the book or the god. From the perspective of a non-Christian, these may be fatal flaws that are proof positive the book is just a book or even that no such god exists. Even if we reject the authority or validity of the Bible, that does not remove the perceived authority or validity it has to others - nor does it eliminate the fact that hundreds of millions of people worship their god based on varied interpretations of its words.

    2) How can one form a foundation of faith on a "confusing/misleading/self-contradictory" book such as the Bible?

    From what I have seen in general, faith in the existence of a god develops throughout childhood, often dependent on the faith of parents and other adults. The Bible is more like an encyclopedia - providing a reference of what that god is like, the history of his believers (and unbelievers), what he expects of his followers, and what the higher purpose is that human should strive for. Trust in what the Bible says is rooted in an existing faith in its god. With faith in this god, the Bible provides building blocks to place on the existing foundation of faith. Without that existing foundation, the Bible can be used to build faith, but it is a faith that struggles to survive each confusion or difficulty.

    Some people do get caught in an illogical trap. Since they believe that God exists and that He wrote the Bible, they can point out that the Bible says God exists as proof that Bible is right and, therefore, God exists. However, by that same logic, if God does not exist, then He did not write the Bible and the Bible in claiming to be written by him is wrong and, therefore, God does not exist.
  • 1 - no, but the bible is not a textbook, just as others have pointed out. if you took a few thousand years of texts on any subject and compiled them together, it would probably be useful to have the reference all there in one place, but there would undoubtedly be contradictions, inconsistencies, and confusion. you don't have to go past the second chapter of genesis to see this. it starts talking about God creating man out of the dust of the earth. but in the first chapter, God already created everything
    • I like what you say about the attempts of those who question things to take the faith further. That is a good thing IMO. I probably have a problem that there is not much lucidity to these approaches as there is in science. There probably can't be either. It seems more to me that as physical reality is understood as the ages go by that Christianity backs off on things--that always seems to be the position of religion and biblical interpreters.

      and not to be an ass, but aren't you being a little smug and s
      • i was never angry about this. i was just pointing out that you were speaking in absolutes about something you have no way of proving or disproving, and how your feeling of being correct made you feel superior to those who hadn't figured it out yet. if you turn it around it's basically how some religious folk think about "the unsaved" or whatever they call the non-believers. understand that as hard as it is for you to understand that those people cling to their (in your view) "delusions," it is equally di
      • I add another point here (even after your apology, still not sure why you apologized, maybe I haven't read enough repsonses yet)... Starting with your paragraph 6:

        That whole 'creation of life' thing, from a purely scientific perspective is still in the hands of systems we have not come close to mastering. A cloning is the manipulation of portions of life, to artifically mate parts of three beings to make a copy of the first being. Hardly a "man create's life" story.

        The whole 'know the facts' thing, has

  • Sorry for the posting delay. Started last afternoon, and didn't get back to it until this afternoon...

    I dont' have a specific faith, but I do have some views on the Bible that I'll try to breifly share.

    The Old Testament is Jewish history and law. Leviticus is interesting, because it's not really religious as we think of religion, today. It was political. They had established a government and, like any government, they needed funding. This came mostly in the form of food; better known as sacrifices. Do somet
  • 1: What subject?

    2: F.

    I have yet to see ANYONE point out a single solid contradiction in the bible. At best, they're temporal arguments or mistranslations.

    As to the larger question--God's "perfection" does not mean he is incapable of error. The flood story should be enough to prove that. And while an unfortunate majority of Christians do subscribe to the idea that we were without sin once, many Christians and a good number of Muslims or Jews suspect that God wanted us to fall, just like a mother wants the
    • I already know we will end up in a stalemate (or you thinking you've defeated my views). :) If you can't state that there are glaring contradictions in the bible, you have found workaround answers for everything already and there's no point. To me, there are many many many. I've read how people explain them away, but, IMO, it's a stretch at best and complete denial of reality at worst. I can't help how I feel about it. I'm not trying to berate you.

      So, I had documented numerous contradictions as I read
      • Interesting.

        Excluding the aforementioned supernatural topics -- i.e, the creation of man and the nature of God -- the list has a bunch of inconsistencies / contradictions between the four gospels, a few scientific errors that can be folded under "social mores" (i.e., the rabbit and the bat) -- there are a good half-dozen or so clear contradictions.

        Cool. Now I've got a reference for the next time someone tries to tell me there are no mistakes in the bible. Thanks!

        (And, for the record, I'm not offended at a

  • Answers (Score:2)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) *
    The bible was written and translated by people; many different biased people. Not to mention the "updates" (King James anyone?) made by biased people. That said, I believe there are some basic truths and guidelines that are good to follow (Love thy neighbor, but not his wife so much). I feel every person has to find their own path (preferebly one that leaves everyone else alone to find their own path). So perhaps I fall under e) it's just a rough outline of faith :-) (You can say why this bugs you if you wa

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