The Authencity of the Bible.

[Byblos]

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion- Steven Weinberg

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Without God morality is moot. Much as darkness is the absence of light, so is evil the absence of God.- your antithesis

[Cross.eyed]

OK, lets try a different tact. Do you believe that the bible is all true? If so, there's much to answer for in the OT (murder, slaves, incest, yadda yadda). If not, then doesn't that cast a huge shadow of doubt on the authenticity of Jesus/god?

Yes and no (respectively).

So yes you think every word in the bible is true. Why would anyone want to follow a god like that portrayed in the OT? There are ghastly stories of your god doing horrible things. It sounds to me more like the people of that day, superstitious, oppressive to women, condoning slavery, etc. created a god that was just like them. Why for instance would a god so powerful that he could create the whole of the universe, all the way down to nuclear physics, give a rat's patooty about a burnt offering being given to him by a sinner on this infintesmal speck of cosmic dust? I believe that its because the people who made up god thought the earth was the center of the universe and there was nothing more out there. No evidence to support this from me here, just makes a heck of a lot more sense to me than what I just mentioned above. I just can't fathom that the creator of this grand and complex universe would bother to leave us the bible. For someone like him it is a piece of trash in my opinion. Why wouldn't a rational being like god at least leave us with a document that was consistent and clear knowing full well that it would be in use for at least this long? Take for instance condoning slavery. I understand that for the people of that day it was a very relevant question, but why is it in there. Surely god knew it was an offensive practice and that by putting it in writing for all to follow it was in practice way longer than it should have been. He must have known his work would be used to justify slavery and that real human beings would suffer as a result of his teaching. I can't reconcile why a being like god would do something that stupid. All he had to do was zap one of the loyal followers to write 'thou shalt not enslave your fellow man" or something similar. There, done, enough said, slavery gone, thousands relieved of suffering they didn't deserve. I'm not suggesting that he needed to spell everything out, but I think my 13 YO daughter could write a better book of instruction that was clear and concise and humane. Seems to me to be no biggie for a being like god.

Shulgin

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion- Steven Weinberg

....Sooo, you don't like The GOD that we worship? Then perhaps you would outline for us your ideal god??

[Zebulon]

Canuckster,
Many people have died for things they believe in, but it doesn't make the cause right or the deity real. Just becasue the apostles didn't recant doesn't mean anything except they believed deeply in a god.

Shulgin

Perhaps you remember the story of the Emperors New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson?

The tale relates how the King had employed an expensive and gifted tailor for the task of making his new outfit. The Kings ego was enormous and he paid the tailor a vast amount of gold to make him a suit that would be the most splendid in all the land yet when the clothes were finished the King was positive that he actually had none on! The cunning tailor assured King that the clothes were in fact, woven from enchanted thread that could only be seen by those possessed of great intelligence, but to the very stupid, he said, the fabric would be invisible.

All the members of his court at once assured the King that the fabrics he had donned were the finest ever and his new clothes were absolutely superb and magnificent, indeed the most splendid and dazzling they had ever seen. So then the King turned to them and said he was very pleased they were not all stupid and, not wishing to himself appear stupid to the members of his court, he walked about the kingdom naked and had a parade to show the town his new attire.

The entire town cheered and praised the Emperors new clothes and all discussed the splendor of the magnificent garments and the quality of the stitching among them selves until one young peasant boy who knew nothing of ego dared to ask: Why is the king naked?

And it was true. The king was in fact no more than a naked fool surrounded by bigger fools who had all been controlled by their own egos.


Zebulon

[FFC]

Canuckster,
Many people have died for things they believe in, but it doesn't make the cause right or the deity real. Just becasue the apostles didn't recant doesn't mean anything except they believed deeply in a god.

Shulgin

Perhaps you remember the story of the Emperors New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson?

The tale relates how the King had employed an expensive and gifted tailor for the task of making his new outfit. The Kings ego was enormous and he paid the tailor a vast amount of gold to make him a suit that would be the most splendid in all the land yet when the clothes were finished the King was positive that he actually had none on! The cunning tailor assured King that the clothes were in fact, woven from enchanted thread that could only be seen by those possessed of great intelligence, but to the very stupid, he said, the fabric would be invisible.

All the members of his court at once assured the King that the fabrics he had donned were the finest ever and his new clothes were absolutely superb and magnificent, indeed the most splendid and dazzling they had ever seen. So then the King turned to them and said he was very pleased they were not all stupid and, not wishing to himself appear stupid to the members of his court, he walked about the kingdom naked and had a parade to show the town his new attire.

The entire town cheered and praised the Emperors new clothes and all discussed the splendor of the magnificent garments and the quality of the stitching among them selves until one young peasant boy who knew nothing of ego dared to ask: Why is the king naked?

And it was true. The king was in fact no more than a naked fool surrounded by bigger fools who had all been controlled by their own egos.


Zebulon

[cslewislover]

Kureio said he banned Shulgin yesterday (or the day before?), so our responses probably don't even matter

[Zebulon]

Kureio said he banned Shulgin yesterday (or the day before?), so our responses probably don't even matter

This is why I posted The Emperor New Clothes.

Zebulon

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

Like FFC, I don't understand the relevance of the Emperor's New Clothes story to this discussion.

FL