BadBadBad

I can speculate anything I want and so can you, and so can the christians. That's what fantasy land is all about!

long winded fool

But the point is that it's not contradictory to the Bible. It contradicts what is said but not what is clearly meant. The Bible is not meant to be taken literally and never was. This very idea is repeated throughout. "You have eyes but don't see." Jesus explains in John that those who refuse to take in what he's saying are willfully choosing rejection. Wanting the soul of a loved one to go to heaven for his or her sake is a good thing. Wanting a loved one to go to heaven for your own sake is not. If the reason a Christian wants his loved one to go to heaven is to prevent his own sadness, he is worshipping his own desires. He thinks he loves the person, but the only love he's giving is to himself and his insecurities. To really love someone is to desire good things for their sake, not yours. If they freely choose to reject the path you're following and therefore you, the sadness you experience comes from selfish desires, not from love of the person. True love lets the loved follow their path with nothing but good wishes.

My interpretation of Heaven and Hell is biblically based, as opposed to tradition based. The context of the Gospels makes clear that the physical is temporal. Worrying about your physical life is pointless, since any human can easily take it away. If you cling to life on your terms, you'll lose it but if you let life go, you'll get life on God's terms. If Hell is mere physical torment, then we have that right now on Earth. The Bible is traditionally interpreted quite literally, yet throughout the Gospels, Jesus constantly rebukes the leaders and spokespersons of the accepted religion of the day for obeying the letter of the law while totally missing the spirit. "You can't see the forest for the trees." Parables are just that. They are analogous, or indirectly descriptive, they are not directly descriptive. Taking a parable at face value is like reading a poem for sentence structure. Finding a flaw in the literal interpretation of a poem such as "the night wind weeps a black tapestry of shivering leaves" (wind can't weep etc...) and then declaring the poem incorrect and not worth contemplating is completely asinine. The analogy of Hell as a lake of fire is meant to symbolize the absence of divine love. When you abandon love, you voluntarily throw away 'eternal bliss' for 'eternal torment.' Not because God hates people who don't love and punishes them by burning them for ever and ever, but because love and the pursuit of Truth lead to life and happiness (good) and greed and the pursuit of instinct lead to unhappiness and death (evil.) If we have the option for good, this means we have the ability to reject it. We are not forced to love, we're free to love. If we decide not to, God will not stop us. (i.e. he won't make us go to Heaven.) He will allow us to not love Him. Compared to loving Him, this is eternal torment, but to fear Hell because of physical pain is not truly Biblical to any who understand the meaning and context of the Gospels. Because many christians believe it doesn't mean the Bible actually says it when taken into context. Remember, finding out what a poem says is not equivalent to finding out what the author means.

Darth Dane

But the point is that it's not contradictory to the Bible. It contradicts what is said but not what is clearly meant. The Bible is not meant to be taken literally and never was. This very idea is repeated throughout. "You have eyes but don't see." Jesus explains in John that those who refuse to take in what he's saying are willfully choosing rejection. Wanting the soul of a loved one to go to heaven for his or her sake is a good thing. Wanting a loved one to go to heaven for your own sake is not. If the reason a Christian wants his loved one to go to heaven is to prevent his own sadness, he is worshipping his own desires. He thinks he loves the person, but the only love he's giving is to himself and his insecurities. To really love someone is to desire good things for their sake, not yours. If they freely choose to reject the path you're following and therefore you, the sadness you experience comes from selfish desires, not from love of the person. True love lets the loved follow their path with nothing but good wishes.

I.e. We shouldn't worry about others, and their "salvation", but of course always be willing to help others if they so ask.

Hmmm, interesting.

My interpretation of Heaven and Hell is biblically based, as opposed to tradition based. The context of the Gospels makes clear that the physical is temporal. Worrying about your physical life is pointless, since any human can easily take it away. If you cling to life on your terms, you'll lose it but if you let life go, you'll get life on God's terms. If Hell is mere physical torment, then we have that right now on Earth. The Bible is traditionally interpreted quite literally, yet throughout the Gospels, Jesus constantly rebukes the leaders and spokespersons of the accepted religion of the day for obeying the letter of the law while totally missing the spirit. "You can't see the forest for the trees." Parables are just that. They are analogous, or indirectly descriptive, they are not directly descriptive. Taking a parable at face value is like reading a poem for sentence structure. Finding a flaw in the literal interpretation of a poem such as "the night wind weeps a black tapestry of shivering leaves" (wind can't weep etc...) and then declaring the poem incorrect and not worth contemplating is completely asinine. The analogy of Hell as a lake of fire is meant to symbolize the absence of divine love. When you abandon love, you voluntarily throw away 'eternal bliss' for 'eternal torment.' Not because God hates people who don't love and punishes them by burning them for ever and ever, but because love and the pursuit of Truth lead to life and happiness (good) and greed and the pursuit of instinct lead to unhappiness and death (evil.) If we have the option for good, this means we have the ability to reject it. We are not forced to love, we're free to love. If we decide not to, God will not stop us. (i.e. he won't make us go to Heaven.) He will allow us to not love Him. Compared to loving Him, this is eternal torment, but to fear Hell because of physical pain is not truly Biblical to any who understand the meaning and context of the Gospels. Because many christians believe it doesn't mean the Bible actually says it when taken into context. Remember, finding out what a poem says is not equivalent to finding out what the author means.

How poetic said that last part.

Do you believe "Hell" is eternal, or that we get a second chance and a third and so on?

Do we get re-incarnated to try again?

Would your God "turn God's cheek" and forgive us, and let us try again?





DD - Love Spliff

BadBadBad

What the Bible clearly meant? Like I said. This is pure speculation. There's nothing clear about what is written the Bible with respect to heaven, hell, salvation, morality, etc, etc. You can form your own opions along with other like minded people, but it's foolish of you to delcare that your opinion is "what is clearly meant." Especially when you just babble on without making any reference at all to what the Bible actually says. This in the face of being confronted by other christians with contradictory statements from the Bible.

This is the second time this week I've been exposed to Christians arguing amongst themselves about the "clear meaning" of what the Bible says. I read a debate between emotional protestants and rational Calvanists about predestination vs free will. The Calvinists at least substantially backed up their claims based upon the Bible. The Protestants babbled on like you have just ignoring or dismissing the references provided by the Calvanists. What they both missed is that the combined doctrine, with all verses included, is hopelessly foolish and contradictory. The rational conclusion that it's all just the bunk of a determined sales effort.

BioBeing

So what parts are not literal? "In the beginning, God created..." obviously not literal! How could there be a God to create anything? OK, so God is just allegory, what next?

I do not how being sad for another is selfish. Its called empathy. Feeling the emotions of others. When my 4 year old son (he has free will, and may use it, for example, to jump up and down on the bed or run around in the yard) gets a boo-boo, I feel for him, although I do not have a bruise too. Is it selfish of me to want him to not hurt? I don't want him to stop crying because his wails are annoying me - I want him to stop crying (and feel better) because I do not want to see him in pain.

Doesn't it say in the Bible that God wants us to chose him. So, if we don't, he must surely be dissapointed. Is God then being selfish?

Quote:

My interpretation of Heaven and Hell is biblically based, as opposed to tradition based. The context of the Gospels makes clear that the physical is temporal. Worrying about your physical life is pointless, since any human can easily take it away. If you cling to life on your terms, you'll lose it but if you let life go, you'll get life on God's terms. If Hell is mere physical torment, then we have that right now on Earth. The Bible is traditionally interpreted quite literally, yet throughout the Gospels, Jesus constantly rebukes the leaders and spokespersons of the accepted religion of the day for obeying the letter of the law while totally missing the spirit. "You can't see the forest for the trees." Parables are just that. They are analogous, or indirectly descriptive, they are not directly descriptive. Taking a parable at face value is like reading a poem for sentence structure. Finding a flaw in the literal interpretation of a poem such as "the night wind weeps a black tapestry of shivering leaves" (wind can't weep etc...) and then declaring the poem incorrect and not worth contemplating is completely asinine. The analogy of Hell as a lake of fire is meant to symbolize the absence of divine love. When you abandon love, you voluntarily throw away 'eternal bliss' for 'eternal torment.' Not because God hates people who don't love and punishes them by burning them for ever and ever, but because love and the pursuit of Truth lead to life and happiness (good) and greed and the pursuit of instinct lead to unhappiness and death (evil.) If we have the option for good, this means we have the ability to reject it. We are not forced to love, we're free to love. If we decide not to, God will not stop us. (i.e. he won't make us go to Heaven.) He will allow us to not love Him. Compared to loving Him, this is eternal torment, but to fear Hell because of physical pain is not truly Biblical to any who understand the meaning and context of the Gospels. Because many christians believe it doesn't mean the Bible actually says it when taken into context. Remember, finding out what a poem says is not equivalent to finding out what the author means.

Humans seem to have a remarkable capacity for taking something vague like a horoscope, or a poem, or the bible, and making it into something meaningful. Not that I don't appreciate poetry, but I always know that MY interpretation may not be the one the author had intended. Often, the intent seems to be to give many different impressions. Horoscopes are intentionally vague, or nobody would read them. The bible - I place it somewhere in between. Some poetry, some made up stuff, lots of vagueness to be interpreted at least 34,000 different ways. How ones gets from their to the Truth(TM), I'll never know

long winded fool

I can back up my claims with the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, among others. I know that the outdated language can be chewy, but I recommend a more modern translation such as 'The Message' by Eugene H. Peterson. The idea that the meaning of the Bible is "mysterious" and nebulous is a common misconception. It is nebulous only to those who refuse to think critically. The Bible clearly addresses very many things. More clearly than otherwise needed in many cases. Using logic and rational comparison, one can easily deduce the relationships of difficult and less clear subjects with the clear ones. This is merely the scientific method and using ockham's razor. "If God is this this and this, then it follows logically this this and this. Why does this part say this if this? Ah, it is clearly allegorical for this because this appears elsewhere as allegorical for this. If this means this, then this must logically be interpreted to mean this and it makes sense." To make the claim that the combined doctrine is contradictory while ignoring the most rational interpretation is by definition irrational. The Bible is not subject to individual interpretation. It says one thing. I may be wrong in my interpretation of what it says, but until someone can rationally show where my error is, I can only go with what the Bible seems to clearly state. Two contradictory things can't both be right, therefore either one thing is wrong, or the judgment of contradiction is wrong. So far, the judgment of contradiction has been clearly wrong in all cases I've encountered. You can appeal to "my own personal interpretation," but if your interpretation is not based on rational and objective dissection of the text in context, then your interpretation is wrong.

I am stunned by the lack of understanding of what the Bible objectively says by atheists nowadays. All they seem to have is the ludicrous dogma spewed to them by other atheists. There is almost never any actual reasoning to back up their claims anymore. "A determined sales effort." Do you have any idea what you are claiming? Have you ever actually read the Bible? Do you even understand what it is and why it was written? You are living in a world of voluntary ignorance and fear if you honestly think that the Bible is some kind of sales effort or propaganda machine. Try doing what you admonish fundie theists to do. Try reading it objectively for what it clearly says. You are right: If the fundies did this, they'd realize just how ridiculous their beliefs are. But you fail to see that if you did this, your own beliefs would be revealed to be equally foolish and rooted equally in fear and insecurity. Because someone else assures you they did this so you don't have to, even if the other person claims to be theist, should not be enough authority for you if you are honest. Someone did the same thing to them. You think you know what the Bible says, because someone else who thought they knew what the Bible says told you and it made sense. And someone else told him, etc. If you totally forget what you think you know, pick up a contemporary language translation and just read as an honest, objective student, you would find that you would have no more need for such irrational fear of a book. You would abandon all your frightened and indignant claims of propaganda and deceit. You'd no longer feel such vindication at ridiculously simple claims of biblical contradiction. You'd see the Bible for what it objectively is and have no reason to fear if it is right or if it is wrong. I don't claim that the Bible can't be wrong. I claim that the claims of its error that I've encountered stem solely from ignorance of what it says, because I've read it and understood what it is getting across. You don't understand it, so you reject it instead of understanding it. A common quality in humans, of course, but certainly not a quality of any rational value. To be rational is to understand, not to fear and hide. You can understand if you decide to, or you can fear an inability to understand and the judgment of others that might come with it and mask it with categorical rejection and backslapping with others who do the same. Quite a historical precedent for the latter, wouldn't you agree? Taking the easy way out will put you on good terms with others of like mind, but it will not provide you with any rational grounds for your beliefs. It's fascinating how this kind of discussion applies equally well to most theists as it does to most atheists, and equally well to most presentations of any information as it does to the Bible. Use your brain, not your instincts, and you'll understand how things work a whole lot better.

BioBeing

Why should one need a quide to read the bible? Especially a modern translation of the bible?

Funny how everybody like to be the one claiming critical thinking as on their side

Yes – things that may have been important to desert dwelling sheep herders

You gotta love it when Xian start using the scientific method…

So show, using the scientific method that this assumption is valid. Note – you are then one who brought it up. If this assumption cannot be backed up, then nothing that follows from it can be either.

Why does it have to be so convoluted??? Surely God, in his magnificence, could have made a book that everyone could understand!

So can you provide a clear account of Genesis from the bible? There are two stories that do not match, IIRC. Or is the whole genesis purely allegorical? How do you know? How do you know that someone who holds the opposite view is incorrect? They will no doubt claim “rational and objective dissection of the text in context” also. How come there are 1,200 different Christian demoninations in the US (my favorite statistic for the day). Can they all be right, while having different interpretations of the bible?

The same could be said, it would appear of many christians. (PS – should all atheists read the bible? How about the torah, koran, Greek myths etc etc? How much time have you spent really trying to understand another religion?)

All many Xians have is a sales pitch given to them by their preacher.

Oh, and many atheists here will tell you they were once Xians, so all they have is the “ludicrous dogma” spewed at them by their preacher… THEN they started to think.

Do you? A book written by a group of dessert dwellers about 2000 years ago…

So what is it if it isn’t a propaganda book for Christianity And what are we living in ignorance and fear of?

OK – no time to keep going point by point, but this is beginning to sound very much like “If you knew how to read it…”. Well, I’ll repeat – why didn’t god make it clear in the first place? If it is such an important book, and not just the thoughts of a group of 2000 year old dessert dwellers trying to make some sense of their world, why not a book that doesn’t require so much mental gymnastics to understand?

Right back at you

[Editted for format.]

BadBadBad

But you haven't. Even if you do, I probably won't agree with you and neither will other christians, because it won't be proof. It will be your opinion and opinions are not even a dime a dozen when it comes to the Bible. Plus the Bible doesn't offer any authority to support the supernatural claims of God or Heaven. It's just the words of ignorant men written on paper with a checkered past not hardly living up to any standards required to prove God. You believe because your parents and your culture believe, and that's all there is to it. The Bible proves nothing.

Your use of logic an rationality is a little mixed up in my opinion.

Scientific method? What part of your beliefs are really based upon scientific methods? Define your theories on God, and prove they are true using scientific methods.

The most rational interpretation? Here we go again!

You're kidding right?

You forgot that both things can be wrong. Plus, you forgot that both things are the inspired word of a perfect God, and therefore neither can be wrong.

Nowadays? Much of what is written in the Bible concerns non-believers.

You can't be serious. It is exactly that. The NT characters were selling christianity just like you sell a used car. What we mainly disagree over is whether they were selling something fictitious or not.

Wow, you sure have taken the liberty to assume a lot about me and every other atheist I've ever met, and I have to inform you that you've missed the boat quite a bit. As my adult mind developed I questioned religion on my own. At nine years old, I confronted christian beliefs thrown at me from my family. By 12 I dumped it altogether. I fear nothing, and I draw my own conclusions. Challenged by people like you, I've read a lot but not all of the Bible, it's hardly worth my time. Starting with page one, what I see is a joke, and the farther I read, the bigger the joke gets to be. Enciting atheists to actually read the Bible is probably the worst thing you could do to convince them.

You don't actually believe what's in the Bible, you just make excuses for it and rationalize away all the obvious problems it has solely based upon your pre-supposition that it's the infallable word of God. I'm afraid that's just not very scientific, rational, or logical.

BadBadBad

No, I just read a debate between protestants and calvinists on this, and the Calvinists clearly won. The protestants at best threw out a few verses that supported their position, but didn't address the calvinist's position. At worst, they spewed out a bunch of unsubstantiated "long winded" godly blah blahs. Basically they just denied the Calvinist position, and flippantly dismissed the Bible verses that supported their position. The calvinists presented a much better and more logical case peppered with biblical support. Of course neither side reconciled all of the verses or even attempted to establish the credibility of a book with such nonsensical supernatural claims.

Allow me to re-iterate the winning philosophy: God predestines our salvation from the beginning of time. We aren't worthy of his grace which can only be given by him. We don't choose him, he chooses us.

BioBeing

Ahhhh - the old "you don't understand the bible because God doesn't want you too" routine

The calvanists may have won the debate you read, but that still makes no sense to me! I'm not a Christian because God doesn't want me to be? Tell that to the door-to-door salesmen who come peddling the bible. Tell it to the US gov't - take in "God we Trust" off our money because God doesn't trust me! Tell long winded fool that I will never be able to read the bible the way (s)he wants me to because God doesn't want me to read it that way.

Do the clavinists get a kick out of being the only ones who God chose to let them read his book properly? "Of course there are atheists - its not that they used their brains to decide the bible was no good - God doesn't want them! They are not good and pure like us!" Kinda makes it nice and comforting to realize that the people who do not believe your lie do so because they don't subscribe to the lie...

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: