Rational BAC

First of all, it is not a con game. Problem is that the fundies tend to be the most vocal of Christians, so they get the most attention. Everybody has to oil the squeak as they say---and the fundies can be very squeaky.

You pin down the average mainstream Christian (not a fundy) and he can be very reasonable in his beliefs. And he will admit he does cherry pick from the Bible.

Again, I may cherry pick more than other Christians, but that is just a matter of degree, not of essence.


Another question you had----------Whether I only use the Bible for spiritual guidance.----Of course I don't. Why should I? Again you are confusing me with a Christian fundy.

(However I will make an exception for the Yellow Pages. I have to admit I have never used that for spiritual guidance.)

About the Holy Spirit-------

------well that is a belief thing, a faith thing if you will. You can quite logically say that I am quided by Santa Claus or the tooth fairy and I can not logically argue the point. ----------and the only solution to that one, since we will never see eye to eye on it is to --agree to disagree---since you will never understand me on that point and I will never understand you.

C'est la vie.

Jobar

Rational, while I see you are sincerely attempting to show how your religion is reasonable, you are like a carpenter who tries to build the second story of a house before constructing the foundation. It matters not which parts of the Bible you consider divinely inspired; you are addressing atheists here, who consider 'divine' to be null and without meaning.

I doubt any of us here would call the Bible completely worthless; I myself am quite fond of Ecclesiastes, and there are fine tales and good ethical advice scattered throughout the book. The thing is, all these 'good parts' seem no different than any other works of men; the wisdom is, as usual, smudged with very human fingerprints. None of it shines through as the work of some infallible God, or even the work of someone inspired by such a God. No flawless prophecies, no perfect wisdom, no timeless and eternal beauty; no better and no worse than any other work purporting to provide guidance for human behaviour.

Before you can say that your belief is rational, I think you must first demonstrate that it is not giving to airy nothing a name- and then worshipping it.

Rational BAC

I thought I did this one before, but, to answer your post, will do it again.

I do wander back and forth between thinking that parts of the Bible are inspired by God and thinking that nothing at all in it was inspired by God.

My most logical conclusion is that NO part of the Bible was directly inspired by God.

But that doesn't stop me from being a Christian. Or believing myself to be Christian.

It is quite conceivable that God had no part in creating the Bible. It was the work of very fallible man and very fallible committees of men. -----------Who were trying to write down as best they could what they thought happened 2000 years ago. And God did not intervene in the transcription in any way for reasons known only to Himself. He just said to Himself "figure it out youselves, suckers".


OK --so all we got is the Bible as an account---as flawed and errant as it might be.

So if you think what happened 2000 years ago was important then all you can do is dig through the Bible yourself and make some kind of personal sense of it, while taking the whole thing with a great deal of salt. (And if you believe in a personal Saviour, then you also believe you are guided in your cherry picking by a higher power.)

And that is what cherry pickers do---pick and choose. And, except for the fundies of this world, that is what all Christians do to some degree or other.

Rational BAC

Sorry--

Duplicated that one for some reason. Will see if I can get rid of one of them.

[Duplicate posts deleted - BJM]

Well it did get finally deleted. Now if I could just delete this post.------I am getting so confused.

fishbulb

If you believe that, why don't you just throw your Bible away altogether? Your personal saviour will make sure that you are guided correctly with or without the Bible.

The Bible is obviously a heavily mythological work, and it has also obviously been edited for political ends. Since it bears all the signs of being a principally fictional work, if you don't think it is divinely inspired, why not just call it an ancient book of mythology and toss it altogether? Your saviour will make sure you believe the right things, and may even explain why he makes other people believe entirely different things.

Rational BAC

I don't really completely follow that one----

What is wrong with a possibly and probably errant text that tries to describe what Jesus was trying to do? At least that is something to go on.

A lot better than the Yellow Pages for spiritual guidance.

Treacle Worshipper

Rational BAC,

I think the fundamental (no pun intended!) question from my point of view is:

If none of the Bible is divinely inspired (which you admit may be a possibility:My most logical conclusion is that NO part of the Bible was directly inspired by God.), where do you get your idea of a saviour/god/spiritual guide from?

Presumably this guide has led you to the Bible & helps you choose which bits to follow. But where did it come from in the first place?

TW

Rational BAC

While I am on a bit of a roll here----let's try another one--

Original Sin

Now I have to admit I do not see much sense in it. Nor do I see any particular reason for it. ----At least not without reading an awful whole lot into our errant Bible.

I have to admit, I understand in no way the concept of original sin. When reading the Bible, it sure does not shout out at you. (although I am sure that some would believe they are being shouted at in this case)

I just don't see it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's try another one --

The concept of a Trinity


If you say so, but that also does not shout out at me from the Bible. Seems like something made up centuries later (Council of Nicea I think.) to try and make what seems most obviously to be a tri-partied God into a monotheistic one.

Again---idea of a trinity ---"One for all and all for one" as the 3 Musketeers used to say is possible I guess, but very hard to understand. -----and I wonder if it is really necessary for Christianity anyway.

fishbulb

Is this a reply to my response immediately before? If so:

I don't believe that Perseus killed the gorgon Medusa just because the myth says so. I don't even find reason to believe either Perseus or Medusa even existed. It is possible that the character of Perseus was loosely based on some historical figure, much as King Arthur is quite possibly based on a 6th Century British chieftan, but it is also quite possible that Perseus is a fictional character, perhaps even created out of whole cloth.

Likewise, I shouldn't believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead just because it is written in the Bible. In fact, I have no reason to conclude with any confidence that Jesus was a real person: there aren't really any corroborating records or artifacts to back up the idea that the man existed. Many have even pointed out the striking similarities between Jesus and earlier characters from both Hebrew and non-Hebrew myths. There would seem to be at least some reason to suspect that Jesus was a made-up character. If Jesus was a made up character, or if he is only loosely based on a real person, what makes the Bible any more informative than any other myth with a political and moral dimension to it?

If you accept that the Bible is not a divinely-inspired tome, why would you turn to it for guidance? You must know of more books besides the Bible and the Yellow Pages. Surely you could find at least one that can offer a bit more spiritual guidance. Why turn to the Bible when there are many other equally implausible books of mythology, as well as any number of contemporary works of philosophical and spiritual guidance, many written by accomplished therapists, psychiatrists, and social workers? If you read the Bible skeptically, you would have to conlude that most of it probably didn't happen, and that it was impossible to tell what didn't apart from what did. That doesn't seem like a very useful spirit guide.

Moreover, if you really do believe in a personal saviour who guides you, why do you need to look for the answers in any book?

It is possible that you just have an emotional attachment to the Bible and have a need to find some wisdom in it, no matter how small or how hard you have to look for it?

Rational BAC

I will admit I have a certain predisposition to Christianity.

That is the faith I was baptized in. That is the faith I was confirmed in. That is the faith that I turned away from during my years of agnosticism. That is the faith I turned back to later on in life, because deep down inside of me I thought there was something more to life than temporal life.

I did decide at one point in my life, that it was quite logical to assume that there is a Supreme Being of some sort.

Otherwise you are stuck with the assumption that Man is the highest form of intelligent life in the universe. And that I find highly unlikely. We are so limited in our senses and intelligence, that it seems to me to be absurd to think that after 15 billion years of the existence of the universe that we would be the best there is.

Once you make the logical conclusion that Man is not the highest life form in the universe, then logically there is no end to it. Is there really?

Imagine an entity 100 times as intelligent as Man. Is that possible? Of course.

Imagine an entity with way more than our very limited 5 senses. Is that possible? Of course. (Hell dogs and cats and birds and dolphins have more finely tuned senses than we do----and that just on Earth)

So once you make the jump from Man not being the highest entity in the Universe--------which seems very logical when you think about it. ------------Where do you stop?

I would say a good stopping point would be an all-knowing all-seeing entity made up of complete energy. -------------A Supreme Being---------Make it a Christian Supreme Being if you like-----

Or, if that turns our not to be, as I said before, when I am before the pearly gates and I happen to run into Allah--------I will just say "Allah -----OK if I shine your shoes now?"