An apology and a clarification

[Poison Tree]

He is also a "Catholic", I am a moderate Protestant. Which means we are close to opposite

LOL, oh, man. I remember when I thought that way. Oh, man alive. Have you ever had a window open clear as day into a past life [figuratively speaking]?

[pioteir]

I have never met a human being without sin, and I need God to get through my life (for guidance and discernment)

Despite Christianity being a religion, I think some of the rules are good for anyone to follow

1. Turn the other Cheek (pacifism)

2. Matthew 5:28, don't look at women lustfully (respect and gender equality)

3. Do unto others as you would yourself

4. Stewardship (taking care of the planet)

5. Give time and money to charities (not Churches in particular but any charity) I personally love water is basic and doctors without borders

I would argue You've met more humans without sin than You can imagine. Almost anything You consider a sin is not considered as such by rationally thinking people (atheist or otherwise). It's religion that made natural human urges into something You should be ashamed of, punished for, and feel guilty about. And I'm not saying that You have to succumb to all your lusts and desires. You have Your brain to figure out what You can and should or shouldn't do.
We don't need god to get by. We're fine with friends and family, even our pets give us more comfort.

As for the supposedly good rules supposedly being derived from or inspired by religion:

1. Turning the other cheek is rather suicidal (as is loving Your enemies) so I wouldn't recommend it.

2. If You don't lust for women Your genes will die out, it's the engine for survival of any kind of animal.

3. Not exactly a religious rule. Found in manuscripts of Confucius, also expressed by babilonian rabbi Hillel.

4. For one thing as I recall humans have been punished for eating from the tree of knowledge by exile to earth. Second thing is we, as civilized as we are, still don't know how to take care of ourselves yet (poverty, hunger etc) so I woul argue we make extremely poor stewards of the whole planet.

5. I don't know about the church inventing charity. Certainly it's not practised only by the religious.

So there.

One more thing. People were nice and calm when You first posted how You wanted to know our (meaning atheist) point of view on certain things and topics. But when You lose Your integrity by making stuff up as You go (like the bible is literally true when You need it to be, otherwise You consider it fairytale or metaphor or something else entirely) people get riled up. And they should. There's nothing more frustrating than a person claiming he KNOWS the ULTIMATE TRUTH but doesn't have ANYTHING to support it or does it poorly at best. So brace Yourself 'cause You're going down. We've got FACTS on our side, what do You have?

Also

Why do you claim to k what the bible says or doesn't say, I claim the reader might be wrong because I make mistakes and I don't claim to have all the answers, but it seems like you know everything about my religion and have crystal clear insight to my personal beliefs


The nature of hell is often disputed and many christians believe that children, being innocent and naive to much of the world, are not sent to hell

Hell is seen by some as a separation from God, not as a place where demons torture people

He claims to know more about what's in the bible because he probably read the damn thing AND understood what it said (I can't say that about You). There's no insight into Your personal beliefs Because You don't have any. You just make stuff up as You go along.

Children don't go to hell is another cop out to make it "more convenient" for wishfull thinking of the religious.

And "where" do these "separated from god" souls go? Purgatory is reserved for the evening. Limbo is non existent as of not too long ago. Do they just dissipate into nothingness? Please enlighten us.

[Contemporary Protestant]

I don't know, its a mystery, and I am not making things up as I go along, Christianity is changing very rapidly because my generation has grown up with the Internet, and without Fundamentalism (i was always taught, that certain passages may or may not be metaphorical)

There is a process to determining whether or not a verse should be taken literally, its really basic English class stuff

1. What is the genre of the book (for example, a letter is more literal than a poem or an epic)
2. Who wrote it
3. Who is the audience
4. Why
5. What are some words that the English language doesn't give enough credit to

Some wonderful greek words that are confusing in English are

Kairos (time) : time being of the essence, usually used when something is important

Kardia: (heart) : taking more about a life essence than a biological heart


1. How is pacifism suicidal? Growing up during a war and 9/11 paranoia has made me dislike war a lot, and I put a lot of value into human life, I don't think there should be a death penalty and abortion should be legal (i think abortion is murder but everyone has their own thoughts, so I'm not forcing anyone to agree) but more of a last resort kind of thing

2. Love can exist without Lust, lust is defined as indulging a sexual desire, (in Christianity it would be indulging a desire outside of marriage), asexual people can get married and can have kids, so I don't think lust is a part of love

3. Yeah this is generic

4. I never said we were good stewards, we are awful stewards

5. Church didn't invent charity but they have the resources to do a lot of good, so I volunteer through the church, but I also volunteer with secular sponsored events

[Hakurei Reimu]

The NT started out in Greek. Jesus didn't have the star power to attract a single person who could write.

I looked it up, and of the entire Dead Sea scroll compilation only about 3% turns out to be Greek, and that writing is dated to about the 3rd century AD and later. The only script we can date to the time of Jesus is in Biblical Hebrew. Also, Jesus (if he existed) almost definitely didn't speak Greek. Greek was quite definitely not the original language of the NT any more than it was the original language of the OT.

[Contemporary Protestant]

Thats not my quote, and the Dead Sea Scroll translation is still a good thing even if its 300 CE because that means, it was not in the hands of the nutty crusaders or any European King, sure there will probably be a better translation in the future but the Dead Sea Scroll is still better than using a translation of a translation(repeat several hundred times)

[Hakurei Reimu]

Thats not my quote,

Which is why the quote says its from Gawdzilla Sama. Sometimes it can take a while for me to respond to someone.

and the Dead Sea Scroll translation is still a good thing even if its 300 CE because that means, it was not in the hands of the nutty crusaders or any European King, sure there will probably be a better translation in the future but the Dead Sea Scroll is still better than using a translation of a translation(repeat several hundred times)

1.) We don't have a translation of the Dead Sea scrolls that is anything approaching complete.

2.) What little we have of the Dead Sea scrolls regarding the birth of Jesus says only that he was born of a "young woman," not the "virgin" that later christianity claims. We know this because the Hebrew uses distinct words for "young woman" and "virgin" and the Hebrew uses the "young woman." Greek has only one word for both glosses, the usage decided by context, so that one word was used. Latin has the two distinct words again, but it was mistranslated as "virgin", and we get the ridiculous story of the virgin birth.

Do you believe the virgin birth, born of a translation error, or the original Hebrew, which claims that Jesus was conceived by ordinary unskilled labor?

[SGOS]

I don't know, its a mystery, and I am not making things up as I go along, Christianity is changing very rapidly because my generation has grown up with the Internet, and without Fundamentalism (i was always taught, that certain passages may or may not be metaphorical)

We have data that confirms that the non-religious/atheist sector has grown in recent years.  I don't think I've seen data on fundamentalism.  To me, it seems like it has grown very fast since my college years, but it's also easy to mistake loudness as numerical strength.  Abundance of certain sects is also geographical in nature.

A word about metaphor:  We are taught their use in school and find them useful in poetry and literature where they are considered effective forms of communication, but they are useless, if not destructive, in science which requires precision and accuracy.  When I read metaphors in a letters to the editor, I don't take the writers seriously.

[Contemporary Protestant]

Well I think thats an idealogical difference from us, I think there is merit in reading a book that may or may not be true (I've heard theories that the entire thing is a metaphor, but I'm skeptical about absolutes)

I never said the translation was perfect or complete, Im just saying its better than what some people claim it to be. People have told me the bible translation has never been updated and every year it gets less accurate (which is blatantly false, people have better translations) the translations still need work … a lot of work, but still the Dead Sea scroll was an accomplishment

I will look up the "Mary not a virgin" thing, part of the reason I accept (accepted, not sure if I agree, if it is a faulty translation) it to be true is because she was about 13. Mary was a little kid, not a woman

[DunkleSeele]

I looked it up, and of the entire Dead Sea scroll compilation only about 3% turns out to be Greek, and that writing is dated to about the 3rd century AD and later. The only script we can date to the time of Jesus is in Biblical Hebrew. Also, Jesus (if he existed) almost definitely didn't speak Greek. Greek was quite definitely not the original language of the NT any more than it was the original language of the OT.

The Dead Sea scrolls do not contain any text from the NT, therefore we can't say anything about the original language of the NT based on them.

In the 1st century CE Greek (or, better said, Koine Greek) was the lingua franca in the Middle East, therefore we can very well expect Jesus - if he existed, which I doubt - to speak that language.

The general consensuns among scolars and historians is that the NT was most probably written in Koine Greek.

[Contemporary Protestant]

Good point

[pioteir]

1. How is pacifism suicidal? If someone attacks You or tries to kill You (like 9/11 or other occasions) would You try to stop them or would You "turn the other cheek"? Love Your enemies? I'd rather pass. Go on loving Yours, don't love mine.

2. Lust I think predates the notion of love and is a basic instinct for survival. So commandments forbidding it don't make much sense outside inducing guilt. Any healthy human will have lustful thoughts. Nothing to do with respect, they're just thoughts. It depends on individual if he acts on them or not, and how. Only religion judges people's thoughts. Oh so totalitarian idea of thought-crime.

4. Just sayin' humans got a whole planet for themselves as a punishment but somehow it got twisted into stewardship and how it is a religious value or somethin'. Reminds me a bit of mormons and receiving a planet for Yourself when You go to heaven :)

5. You made it sound as if religion came up with some good rules to follow. Just sayin' they didn't invent charity.

Besides all this the definition of making stuff up is saying whatever fits the occasion and benefits Your claims without any integrity. When You say some bits of the bible are meant as a metaphor, and other are literally true who decides which is which?
When You say OT is not relevant, but then You believe it to be true, but then again jesus redrawn the whole picture, but he fulfilled the prophecies of the OT (or not) so it's true then THAT right there is making shit up as You go for me. Name it like You want, progressive revelation, evolving religion, whatever. I call it like I see it. Have the courage to admit it.

Plus there are some core dogmas that can't be challenged otherwise the whole christianity collapses and yet as time goes by christians try to square the circle and make them fit into current understanding and knowledge of the world. It's sad, really.

Well I think thats an idealogical difference from us, I think there is merit in reading a book that may or may not be true (I've heard theories that the entire thing is a metaphor, but I'm skeptical about absolutes)

There is no ideological difference in science. Science is about evidence. You missed the point completely. Read the post again and think.

Oh and the whole idea of the word of almighty powerful god, creator of the universe can be misinterpreted or lost in translation is as ridiculous as it gets. If the revelation is subject to interpretation it defeats the whole purpose of revelation.

[SGOS]

There is no ideological difference in science. Science is about evidence.

This cannot be overstated.

I think that the difference in processing information the way science does as compared to the way religion does is hard for a theist to understand.  It's a completely different and "foreign" way of thinking.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

The Torah (first five books of OT) were written by Moses

... and describes his own death?  I think not.

Deut 34:5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him[a] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. 7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. 8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

That is a very common misconception though....

[Contemporary Protestant]

By idealogical difference I mean that I still believe in a God despite everything, to you this is illogical, to me it makes perfect sense

Thats an idealogical difference

[SGOS]

In thinking about the difference between the way science and religions process information and why the two are incompatible (at least not without compartmentalization), is that no conclusion in science is held as infallible.  Everything is open to change.  Once a scientific conclusion is reached that is "infallible", it can no longer be science.  It shuts the scientific process down.  Science is a process, and while it does come to conclusions, they are always tentative.  Show me evidence that evolution is unquestionably wrong, and I will change my view overnight (credit goes to Richard Dawkins for that statement). 

Reaching scientific conclusions is a long and laborious process.  Religious conclusions are not laboriously concluded.  The conclusions are based on "infallible" assumptions, and the theist works backwards from there.  Science holds many conclusions in high regard, but never to the level of infallibility. 

Instead of investigation, religion substitutes apologetics.  Granted this requires a lot of labor, but the very assumptions regarded as infallible are never tested.  Johan Kepler, a priest, used investigation to attempt to reconcile investigation with religious doctrine, and with disastrous consequences to his personal life.  In his search to explain the infallible nature of the geocentric universe, he proved that it was a fallible infallibility, and he was thrown out of the church and died a pauper.  The two methods of reasoning are incompatible and will never be reconciled.  At best they can be mutually tolerant of each other, but never reconciled.