If you wish to equate spirituality with children's fairy tales you are obviously welcome to do so. But aside from being amusing for you I don't see the point. Unless you are claiming that every facet of existence can be explained through the use of logic (something no logician or philosopher that I am aware of claims) then i really don't understand the resort to sarcasm.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

So the only explanation for someone disagreeing with you on a subject which has engaged mankind for thousands of years is they are stoned? I feel so insignificant in your presence.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

And if you do need a book to teach you morals, the bible is right up there with one of the worst books i could possibly imagine one would choose.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

May be this is true, but I don't think it is.

Have you been to a Catholic church? Well, there are no Bibles in the pews. I was confused by this unitl I learned that Catholics don't really read the Bible. They are taught what the church wants them to know.

So, how does this relate to your point? If the Bible was written by Catholics as a way to trick people, then the Catholic Church would have no problem letting it's members read the Bible, and would, in fact, encourage it. I do agree that the Catholics have been tricky, but they have been able to get away with this precisly because they did not allow people to read the Bible.

Just look what happened to Martin Luther. He read the Bible, and realized that there was nothing in it about indulgences. This basiclly has spilt Christians into two groups. So, I think that the argument that it is a Catholic trick, is probably not true.

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"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Yet it is impossible to deny that the bible had been used as a method of societal control almost immediately after it was written, historically speaking.

Nobody really has a clue how the bible came to be. It was most likely just a collection of oral histories over time that eventually was scribed and put together. It was fairly common to record stories, as has happened with almost every literate culture. Every culture has had myths, we still create them.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

i'd love to go back 2000 years and leave a few spider-man and superman comics lying around and see what happens

We'd be worshiping Spiderman now! Wait, isn't no. 3 due out this year? Don't we worship him already?

Is it important to separate the Old Testament from the New Testament? From memory the really ugly stuff is in the OT while the more enlightened stuff is in the NT.

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"There were no D-Day Heroes in 1973" - Cold Chisel Khe Sanh

Both Testaments are very important. I am going to use some very Lutheran terms here to explain the purpose of each.

The Old and New Testaments should be described as Law and Gospel. The Old Testament is Law. It tells the believer that he/she has sinned. Now yes there is some very weird stuff in the Old Testament, believe me i have read the book. To explain this we must look at the entire Bible through the lens of the Gospel (another Lutheran term). The four Gospels are basically the "thesis" if you will. The entire Bible is building up to the Gospel story and then everything after those is explaining them. Thus we look at the entire Old Testament through Christ's message. If a passage in the Old Testament does not Aline with Christs message It is not Law (you would be surprised how much of the Old Testament follows). Christ says he is here to fulfill the law, not abolish it and that much of what the Jews held as Law in the Old Testament was really just tradition. Read Amos if you want more on this. He is a prophet that tells Israel God does not want the tradition they had turned into law, but that the real law is justice.

the New Testament is there to tell people that they are free from the sin that the law has told you. By faith alone a person is saved.

Central to this whole view is that the Bible was written by humans. While it was inspired by God, humans actually took the pen. That means that there are some things that are not from God, but it is still scripture because God has chosen to work through this document so he will use the entire work to reveal himself. The Bible was not dropped down in front of someone in full form complete with maps. It took centuries to compile.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

Wow! It's like a thread made just to annoy Christians!


I thought the phrase "supposed originals" was amusing? As if we're unsure whether or not there was every a first copy.

But yes, I suppose in a general sense this is all perfectly true. Of course it's also true of pratically every "supposed" ancient document to some extent...
And I'm pretty sure the number of extant ancient manuscripts for many Biblical passages dwarf the number for almost any comparable ancient text.

Not really. The origin of the great greek writings that predate christianity are not nearly as 'unknown'...

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

I would challenge that assumption. In the vast majority of cases we attribute authorship to whoever the people of the time attributed authorship to (unless we have evidence to the contrary). The assumption is generally that "they were in a position to know". It's not like we can test hand-writing samples.

We don't bother about most Greek authorship because very few people REALLY, REALLY care. People care much more about knowning what the status of Greek philosophy was than about which particular Greek actually wrote it. If its generally attributed to a given ancient author, we tend to just accept that (at least until something contradictory comes along). But it's not like we can prove it, especially since our MMS come from centuries later.

When it comes to religious writings, people REALLY care about who the author was. So no one's content with, "well it was generally attributed to so-and-so..."

There is archaeological and historical evidence is the difference. The bible enjoys no credibility.

We know that Plato wrote the rebublic, we know that Thucydides wrote the Histories, and so on.... there is no reason to doubt these claims as they are backed up by multiple sources of evidence. And these predate Christianity.

There is overwhelming archaeological and historical evidence for their authorship and for the existence of lives of the authors.

anybody who really cares just attributes it to God, which is ridiculous, of course.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

I wasn't being sarcastic.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson

Think about this for a second. Why do you believe in god? Is it inate? Or was it taught? And what proof do you have that your "belief" has any validity whatsoever save whatever fear was likely instilled in you by the people who surrounded you as a youth?

And please, try to be honest in your answer.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson