A Question To Christians
Kennysucks
Banned
DO NOT COMMENT OR REPLY TO THIS THREAD IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE RUDE OR HAVE A NEGATIVE ATTITUDE, THIS IS A POLITE QUESTION I WOULD APPRECIATE TO RECEIVE POLITE ANSWERS, THANK-YOU
So I am an Athiest and I decided to do a bible study and I noticed some pretty bad stuff as well as some things that are just impossible, I kind of lied in the title because I guess I have two questions.
So first of all, everything most people say about Noah's Ark is wrong, It is mentioned that Noah was sailing on the Ark for just above 11 months and he didn't just have 2 of every clean animal, if looked at carefully, it can be seen that Noah was commanded to bring 7 pairs of clean animals, 7 pairs of all birds (bats included) , and 2 pairs of every unlcean animal (rats, snakes). That adds up to a lot of space to be taken up and given the size of the Ark according to the bible, It is much smaller than the cruise ships we have today, with all the animals in there, it would leave Noah and his family around -100,000,000 cubic feet to move around in, keep in mind that's a negative number. Im not going to go into other inconsistancies or things in the bible because it would take ages to write, but can I ask, how can you believe in a god with all these inconsistencies and impossibilities in the bible and with the fact that evolution has been proven true (No i'm not just pulling that out of my ass, it actually has been proven, look into it.)
Second of all, I noticed that a lot of the things god did were pretty evil. In the garden of eden he tells Adam and Eve that if they eat the fruit frm the tree they will die however later on the snake (which was NEVER mentioned in the bible to be Satan) had told Eve that god lied to them and that the fruit wouldn't actually kill them, which was true, the snake NEVER deceived them, but rather told them the truth. Then god being considered all knowing, curses the snake and Adam and Eve even though he was the one who lied to them. Now this doesn't really seem that evil but wait till you see this other stuff, so later on God completely floods the earth, committing mass genocide and I know people are going to say "oh well they were wicked" well even if that was able to justify his actions (which it cant), keep in mind that drowning is one of the worst ways to die and by doing this he also killed many innocent babies, children, and animals. Later on in Egypt when God tells Moses to free the slaves, God mentions that he is going to take away the Pharaohs free will by hardening his heart so he wont let the people go so later on god would be able to justify murdering everyone even though hes the one who made Pharaoh a bad guy, so not only has god tried to cover up his murder and justify it in the eyes of the Hebrews, he also messed around with free will so anyone who uses the whole "god gave us free will argument" cant really anymore. Then later the whole killing of first born thing is super evil, god thinks its okay to just murder children because he doesnt like their parents and not to mention he just randomly decides to kill all of the first born animals too for some reason, then he also gets Moses to lie to the Pharoah and say "we only wanna be set free for 3 days to do a ritual for our god" and when Pharoah finally lets him they try to escape and despite God not needing to murder Pharoah or his people later on, he decides to anyways cause why the fuck not right? So my question is even if there is a god, why would you want to serve him if hes as evil as he is? he immoral and tries to cover it up because hes god but just because hes god doesn't make it automatically right.
Comments
Firstly: people believe in what they want to believe so if they want to believe in the ark they will, that's because people need something to believe to feel safe.
Secondly this stories are just stories, god never flooded earth and never killed nobody's children. These stories are supposed to be interpreted. BTW i'm not religious.
Actually, it depends on what kind of christian you are, some people think its supposed to be interpreted but others like the church i grew up in, took it literally
Yes i know some churchs take it literally but it's wrong doing that and sadly most churchs do that.
Well I think its wrong to follow any reigion as it causes many problems but i'm also against not letting people choose what they wanna do
So you are totally againt religion then, ok.
I'm not religious either; and it does depend on if you interpret the Bible literally or not (honestly, I don't understand how any reasonable person can interpret it literally.)
My father is Christian, and we have a lot of arguments about this - first of all, he is a hardcore believer in Pascal's dilemma, and thinks if you have to choose to believe in religion, Christianity is the morally superior choice (where that morality comes from, according to him, I can't understand - if there is a God, and that God believes X is immoral and you have to kill anybody who does X; it doesn't matter how much you think killing is wrong because theoretically God is the supreme authority who mandates good and evil). Though he would say the Old Testament has a lot of evil things (you mention Passover for instance where "God hardened Pharoah's heart") in it and, almost like a Hegelian dialectic, Jesus came to "not to replace the law but to fulfill it." Judaism is subsequent necessary for Christianity in the establishment of a monotheism - much as the parable of Abraham and Isaac replaced human sacrifice with animal sacrifice, Jesus replaced animal sacrifice with symbolic sacrifice (hence the term Lamb of God).
It's hard for me to argue from the Christian point of view because I think it's mental acrobatics (see: nonsense), but that's one viewpoint. As to the question of evil, like Epicurius, I believe it is impossible for God to be both all good and all powerful: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Although it inexplicably devolves into a cheap Abraham and Isaac adaptation, there's a german movie Antikorper which is pretty good - basically, there's a serial kill and one of his lines is "God knows everything - who do you think put the fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden? Do you think he didn't know what would happen?"
The other one I really recommend, and it's a documentary, is PBS's "Empires - The Kingdom of David" which traces the evolution of Judiasm, and (again, unlike my father who believes the Bible not to be the inspired word of God, but humans witnessing God made man) I do not believe that religion, which purports to be divine revelation, can undergo such a transformation.
Couldn't say better myself.
I'm really sorry to hear that, we got the nicest most caring man alive as our priest in town, and I'm not even christian
Religion, like politics, are topics no one will EVER agree upon. I grew up Catholic and yes, there are some things we follow that even I think are a little out there. Its a part of life; everyone has their opinions and beliefs.
TBR
So what you are doing is what The Bible Reloaded does, except theyre funny, I love them and I think youll like them.
Also have you seen Chick Tracts, TBR also reads them, here is my favorite.
TBR
As someone whom has been raised in a Christian home my entire life, I will admit that a lot of the things that come out of the Bible do make me go, "WAT?" So, it's perfectly natural for even Christians to have their questions and doubts, and I understand completely why someone outside of the religion/spirituality would have these questions and doubts themselves.
All I can say, is that I just take the lessons from the stories, like, there underlying meaning / theme and see how I can apply it to my own life. We can interpret the Bible so many different ways. Because if we could all interpret it the same, we more than likely wouldn't have so many different sects and denominations. So, yeah, sometimes we just find the interpretation of the Bible we can understand the best/like the most and stick with it.
I'm in no way a Bible Thumper, and I don't consider myself as good a Christian as I could be. I know I could always improve, I could get going to church more, get more involved in the community as a Representative of Christ. So, you're not really getting an opinion from a strictly devout Christian, just someone whom has Jesus Christ in their heart and just try to be a good example of what that means to others.
I hope anything I said made sense or might help.
I'm not extremely religious or anything but I have realized a lot of people take the Bible out of context and take things literally so I would say to look at stories from multiple points of view because people who take the bible too serious (Like some islam terrorists with their religion) sometimes justify things they do by saying "The bible says it's okay"
I watch them all the time, Infact I was just watching them a few minutes ago
Just wondering but if you do or did take the bible literally, how do you feel about Leviticus 10:1 - Leviticus 10:2?
Leviticus 10:1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
Leviticus 10:2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
So pretty much in those two verses, Aaron's two sons were doing some sort of sacrifice or ritual or something for god and they accidentally burned the wrong incense or something and because of this, god thought it was necessary to kill him directly by setting them on fire. I mean what lesson can be learned here? don't fuck up gods rituals even in the slightest because if you do you will die a horrible death? how do you feel about what god did there? do you think it was moral/justified?
I can't answer that question for you, because I honestly don't want to say anything that would further damage the way that you view religion and God. But I looked up some things about said verse, and here's a few opinions from different people that might help how they took it literally.
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/leviticus/10-1.htm
I can see nothing I can say or do is going to help this situation, and I accept that I'm left without anything to say about said incident. So, my advice is that you speak to someone (preferable one whom studies the Bible more so than I have) whom can properly explain the situation of these verses to you, because me personally, can not decipher what to take away from that story as a lesson.
As a Christian I'm unsure of how to answer that. xD
But like most people said they are just stories, and I guess you could say people take them too literally, and misinterpret them. My church, and teachers have not taken it as literally and told me that it was a story, not real. Like was the world really made in seven days? Of course not! Did God flood the world? Probably not. The point is, some, or maybe most of the stories, especially the ones about creation are probably fictional, and made up. And I'm not sure how to answer the second thing, but we're just taught to believe. Questioning is fine, but I have barely any questions, so I just follow. Going to church is fun for me, so I kind of just enjoy my faith, whether I believe it or not. Which I kind of don't but it's still cool to have in my life
.
What he's saying is that he personally doesn't agree with religion but he recognizes that people have a right to choose whatever religion they wish.
Nah, most churches don't.
Yep a lot take it out of context. Its like with other religious texts (for example, Muslim terrorists taking the Koran out of context).
Yeah and sometimes the authors were trying to send a message or make a point, then some people think That's literally what happened when it maybe never happened or was extremely exaggerated
It all comes down to faith: whether someone believes that the Bible is "the Word of God", and therefore true and infallible, or that the Bible is just a book full of made up stories.
When GOD said the fruit would kill them he ment it spiritually not physically. Meaning if they ate the fruit and disobeyed GOD they would not be permitted into heaven. GOD flooded the earth to rid it of impurity's and sin so we could start anew in the eyes of the Lord. But the people kept sinning so GOD had to send Jesus to die for our stupidity. As Jesus died he took on all our sin so we can go to heaven when we die. Jesus rose again from the grave proving death was beaten and we will no longer die if we believe in Jesus and follow the Lords way. That's my views, I've always been christian. I'm 14.
Well I am a Baptist & respect others opinions. But I don't like going to church because people from church decieve others.
You should believe because when atheist die their going to burn in hell for all eternity.
And you should get the hell out here with your hell bullshit! BTW if what you say is true then we meet there.
Woah dude that wasn't very nice. I was just telling you guys the truth.
Oh so you're one of those Christians...
sighs
I'ma go sulk now.
I've always seen the bible as a collection of parables and morality tales, mixed with historical accounts. Certainly not something to be taken as historical fact.
I agree that there's some pretty nasty stuff in the bible, especially in the Old Testament from Leviticus onwards. In truth though, the same applies to most religions and it certainly doesn't make them inherently bad. For example, their's plenty of bloody, ominous sounding passages in the Qur'an, but times have changed and now the overwhelming majority of Muslims interpret those passages differently.
Cool, I like my weather nice and balmy.
No one knows what happens if they die though... some religions say you go to heaven if your 'good' in the opinion of their God or you go to hell if your 'bad' in the opinion of their God, however others believe that no matter what you do, you will visit the Underworld no matter which God you worship and no matter how you act in real life. It can never be proven as only dead people can witness death.
I think it all comes down to belief, if you believe in something or you are raised to believe in something then it just comes natural to believe that certain thing.
Disagree, at least when it comes to religion. I grew up in the Church because of my parents, but I don't think I ever really believed. People asked me when I lost my faith, but I didn't, I don't think. The whole time it was pretty much "Really? You people believe this?"
Some nice lessons, but, to quote Marilyn Manson. "I like the Bible... I like it as a book, just like I like the Cat in the Hat." (Also to give some cultural perspective on how much things have changed since the Bush Administration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tco6-yP40