How often do we hear people “explaining” religious beliefs by stating “The Bible says so,” as if the Bible fell out of the sky, pre-translated to English by God Himself? It’s not that simple, according to an impressive and clearly-written book that should be required reading for anyone who claims to know “what the Bible says.”
Bart Ehrman’s Exploration: Who Changed the Bible and Why?
The 2005 bestseller, Misquoting Jesus, was not written by a raving atheist. Rather, it was written by a fellow who had a born-again experience in high school, then went on to attend the ultraconservative Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Bart Ehrman didn’t stop there, however. He wanted to become an evangelical voice with credentials that would enable him to teach in secular settings. It was for this reason that he continued his education at Wheaton and, eventually, Princeton, picking up the ability to read the New Testament in its original Greek in the process.
As a result of his disciplined study, Ehrman increasingly questioned the fundamentalist approach that the “Bible is the inerrant Word of God. It contains no mistakes.” Through his studies, Ehrman determined that the Bible was not free of mistakes:
We have only error ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways.
(Page 7). At Princeton, Ehrman learned that mistakes had been made in the copying of the New Testament over the centuries. Upon realizing this, “the floodgates opened.” In Mark 4, for example, Jesus allegedly stated that the mustard seed is “the smallest of all seeds on the earth.” Ehrman knew that this simply was not true. The more he studied the early manuscripts, the more he realized that the Bible was full of contradictions. For instance, Mark writes that Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal (Mark 14:12; 15:25) while John says Jesus died the day before the Passover meal (John 19:14).
Ehrman often heard that the words of the Bible were inspired. Obviously, the Bible was not originally written in English. Perhaps, suggests Ehrman, the full meaning and nuance of the New Testament could only be grasped when it was read in its original Greek (and the Old Testament could be fully appreciated only when studied in its original Hebrew) (page 6).
Because of these language barriers and the undeniable mistakes and contradictions, Ehrman realized that the Bible could not be the “fully inspired, inerrant Word of God.” Instead, it appeared to him to be a “very human book.” Human authors had originally written the text at different times and in different places to address different needs. Certainly, the Bible does not provide an an “errant guide as to how we should live. This is the shift in my own thinking that I ended up making, and to which I am now fully committed.”
How pervasive is the belief that the Bible is inerrant, that every word of the Bible is precise and true?
Occasionally I see a bumper sticker that reads: “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” My response is always, what if God didn’t say it? What if the book you take as giving you God’s words instead contains human words. What if the Bible doesn’t give a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age-abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, religious and supremacy, western style democracy and the like? What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol–or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty.
(Page 14). Ehrman continues to appreciate the Bible as an important collection of writings, but urges that it needs to be read and understood in the context of textual criticism, “a compelling and intriguing field of study of real importance not just to scholars but to everyone with an interest in the Bible.” Ehrman finds it striking that most readers of the Bible know almost nothing about textual criticism. He comments that this is not surprising, in that very few books have been written about textual criticism for a lay audience (namely, “those who know nothing about it, who don’t have the Greek and other languages necessary for the in-depth study of it who do not realize there is even any “problem” with the text).
Misquoting Jesus provides much background into how the Bible became the Bible. It happened through numerous human decisions over the centuries. For instance, the first time any Christian of record listed the 27 books of the New Testament as the books of the New Testament was 300 years after the books have been written (page 36). And those works have been radically altered over the years at the hands of the scribes “who were not only conserving scripture but also changing it.” Ehrman points out that most of the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among the manuscripts were “completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance.” In short, they were innocent mistakes involving misspelling or inadvertence.
On the other hand, the very meaning of the text changed in some instances. Some Bible scholars have even concluded that it makes no sense to talk about the “original” text of the Bible. (Page 210). As a result of studying surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, Ehrman concluded that we simply don’t have the original words constituting the New Testament.
Not only do we not have the originals, we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have copies of the copies of the originals, or copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later-much later. In most instances, they are copies made many centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, and many thousands of places . . . Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences among our manuscripts and there are words in the New Testament.
In Misquoting Jesus Bart Ehrman spells out the ways in which several critical passages of the New Testament were changed or concocted. They are startling examples:
A.) Everyone knows the story about Jesus and the woman about to be stoned by the mob. This account is only found in John 7:53-8:12. The mob asked Jesus whether they should stone the woman (the punishment required by the Old Testament) or show her mercy. Jesus doesn’t fall for this trap. Jesus allegedly states “Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.”
The crowd dissipates out of shame. Ehrman states that this brilliant story was not originally in the Gospel of John or in any of the Gospels. “It was added by later scribes.” The story is not found in “our oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John. Nor does its writing style comport with the rest of John. Most serious textual critics state that this story should not be considered part of the Bible (page 65).
B) after Jesus died, Mary Magdalene and two other women came back to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, according to Mark 16:1-2). They were met by a man in a white robe who told them that Jesus had been raised and was no longer there. The women fled and said nothing more to anyone out of fear (16:4-8). Everyone knows the rest of Mark’s Gospel, of course. The problem with the remainder of the story is that none of it was originally in the Gospel of Mark. It was added by a later scribe. Those additions include all of the following:
Jesus himself appeared to Mary Magdalene. She told the eleven apostles (minus Judas) about this vision, but they did not believe her. Jesus then appeared to the apostles, chastising them for failing to believe. He tells them that those who believe will be saved and those who don’t will be condemned. Then follows a critically important passage of the Bible.
And these are the signs that will accompany those who believe: they will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; and they will take up snakes in their hands; and if they drink any poison, it will not harm them; they will place their hands upon the sick and heal them.
Jesus is then allegedly taken up into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, while the disciples go forth into the world to proclaim the Gospel in miraculous fashion.
Without the above passages (which, again, were not written by Mark) the Pentecostals lose their justification for speaking in “tongues.” And the Appalachian snake handlers have no basis for their dangerous practices.
C) John 5:7-8 is the only passage in the entire Bible “that explicitly delineates the doctrine of the Trinity (that there are three persons and God but that all three constitute a single God):
There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Spirit and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one.
Ehrman cites strong evidence that this Trinity passage was entirely concocted and foisted upon Erasmus by outraged theologians who needed support for their prized theological doctrine (page 81).
—
Ehrman reveals numerous other difficulties with the popular assumption that the Bible was perfectly handed down from its original written expression.
Many believers rely fervently on the King James version of the Bible, for instance. They sometimes even say “If the King James was good enough for St. Paul, it’s good enough for me.” Ehrman points out many problems with the King James version, warning that “we need to face up to the facts.”
The King James was not given by God but was a translation by a group of scholars in the early 17th century who based their rendition on a faulty Greek text.
(Page 209).
So what should we make of the Bible? Ehrman argues that the attacks of the New Testament are not simply collections of obvious, self-interpreting words. It’s the same problem we have with other important documents, such as the United States Constitution:
Texts do not simply reveal their own meanings to honest inquirers. Texts are interpreted and they are interpreted (just as they were written) by living, breathing human beings, who can make sense of texts only by explaining them in light of other other knowledge, explicating their meaning, putting the words of the text “in other words.”
(Page 217) The scribes changed the original words of the New Testament by putting them in other words.
In my experience, many people who cherry pick excerpts from the Bible as the proper way to determine what is moral are in utter denial that we don’t have accurate copies of the original writings. Most of them refuse to acknowledge that current popular versions of the Bible contain numerous discrepancies, even compared to the earliest manuscripts we do have. This is on top of the fact that their are hundreds of patent contradictions in the English version of the Bible. To most believers, none of this matters. Stay the course! In fact, in my experience most believers rarely read what the consider to be God’s own inspired word.
Ehrman’s book points out numerous troublesome issues that demand attention even assuming that the original writers of the Bible accurately reported the events described in their original writings (whatever those writings were). The elephant in the room, however, is that none of the authors of the Gospels ever claimed to witness any of the events they were reporting. Further, the extraodinary nature of Biblical claims demands extraordinary proof that ancient self-contradictory writings are simply incapable of providing, except to those of us who believe that the Bible is completely true “because it says so in the Bible.”
For all of those people who continue to go around clentching and thumping those Bibles they bought at Wal-Mart, and for all the rest of us who want to get the story straight, Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus should be required reading.
[Administrator’s Note: More than 540 comments were quickly contributed to this post, making this page too long to download and display. Therefore, on March 23, 2007, I closed off new comments. Last night (February 4, 2009), I discovered a WordPress plugin that allows me to paginate comments, thereby protecting the site from the sudden and repeated load of 540 comments.
Here’s the good news, then. Anyone who has not yet had his or her say on Bart Ehrman’s book may now jump in at the original post and post a comment. That’s right! If none of the 540 comments that have come before you didn’t address an important aspect of Bart Ehrman’s book, you may now remedy that omission, right here in the comments to this original post. Godspeed. ]
The Light:
You posed many questions that are quite commonly asked. Most are really quite simple and easily answered. Others are not. For example, your first question "How come Dinosaurs was not talked about in the Bible?". The problem is, most people do not read the Bible and lash out instead. Lets look at a few verses in Job 40:15:
Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.
Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.
Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.
Now if you find that interesting, please read a little more and note a description of a dragon – Job 41:1:
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?
Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants?
Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?
Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.
Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?
None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?
Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.
I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion.
Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle?
Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.
His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.
One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.
By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.
Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.
His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.
The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.
His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.
The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.
He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.
The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.
Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.
Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.
He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.
He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.
Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
I can go on, but will leave you to do a little bit of honest effort and discover these things yourself. The answers are there.
This garbage is more of the sameo, sameo. Men who don't KNOW GOD making their vain attempts to interpret HIM and what HE means in their own limited knowledge and personal experience. In addition the men that keep on doing this are not even saved (many of them) and none of them are filled with the HOLY SPIRIT. It is the Spirit that leads us into all TRUTH ("MY word is truth" said Jesus) It is the Spirit of God's job to lead us into understanding, not the all the ancient writings and interpretations of men. Also, does anyone really believe that GOD could not have forseen the musingsand mistakes of men and made appropriate adjustments for it? God, to those who believe there is a God, is all knowing-omnipotent and always in control. To believe otherwise is to virtually place satan- the destructive God of this world in control of all mankind. Is that where you who don't want to accept the Bible as truth and accurate truth really want to be??????????? You choose!!!!
Maybe one of the problems I have about Christianity and most organized religion is their sense of exclusiveness…that is, if you do not love as we love then you are destined for hell. To live as we live is the only proper way.
Sorry, I'm not quite buying that. Don't get me wrong, I have a deep respect to followers of any faith.
I take my cues from the universe. And this is what I've learned…the universe wastes nothing. All the atoms that make up your being will someday be put to use in constructing something else. We are mortal beings but what we are made of has been here since the beginning of time and will continue to exist. In that sense we are all immortals.
There is no distinction between right and wrong, just what is and what is not. There is absolutely nothing that exists that does not have an opposite. Both are equally useful. To get rid of one is to get rid of both.
We are all seperate beings and we are all connected in a cosmic dance. And when I saw we I mean you, me, the neighbor down the street, and the plastic stirrer in your coffee cup. I know…inconcievable isn't it?
But if you try and convince me that someone created the universe and this someone is God then I have to ask…who created God and the universe that he lives in?
I know someone will find this offensive but this is not my intent.
To all God bless, Salaam Al-Leikum, I spread my zagu, and cheers.
It is impossible to change a religious person's mind. They have made up their mind and the area of the brain used for rationalizing that area of life is shut off, and turning it back on is just not going to happen. Religion of all types are fanatically driven, moderates to fundamentalists. We have to stop the chain of arrogant lies being taught to children, we shouldn't teach them anything about religion, therefore God.
18 should be the legal age. Remember, every human being deserves free will, but if you stick it in their face when they are young you are basically choosing for that child. Teaching a 7-year old about hell and what happens to someone who is stuck there for eternity is criminal. Could someone tell their children the boogy man is real and if you work on Sunday, or say "God damnit" this boogy man will take you down to a firey chasm and torture you in the worst way constantly for all eternity. When will adults grow up and stop believeing in fairy tales?
This smells like something I once read, "the hum(MAN) race believed it was at the center of the universe". this smacks of self absorbed nonsense. in this progression of pictures http://newsizeofourworld.ytmnd.com/ find yourself, actually point and place a (YOU ARE HERE) sign on the pics.
self indulgent myopia, construsts to enjoy your time because it's fleeting.
Resident Jew:
You made a lot of statements, but let's take one for analysis:
You said:
"The Trinity is another result of trying to ascribe Jesus divinity instead of recognizing him as a man. Father, Son, Holy Spirit actually runs contrary to the Old Testament…"
Now let's read in your book Exodus 20:2 :
"I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
"God" in hebrew is 'elohiym' (el-o-heem)
which is PLURAL.
Let's look at another verse Pro 30:4:
"Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?"
you see He has a Son.
I know that after many years of rebelling against God, the Jews were finally set aside (for the most part) and are now partly blind to the truth. That will change in the latter days when they will finally see Jesus as their true Messiah. For now, it is incumbent upon you to seek God and ask Him to open your eyes. I believe God will honor that and begin a work in you.
"The Yellow River is the mother river of our country," said one posting Monday on Sina.com, a major Chinese news Web site. "See how it has been ruined!"
This is in response to the following:
Mekongcola Says: October 23rd, 2006 at 2:22 pm
“NO MAN NOW OR EVER WILL LET HIMSELF BE PUT ON A CROSS AND PRETTY MUCH ROT TO SAVE US, ONLY GOD HIMSELF WILL DO THAT. AND HE DID.”
If your god is all powerful, why would he need to be crucified to “save us”? Please don’t respond with additional dogma.
BTW: Yelling in caps doesn’t make your argument more valid.
I don't yell, so I hope you appreciate this answer to your query which so interested & pulled at me.
You're human. You're not perfect===not by any long or short shot. Before you get insulted, let me add that no human is perfect.
God is perfect. In His perfection He required a sacrifice that was and is as perfect as Himself. Look around, see anybody as perfect as Himself? Jesus was born without sin, did not sin in His lifetime. Jesus was born to die on the cross. Hey, how perfect is this? He rose again. And do take note that He is the only one who was both man and God. He needed to be in fleshly form to go through the pain. There's no other way, you see. Man is sinful..you have lied, haven't you (at least once) and one lie is imperfection. Sin is not mere action. Sin is rebellion against God. Anything done that goes against God is sin: lies, murder, stealing, cheating, etc.. you know the drill, I hope.
How powerful is God? He could have stopped the crucifixion anytime. The one & only perfect Jesus, the one and only God/man ever, His "one & only begotten" Son. But God didn't. We done wrong and we need to pay for it, and we can't because we are such imperfect pieces. We're not sacrificial material.
Now why would a powerful God pay for our sins? The ones we committed and the ones we haven't committed (this includes the yet-to-be born among us).
Well, what can I say? God loves us. Does the Bible say so? Actually, the Bible just documents that God loves us. God says he loves us in this particular place called Calvary.
And He loves and died for you even though you don't believe in Him.
Peace.
mnowlan says, "I for one am so glad that God is in control…."
Exactly what evidence do you have that God exists, much less that God is "in control" of anything? As has been pointed out elsewhere on this blog (see http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=174 and its comments), two millenia of Christianity has failed to demonstrate any statistically significant results of prayer.
In any case, I, for one, am amazed that Believers will eagerly claim that "God is in control" right up until something bad happens, when they suddenly change their minds and say that it's not God's fault — a classic case of selection bias (see http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=449 and its comments).
Surfergorous Prime Says: "God is perfect. In His perfection He required a sacrifice…"
Let's stop right there. When you forgive your spouse, or your child, or your best friend, for some "sin" they have done against you, do you "require a sacrifice" from them, or do you simply love them and forgive them? Genuine love…unconditional love…means forgiving someone even if they don't earn it via some sacrifice. To say that "In His perfection He required a sacrifice" is complete nonsense, because it is utterly incompatible with the assertion that "God is love." If "God is Love" then God would forgive us *without* a sacrifice, just as we do with each other.
Surfergorous Prime continues: "…that was and is as perfect as Himself…."
Why, exactly, would the sacrifice need to be "as perfect as [God] Himself?" You're saying that God is so massively pissed off at us that he needed to create a duplicate of himself, just so he can then slaughter that duplicate. Why does this not sound like complete nonsense to you?
Surfergorous Prime continues: "…Jesus was born without sin, did not sin in His lifetime…."
Where, exactly, does the Bible demonstrate that Jesus did not sin in his lifetime? The apostles did not know Jesus until he was an adult, so exactly how do we know that Jesus wasn't dipping little girls' pigtails into inkwells when he was a child, or lusting after women when his teenage hormones were raging? And if Jesus did not have lustful thoughts about women when his teen hormones were raging, then in exactly what way was Jesus fully human, because, obviously, any fully-human teenage boy will lust after women?
Surfergorous Prime continues: "…Jesus was born to die on the cross. Hey, how perfect is this? He rose again. And do take note that He is the only one who was both man and God. He needed to be in fleshly form to go through the pain. There’s no other way, you see…."
No, I don't see. Why, exactly, is there "no other way?" I can envision lots of other ways: one is that God could simply forgive us. Period, end of story.
BTW, the notion that humans are inherently sinful and need God's forgiveness stems from the story in Genesis about the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but have you ever considered God's negligent failure to protect their safety? Read this post: http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=166
The way I see things, God's own negligence in the Garden of Eden caused Adam and Eve to fall from grace, and rather than take responsibility for his own malfeasance, God's been trying to pin the blame on us ever since.
So let me get this straight…
The folks who believe in Creation also believe in dinosaurs…AMAZING!!!
All of the combined human knowledge suggests that the Earth is over 4 Billion years old (closer to 5 but who is counting).
Before you dismiss this as an attack on Christianity, you might want to check ANY modern encylopedia's articles for "age of the Earth" and "human origin".
A wonderful website is http://www.talkorigins.com. It addresses many questions that folks who would tend to believe in GOD(s) are curious about, offering empirical facts and ASTOUNDING discoveries such as ancient fossils and the EXTREMELY accurate dating techniques used by the scientists of THIS century.
ALSO, for a spectacular Multimedia explanation our past, try http://www.becominghuman.org.
Thank you for your time, and if you are still set in your religious ways, just be assured that I mean you no contempt, and while I disagree with the source of your IDEALS, in all likelyhood, I share the same general IDEALS as many "good" diety worshippers.
I think it's just HILARIOUS when you present hard evidence to someone and they STILL don't get it. Psychologist up there thinks they are mentally ill, I say they are deluded, conditioned, manipulated and utterly closed-minded. Once fooled, always a fool, unless you can actually open your mind and realize the sheer absurdness of any "holy" books' claims. Compare any religious belief to that of the Scientologist and they all look ridiculous, as do the people who believe it.
I used to hate religious people, now I just find them both sad and humorous.
I will blog this article, thank you.
Question: why don't religious nuts ever spell-check?
There's only one way to spell "believe".
ksmith above would have us all "beleive" that the non-religious are incapable of being good people without the moral compass the BLIEble supposedly provides. Let's bring back silent, subservient women, and slavery too! Let's murder children who don't obey their parents! Let's stone the woman who got raped!
Just brilliant.
May I suggest a paperback book by C.S. Lewis titled "Mere Christianity". It is a short and easy read. I think some of you may find it useful.
Following up on some of your comments – When God created man, He gave him free-will to make choices. Man eventually chose the one thing forbidden him. Although Eve was decieved, Adam wasn't. Likewise today you have a choice. What is your choice? And what will be your final situation in eternity?
Many scorn this and joke about it as a drunkard in his stupor. But when sobriety comes, where does he find himself?
To view an interview of Bart Ehrman by Jon Stewart, click here. For the Stephen Colbert interview of Ehrman, click here.
> we shouldn’t teach them anything about religion, therefore God.
On the contrary we should teach them ""everything"" about religion and therefore God.
Not only our religion (be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Budism whatever…) but also alternative ways to looking at things; other religions and beliefs. We should talk about science, about philosophy, about theology… to them, to the best extend we can.
Children are not simply "children"; they are more adult then we think.
Talk to them like an adult. Don't impose your ideas, but give them freedom to think (Religions are about freedom and free will anyways).
If you find yourself insufficient to talk like an adult on the above topic; then learn about them.
Questioning and living like a child is our gift (we call it creativity)
And we can consider creativity as a gift that God has given us as a part of his omnipotence (God creates after all, doesn' He? )
somewhat related to what I intend to say:
"how to create a billion dollar idea"
http://www.volkanozcelik.com/volkanozcelik/blog/2…
(btw. giving God a masculine character is just another point of debate. Almost all religions are built around men, and how men should live their lives; how women should respect and serve their husbands (no I'm not a woman 🙂 )
Not to deviate too much; I just want to say don't kill your childrens' ability to judge and think. Give them every and any resource on any subject.
If they ask "Papa, what is the difference of Christianity and Hinduism" be prepared to give them logical and reasonable explanations. If you don't know the answer don't bypass it by simply saying "Son our religion is the only way to eternal happiness."
The sentence above (and other variations) are simply illogical and have no value to a reasonable man (an your child ""is a"" reasonable ""person"")
Go read some books instead. There are tons of sites on various religions and schools of thoughts. Get informed before turning your mind of and simply quoting the holy words without even thinking for a second.
note:
I don't mean to offend anyone. And my words do not aim to attact someone or somehting. But since web is a disconnected medium, and "religion" is a very critical thing to be discussed with ultimate care; some may think that I've not chose quite the correct words.
I'm not a native-english speaker and I can express my thoughts far better in my mother language.
Excuse me if my words touch the nerves of anyone.
The Constitution of the United States guarantees to each us freedom of conscience in matters of religious beliefs and practices. Your beliefs in some divine or malign power, creator, sustainer, destroyer of the universe — no matter how strongly or sincerely held — are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions affecting my freedom of conscience.
President Jefferson in 1808 responded to a clergyman who asked him to recommend to the nation a day of fasting and prayer. Thomas Jefferson To Rev. Samuel Miller (January 23, 1808):
. . . it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U.S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion.
And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct it's exercises, it's discipline, or it's doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it.
IN response to Bsti who says:
Bsti Says:
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:05 pm
I think it’s just HILARIOUS when you present hard evidence to someone and they STILL don’t get it. Psychologist up there thinks they are mentally ill, I say they are deluded, conditioned, manipulated and utterly closed-minded. Once fooled, always a fool, unless you can actually open your mind and realize the sheer absurdness of any “holy” books’ claims. Compare any religious belief to that of the Scientologist and they all look ridiculous, as do the people who believe it.
I used to hate religious people, now I just find them both sad and humorous.
I will blog this article, thank you.
Question: why don’t religious nuts ever spell-check?
There’s only one way to spell “believe”.
ksmith above would have us all “beleive” that the non-religious are incapable of being good people without the moral compass the BLIEble supposedly provides.
Well BS,
A word spelled wrong, oh no let's blame bad spelling on Christians. It is as obvious that you are a Christian basher as it is that you are a Christian basher. Hard evidence????? Where is there hard evidence????? Even Einstein believes that there is a creator through the evidence of design in our Universe. Design means creative thinking which would elude to a Creator. He just doesnt believe that God is a personal God. You are calling believers closed-minded people? And what of your mind? Is it open to the truth of what you believe? What do you believe? Did you write the book of thought for what you believe? Who did? You say that once a person is fooled, they are always fooled. Can this same logic apply to you Mr. open-minded? You must believe so if you are so open-minded. Who looks ridiculous now. Dont say you used to hate religious people, you still do, or you wouldn't have even brought it up to begin with. Some (most) of my best friends are not religious at all. They accept my Christianity and often times question why they dont believe, WHY, because they are open-minded. Your post is very ignorant and I think you are jumping on the bandwagon of inconsistant thought which comes from a lot of pot smoking and/or selfish ambition.
LAUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OOHHHH, how can a Christian act that way….Dude, wake up and open your mind to a knew perspective before you judge others. I have searched all formats and have discovered that there can only be one truth, and that truth is absolute regardless of what any of us say. And, we all have a right to believe what we think that truth is. Someone is wrong, but who………no one can say for sure. This is where faith comes in. You have as much faith in your unbelief as I have in my belief.
I hope you find what you are still obviously searching for…..@#&$#*(&$!!!
I think most intelligent, non-biased, person can see just from the responses on this message board that most of the "true believers" are delusional at best, mentally ill at worst. The unsupported, illogical arguments they make (dogma) to rationalize their beliefs is disturbing.
I'll pose a few questions to those here who believe in gods:
1. What evidence (other than a man made book) do you have that your god is the correct god, or even that there is a god?
2. If I told you that a bowl of jello was god, would you or would you not believe me, and why?
3. If the bowl of jello was perfect, and I told you there would be no way for you to understand it and therefore to simply believe and not to ask questions about it, would you?
I pose this question in the hope that it will lead some of you to the conclusion that using your line of logic, absolutely anything can be made to seem "real" and/or "true". I also want to point out that if you believe in a god you must believe in the possibility of all conceivable gods, even a bowl of jello.
Most of the arguments here for and against are elimentary. This happens because the arguments for are logical fallisies from the start. One can not argue against such blind idiocy. Any intelligent person who really studys this thing that they believe and read it for what its worth would lose all faith. When we even allow debate it emboldens these people. its like debating what shade of grees the sky is. People of faith come here throwing stones…… ironic since the fate of every soul is at stake. As followers they are supposed to convert people, not tell them about how they are going to hell. Not very christian of you. HA
A thought-provoking thread, Erich! Looks like you've spawned a lively discussion here.
I'd like to comment on something I found interesting. By my count, we've had evangelical Christian, Mormon, Jewish and Muslim commenters in this thread, and maybe some representatives of other religions I've overlooked. And each one of them has expressed faith, by which I mean belief in excess of what the evidence supports, in the tenets of their particular religion. (Faith has to be belief in excess of the evidence: if God showed up and told us how he wants to be worshipped, it wouldn't take faith to believe in him.) Each one has stated a belief that they "know" their particular religion is right in some mysterious inner way not subject to external verification.
The thing is, all these religions cannot be true. Each of them makes conflicting and incompatible claims about the nature and wishes of God, and if any one of them is right, then all of the others are wrong about things they consider fundamentally important. However, the adherents of each one consider theirs to be the true one and all the others to be wrong, though none of them can cite any evidence for this beyond their own feelings.
The philosopher David Hume recognized several hundred years ago that there's only one logical response to this. As I said, these religions cannot all be right, and yet there's no reason to consider any one set of personal testimonies as any more valid than any other. The only possible conclusion is that they all cancel each other out. But although they cannot all be right, they can all be wrong. And really, that seems like the most reasonable position to me by far. Look at the world in general: you have people who profess the One True Religion, which by an amazing coincidence almost always happens to be the religion that is dominant in the geographical area where they live. You have a vast patchwork of incompatible religions, each making conflicting claims about who God is and what he wants, but all those conflicting claims are ultimately human claims. The one being that would have any authority to speak on the matter is entirely absent. If we are to rationally believe in God, we need evidence, not faith, and evidence is the one thing that all religions lack.
Feb 2005: Two skulls found near the Omo River in Ethiopia in 1967 by Richard Leakey and thought to be about 130,000 years old have now been dated at 195,000 years, the oldest date known for a modern human skull (McDougall et al. 2005)
Mar 2005: A newly-discovered partial skeleton from Mille in Ethiopia is claimed to be the world's oldest bipedal hominid. The fossil is about 4 million years old and has not yet been classified or published in the scientific literature, though it is said to fall between Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus afarensis.
Put that in your pipe organ and smoke it 😛
People, please try to be civil to each other. I understand some will flame, but please try to control yourselves.
As to evidence, the best I can think of is fulfulled prophecy. Only God who is outside the time/space constraint of our four-dimensional existence (we won't go into theoretical multi-dimensional string theory) can tell man in advance what will happen. This is where the Bible comes in. The many fulfilled prophecies (very detailed mind you) validate it as no other book can. The probabilities of this happening with such frequencies by accident are off the charts so as to mathematically render it an impossibility.
How could God exist?
There was an intelligence back in the times of early civilization that realized that humanity practiced way to much hatred toward one another. Lots of infidelity and murder was happening during the days and prior to Jesus walking the earth. This foundation of intelligence came up with a story (myth if you will) that people could fear more than death itself, that fear was Hell. Actually, they could also have hope from the fear of death. HELL, HELL, who wants to go to HELL? Many people would believe to escape HELL, and many people would believe so that they could have the hope of an eternal afterlife with G(g)od.
We have lived billions and billions of years and have evolved into an intelligent life form, who knows, maybe there was a more intelligent life than us that has already been wiped out. We are just part of a life cycle that will come to an end.
There is no G(g)od because why would a G(g)od allow bad things to heppen in a world that he created. Why would a good G(g)od create us if he knew we were going to fall in the first place. WHY, WHY, WHY. Are we asking each other or G(g)od??? Maybe God is evil???
If I was a true Atheist, I would be done with all conversations involving God and or religion. I would realize that life is to short to waste my time arguing with people that I feel are ignorant, gullible, weak, and stupid. I would live life to it's fullest knowing that when the End comes I will have no more opportunities to enjoy the thigns that make life worth living, which includes first, family, then friends and self. On the other hand, if I was an agnostic claiming to be an atheist I would ask a lot of quetions in this type of forum because I would secretly deep down inside want an encouraging answer to my unbelief. Christians have a purpose to plant a seed (this is what they believe is right). Atheist dont have a purpose, thus, why do they try and create one???????????
Many Atheists say that Christianity and other Religion is creative bullcrap. The first few paragraphs I wrote up top are creative are they not? And I thought them up on my own only to later observe that others have had similar creative thought (however, they believed them). So does creativity make a person believe in God, or on the contrary, does creativity push people away from a living God? Just trying to give the ever so open minded Atheists, Agnostics, and Creationists another perspective.
What's odd and what I find most interesting is that people dont find the following facts to be at least interesting:
It is a great mystery that the bible exists at all. The anxient texts have survived through many centuries to actually exert spiritual influence on men and woman today. Unlike sacred writings such as the Koran and the Book of Mormon, the 66 books from the Holy Bible had no single person as their author. The fact is that over an estimated 1,600 years, forty different authors from all walks of life—including kings, shepherds, priests, prophets, a physician, a tax collector, a leatherworker, and several fisherman—wrote the poetry, history, laws, and teachings found in the Old and New Testaments. The bible was not even written in a single tongue: it's authors employed three languages—Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
It absolutely blows my mind to learn that some of you guys dont even find this at least to be interesting.
And you say that Christians are ignorant? WOW
Mekongcola,
Those questions are so ignorant.. WOW. Read my post above, because if there were 40 authors over 1600 years in three languages claiming the same thing about the Jello then maybe I would believe, but it is only one person on one particular day in one creative voice with a desire to use false logic to help his own unbelief.
Back to the drawing board dude………
Please please PLEASE!
True believers, please try NOT to quote the bible in your discussions of the bible. As soon as you start with the "thy thou hath shall" stuff I'm like…Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Wake me when it's over!
By quoting the bible as proof you prove nothing to someone who doesn't believe the bible in the first place! I want to hear what YOU think. Please, put it in your own words…that what the writers of the bible did!