Dude

Did you just seriously question the logic of religion?

5/8/2006 11:18:30 AM

this thread needs more edomites

5/8/2006 11:21:07 AM

that makes me think of a pic i made that others spread alot... which makes me think of jews which brings me to my next point.

its not just catholics vs protestants. the countless protestant sects broke away from the catholics broke away from the orthodox broke away from the jews, & much of it is recycled older stories that we know to be reflections of natural rather than supernatural events. if you can look past all that, then you can believe in biblical inerrancy & believe that all christians are christians, and just look past the difficulties of holding both those beliefs.

5/8/2006 11:28:26 AM

Quote :

"So if the repetition of stock character/story types in Christianity adds to legitimacy, then Christianity’s recycling of several stories also adds legitimacy to any other religion that uses the stories before or after Christianity came about."

My point wasn't that the recurrence of the stories added any legitimacy to Christianity (or to any other religion), but rather to the things that are recurring themselves. If we see a great flood in several faiths, that doesn't do too terribly much for the faiths' legitimacies, at least in relative terms; but it does make it ever-so-slightly more believable that there was some sort of massive deluge at some point.

Quote :

"It doesn’t take a lot of pre-programming to come up to come up with Hercules…"

I think you're just assuming that because such a concept is so prevalent. We are preprogrammed to conceive of supermen, despite the demonstrable nonexistance of such people in modern life. The large majority of cultures have some kind of story relating to improbably powerful individuals, and they seem to have this more or less independently of one another, which leads me to the conclusion that something in the human psyche is predisposed towards accepting and creating such an idea.

I'm not entirely clear on what you're responding to with the rest of your post. At any rate, regardless of your issues with the particulars, the point stands that most people take that route than the "Other ideas exist to tempt us" one.

Quote :

"you can believe in biblical inerrancy & believe that all christians are christians, and just look past the difficulties of holding both those beliefs."

This is basically true. Even if you take the Bible as 100% literal truth, I think you'd still have to be making a couple of big jumps before you got to the point of saying that everyone who doesn't believe your interpretation is damned to hell. There's a very few things you can do, according even to the Bible's literal interpretation, that are sure to send you to hell. At the same time, there's a couple of simple things common to every Christian denomination that you can do that will all but assure you a place in heaven.

5/8/2006 3:26:53 PM

sup:"It doesn’t take a lot of pre-programming to come up to come up with Hercules…"

gop:"I think you're just assuming that because such a concept is so prevalent. We are preprogrammed to conceive of supermen"

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to notice people of different strength levels around and have that lead you to imagine "well what if someone was really really strong" or to have exagerations about stories of real people become fantastical as they are retold... i don't think that’s necessarily preprogramming by god(s) to believe in god(s)/demigod(s) or me being confused/making unreasonable assumptions. If anything I think you're the one stretching an idea to try to fit stories about really strong people into the notion that god(s) preprogrammed us to believe in god(s).

5/8/2006 3:48:30 PM

My point as refers explicity to supermen has little or nothing to do with gods. My point is rather that humans in different cultures all arrived independently at stories of supermen and continue to find these stories easily palatable to this day. What is the evolutionary point of making us all able to conceive of unrealistically strong creatures identical to ourselves? What aspect of our psychology leads us to this particular concept of mythology so easily? Why, even now after we know scientifically that such things do not exist, do we cling to their stories (or variations on it) so strongly?

Besides all of this, the "really strong guy" is perhaps the least important example -- because, as you say, stories get embellished and whatnot. I could accept that this one is simply coincidence. But that all of these parallels are merely coincidence? No.

5/8/2006 5:47:47 PM

bump for a good thread that I don't think went as far as it should have

2/10/2007 4:56:43 PM

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out that the Church predates the Bible by 300-400 years. The idea that in that period of time error may not have crept in is a long shot. Witness the fact that some of Paul's letters in the NT are corrections to churches already falling away from the true faith.

Quote :

"It doesn't come down to Christians thinking that God is handing out different sets of truths to different sects of Christianity. I'd say that it comes down to each sect believing that their brand of Christianity is following God more closely that the others."

Perhaps, but for much of the history of Christianity, Christians were spilling each others blood over disputes of theology and power. Also, many sects broke of specifically because of the latter, power. Heck the entire Anglican Communion was created because Henry wanted a divorce.

I'm not sure there is much to Dukes question beyond the idea that true literalists don't consider anyone who doesn't believe in their interpretation of the Bible to be saved, and thus not Christian. However, with a world increasingly hostile to Christianity many formerly opposed sects bind together over their commonality and thus, in a subtle but meaningful way, accept the fact deep down inside that they may not, in fact, be inerrant.

2/10/2007 7:04:24 PM

I think I understand your question theDuke866, but then I would say that even those who believe in the literal interpretation of scripture ( like myself ) don't think that the Bible should be strictly read literally. What should be read literally are the original texts. We don't have those, hence the subtlety. The reason we (protestants) ignore the apocrypha is that they don't live up to the same standards of consistency with the rest of scripture. I don't think scripture as we have it is entirely complete, there are many questions unanswered, but those questions are for the most part academic. God has told us who we are, why we are here, and how He will save us if we accept Him. I believe there is "Book of Jonah" that is referenced in scripture that we don't have. Also certainly God
interacted with other civilizations besides the Israelites, but we have little if any record of such dealings. Now that Christ has died we are fortunate to live in a time where there is no ambiguity as to
how God is to be worshipped. The sad thing is that so many seek to ignore history and reject his message now that we have it.


The question of what should constitute scripture is a central question of the Christian faith. Certainly all the Bibles we have in English are at least slightly removed from the original texts for the obvious reason. There are folks who are "King James only". They will go so far as to take that version over earlier texts when there is some conflict. I think that kind of view is ridiculous. The King James version is pretty close to the real deal, but there are some verses that disagree with more ancient texts.

I think the original texts were inspired but in translation some details here or there could be corrupted. Fortunately, we have discovered many ancient texts over the past century or so that verify that on the points that matter there has been no modification. The evidence forbids the evolution of the concept of Jesus as would be suggested by so many conspiracy theorists interested in discrediting the basis of the faith. The dead sea scrolls and other such finds show that the NT has essentially remained the same since 100-200 AD till the present time.

If a question arises I think you have to weigh all the evidence. Of course this is the same as with doctrine, you cannot just take one verse out of context, you have to weigh it in the entirety of scripture. The same goes for scripture itself, we must choose which ancient texts are genuine.

Perhaps the Protestants have been to strict in removing the apocryrpha, but this is really an academic question since the Bible we have now (say ESV or Amplified etc...) matches the ancient texts on the central doctrines like salvation by faith, the Trinity, virgin birth,... you name it. I take this on faith, in the sense I don't read the ancient languages. A book with many details and evidences on the authority of scripture is Joshua McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict"

http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Demands-Questions-Challenging-Christians/dp/0785243631

its not exactly light reading.

Basically my thought is this, the scripture is clear on the main points of the faith. The apocrypha or the book of Mormon or whatever else should be disputed if it disagrees with the central doctrines. The same is true with interpretations of scripture that we have today, we should always weigh the earlier texts against them. For example, we should never use modern politically correct versions which seek to make the scripture gender neutral since the original texts are not.


[Edited on February 11, 2007 at 12:14 AM. Reason : .]

2/11/2007 12:11:47 AM

bttt

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

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