None of it is true - Does this bother anyone?

[dogsgod]

Guess what? God disagrees.

"One's intellect becomes steady when one's senses are under complete control."

The highest spiritual goal, that only relatively few people strive for, requires release of emotion altogether. No pleasure, no pain, no anger, no fear, no comfort, no joy, no nothing. Just peace.

A person who achieves this is called a Sage.

And all along I thought they were called dead.

 

[Riverwolf]

...who does not interact with humans using any of the five senses by which human beings are able to have a personal relationship with another "person." That is to say, God only exists in the imagination. On one level, that is indeed very personal. On another, it is not personal at all and is simply open to "every man does what is right in his own eyes" or spiritual anarchy.

Except that God isn't a "Person." God isn't human. God has no form, no shape, no substance...

I'm wasting my fingers' strength. Clearly not only do you not understand, you don't WANT to understand.

All I'll say is this: the most accurate description of God that I've ever seen is this: "It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together." And yes, I know that's from a fantasy story. So here's another quote from another fantasy story: "Artists use lies to tell the truth."

 

[Riverwolf]

Who do you think wrote the Gospels or compiled them? The Church Fathers! Do you even know why those four were selected and all the other "gospels" were not? Do you realize that none of the gospels are original or authentic in the sense of a first-hand observer? Or do you realize how very similar those gospels are to other religious stories that preceded the time period?

Yes. She's said so.

Again, if you are going to believe something, believe in something real. There is so much wrong with the current Christian faith that 90% of people who call themselves "Christians" cannot even name the seven sacraments or even know what the word sacrament means!

That's a Catholic tradition. The Catholic church was NOT the first Christian church, nor was it the only one when it rose to power; haven't you ever heard of the Eastern Orthodox Church?

The truth is that you believe what someone else has told you. If you were to investigate for yourself then you would not believe as you do.

And how do you know she wasn't a late convert from something else?

As for my qualifications, let's see, raised by a pastor who started teaching me Greek at the age of 7 so that I could become a Biblical scholar, very well read not only in the Bible but the writings of those who kept the faith long before there ever was a Bible, a student of history and one who has with his whole heart sought out the truth and found that it is not in the Christian faith (except in portions like the Sermon on the Mount).

Okay, so you're more well-read. So?

I have nothing against you personally but it always troubles me when I speak with people who cannot even defend why they believe what they believe or admit that they have never looked any further than a book that was handed to them. If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would be as passionate about Allah as you are about Christ simply because that's what others have told you. Would that make you right? Even your book says that it is requisite to seek out the truth and that "the truth will set you free."

Truth can be found in the Qur'an as well as the Bible, and I suspect she knows it.

I encourage you to look further and not be angered at me. I simply have absorbed every aspect of the Christian faith and found it wanting at the most basic levels.

You realize she'll never see this message, right?

 

[Riverwolf]

And all along I thought they were called dead.

Nope. You're still alive. But death will mean little to one who is in such a state.

But a Sage sees the world for what it is, and often imparts some of what they see onto their disciples.

 

[kingcores]

"The Creation story puts Adam and Eve at anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 years ago (particularly when we take into account the details about Adam's age and the age of those after him)."

An organization called Answers in Creation, (not to be confused with Answers in Genesis), has a web site with an article that deals with the issue of the biblical geneologies. The author explains how the geneologies could have gaps. So, the Bible doesn't necessarily put Adam and Eve 6-10k years ago. The AIC people put them about 50k years ago. They also accept a 4.5 billion year old earth. The hebrew word translated "day" in the passage in question can refer to an indefinate period of time. Also, there could be a long interval between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, or between 1:2 and 1:3.

 

[kingcores]

"The second problem is this: If we assume that the Garden/fall of man story is true, the conclusion that we draw is that the God of the Bible is not, in fact, very good at all."

This statement, and the arguments that follow, strike me as presumptuous.

 

[slave2six]

...only in the context of the Church can they be interpreted as Scripture, as the word of God.

This is the same church that sacked Jerusalem, Constantinople and other cities, instigated the crusades, spent hundreds of years of excommunicating one another, funded wars, sought political power, burned people like Bruno to death for daring to suggest that there are other planets around other stars, placed Galileo under house arrest for his heretical teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun, and which introduced the idea of purgatory and indulgences just as a means of getting money out of poor, ignorant superstitious people? This is the body of wisdom that alone is qualified for interpreting the Scriptures?

Honestly!

 

[slave2six]

So a religion should stay stagnant? It shouldn't evolve with changing times, as we do? I disagree wholeheartedly.

Well, that's a real problem. If you claim that your Holy book is in fact a divine revelation from God then it should be the final authority and there is no room for the religion evolving, is there?

 

[slave2six]

Except that God isn't a "Person." God isn't human. God has no form, no shape, no substance...

I'm wasting my fingers' strength. Clearly not only do you not understand, you don't WANT to understand.

All I'll say is this: the most accurate description of God that I've ever seen is this: "It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together." And yes, I know that's from a fantasy story. So here's another quote from another fantasy story: "Artists use lies to tell the truth."

You are talking about something other than the Judeo-Christian religion. As such, your position is correct. But within the confines of the Judeo-Christian faith, God is "personal" even to the point of becoming a human being. That is what I was addressing.

 

[slave2six]

"The Creation story puts Adam and Eve at anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 years ago (particularly when we take into account the details about Adam's age and the age of those after him)."

An organization called Answers in Creation, (not to be confused with Answers in Genesis), has a web site with an article that deals with the issue of the biblical geneologies. The author explains how the geneologies could have gaps. So, the Bible doesn't necessarily put Adam and Eve 6-10k years ago. The AIC people put them about 50k years ago. They also accept a 4.5 billion year old earth. The hebrew word translated "day" in the passage in question can refer to an indefinate period of time. Also, there could be a long interval between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, or between 1:2 and 1:3.

Would they be willing to admit that homo-sapiens are at least 200,000 years old, that they evolved previous species and that we as a species are in fact a sort of cousin to Neanderthals? There is physical evidence for all of these things. There is zero evidence for the creation story outside of the Bible. Indeed, the Creationists who have had "the answer" all along are now being forced to reconsider their position in light of new physical evidence. If their position is so maleable on the physical level, what confidence can they have that their positions on the nature of man's relationship to God or what any of the Prophets have said is in fact true?

 

[rojse]

Well, that's a real problem. If you claim that your Holy book is in fact a divine revelation from God then it should be the final authority and there is no room for the religion evolving, is there?

It is a final authority, and does not omit the possibility that people receive revelations.

 

[slave2six]

"The second problem is this: If we assume that the Garden/fall of man story is true, the conclusion that we draw is that the God of the Bible is not, in fact, very good at all."

This statement, and the arguments that follow, strike me as presumptuous.

I have commented on this in the thread Do you think God is morally good? That will give you a better understanding of what I mean.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

This is the same church that sacked Jerusalem, Constantinople and other cities, instigated the crusades, spent hundreds of years of excommunicating one another, funded wars, sought political power, burned people like Bruno to death for daring to suggest that there are other planets around other stars, placed Galileo under house arrest for his heretical teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun, and which introduced the idea of purgatory and indulgences just as a means of getting money out of poor, ignorant superstitious people? This is the body of wisdom that alone is qualified for interpreting the Scriptures?

Honestly!

Whose pretending the Church is not filled with human beings? Besides, have you read the Old Testament? The merits of Israel were not a factor in being chosen as God's People within whom God would work for the sake of the world. In a like way, the word of God becomes clear among the sinful People of God in His Church.

Besides, this is not even the point of the OP. The question regards the meaning of Scripture and I think you have yet to answer for your fierce literalism, given the actual tradition of interpretation which has been much broader on this question and others.

 

[logician]

Except that God isn't a "Person." God isn't human. God has no form, no shape, no substance...

I'm wasting my fingers' strength. Clearly not only do you not understand, you don't WANT to understand.

All I'll say is this: the most accurate description of God that I've ever seen is this: "It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together." And yes, I know that's from a fantasy story. So here's another quote from another fantasy story: "Artists use lies to tell the truth."

In other words, he's a ghost.

 

[slave2six]

I think you have yet to answer for your fierce literalism, given the actual tradition of interpretation which has been much broader on this question and others.

It's really not very complicated. There are two options. Either the "fall of man" is literal (e.g. there really was a Garden and only two humans who committed a single offense which in turn altered them and their descendants and placed them (and the physical universe) under a curse) or it is all metaphor/allegory.

If it is metaphor/allegory then what does that metaphor represent? Does it represent mankind in general creating a barrier between him and God? Does it represent something far more mundane? If so, what? It's anyone's guess and therefore pointless to put in a book that is supposed to be a divine revelation about how we got here and why things are the way they are. And you cannot say that the same people who were busy going about killing other people and living in contradiction to the life and teachings of Christ are the only ones qualified to interpret the Scriptures. That's just ridiculous. (You do realize that as the bishops gathered in Nicaea that they each carried with them petitions to Constantine asking him to redress grievances that they had against one of the other bishops, don't you? So the guys who could not even follow the simple principles of humility that were taught by Christ and his apostles were the guys who were to decide the fate of the religion as a whole. I wouldn't find that very comforting if I was a Christina - BTW, Constantine took those petitions and burned them in a pile in front of the bishops as a means of demonstrating that they had no business making such complaint. It's troubling that the pagan emperor was more mature than the leaders of the Christian church.)

If it is literal then there is at least some basis for the whole idea of sacrifice which is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian religion. But the problems with this are multifold. The physical universe demonstrates evolution and that there never was a time when there were just two human beings, much less two humans who went about naming the animals and walking with God in the cool of the evening. Also, the very nature of forgiveness does not require sacrifice.

So you have a religion that is based on a story that no one can possibly know the meaning of (metaphor/allegory) or based on a story that is both literally impossible and defies all understanding of how good people behave.

If your Bible is true then it is quite possible that he actually did tell those people to fly into the pentagon and the two towers and kill all those innocent people. That is exactly the kind of thing he was doing throughout the OT. If it was indisputable that he did call for the tragedy of 9/11, would you still say that He is good? Of course not!

Futhermore, in order to believe the Christian religion you have to also believe that God is incapable of communicating to human beings in a way that is clear and indesputable. The pentateuch, for example, is supposed to be stuff that Moses wrote after face-to-face talks with God. Do you really believe that God is so stupid that he would invent a Creation story when he knows full well the facts and that eventually we would discover the facts about how the universe was formed? Wouldn't a rational being say,"Look, Moses, here's the deal. It's taken me billions of years to create all this stuff and you guys are a recent edition. Your ancestors are primates like the ones you've seen. You and your kind have some problems to contend with because not only do you have the natural instincts needed to survive but now you are able to reason and that's going to cause problems. Here's how you deal with it..." You think Moses was too stupid to understand such things? You think that God was too stupid to just lay out the facts? You think that instead of telling the truth in terms that people can understand that an omniscient God would tell a story that is mysterious knowing full well that it would lead to an entire history of mankind killing each other in his name?

Personally, I cannot believe in such a God. I cannot believe that a good God could be anything other than good and nothing, absolutely nothing, about the God of the Bible is good, not even within the confines of the text itself.

 

[slave2six]

given the actual tradition of interpretation which has been much broader on this question and others.

If that statement is true, then explain to me why every scientific discovery has either been perceived by the church as a threat or results in the church having to re-interpret their previous position to accommodate for the new data? In reality, "interpretation" of the scriptures by the church has been quite literally equivalent to "guessing" which means that the Church has no flippin' clue about anything.

Rather than having been informed by the Supreme Authority, they are as ignorant as the Aztecs who offered sacrifices in order to keep the sun moving across the sky or the ancient Egyptians who performed rituals through the night because they believed that if they didn't then Ra would never make it through the underworld and the sun would not rise in the morning.

What is really upsetting about all this and why I am so passionate about it is that there are millions of people being told by "Christian" leaders "this is the truth and if you don't believe it you're going to Hell for all eternity" when in reality they themselves never take the time to ask whether what they claim to be truth is even possible, much less true. They hold the fear of Hell over people with one hand and raise the other hand while singing praises to a God who cannot forgive them except after the brutal murder of a perfect human as the "atonement" for a condition that is biological in nature and not at all a "spiritual" condition. Some even go further and claim to be prophets and tell people the most outrageous stuff which the poor saps believe to be God speaking through the prophet to them which belies the fact that such people believe that God doesn't really love them personally or he would just talk to them as individuals.

The Christian church makes people intellectual slaves and thrives on ignorance, superstition, fear, and greed. If that's the best your God can manage then why bother? Oh, right, because He'll throw you in Hell if you believe him to be better than what the Judeo-Christians say about him. Nice.

No matter how you look at it, the whole thing is a mess and ought to be done away with. This will never happen as long as human beings don't think for themselves, which sadly very few actually do.

 

[slave2six]

It is a final authority, and does not omit the possibility that people receive revelations.

That's like having a manual for your car that gives detailed instructions on how it's put together and how to make it run properly and then appending a footnote stating

*Or maybe not.
​

 

[slave2six]

Veni Sancte Spiritus! Come Holy Spirit.

Be careful what you wish for!

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

It's really not very complicated. There are two options. Either the "fall of man" is literal (e.g. there really was a Garden and only two humans who committed a single offense which in turn altered them and their descendants and placed them (and the physical universe) under a curse) or it is all metaphor/allegory.

It is not that simple at all. The dogma is that man is fallen and alienated from his patria, his true homeland. Adam means that the whole human race is, in a significant way, one thing. We are all part of the Body of Adam. Communion with God has been ruptured and individual human beings, by virtue of being born into Adam, share in the alienation and corruption of the entire Body.

The Christian religion is about the passing of humanity from the Body of Adam to the Body of Christ.

Yet, as Chesterton noted, the doctrine of Original Sin is also the doctrine of original equality. Speculate or investigate the origin of the species as you wish, but the dogma held for the pursuit of our thinking is the basic unity and equality of human life. Our actions penetrate one another- our sins penetrate one another. Sin has turned our diversity into disorder.

We have fallen together in the Body of Adam- we are redeemed together in the Body of Christ. As the First Adam involves, in principle, the entire human race (and the whole of nature?) and rendered diversity disorder, isolating the individual from his fellow man and God, the Second Adam [Christ] comes himself as a particular individual and gives Himself for all.

In His self-giving, his self-oblating, his kenosis [emptying] into the human race, he takes up the alienated individual into himself to build up a new Body- one which restores the unity and coherence of our diversity. This is why we eat His Body and drink His Blood. By consuming Him he incorporates us and makes us into Him. He has become the new foundation for the unity of humanity, [the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone] a unity built in light of communion with God.

So yes, our alienation from God, the unity of the human race in origin and in sin- these are true states which humankind really is literally in.

And because man is one, one man could stand in the stead of all* and call us back to our original unity in communion with our common Father.

* This, for example, is what makes Job a proto-Christ. Through his being tested the whole sincerity of the human race is being tested, as the text itself makes clear.

 

[slave2six]

It is not that simple at all...

And that is a very nice and thorough story line except that it isn't true. You clearly believe in a literal "fall of man" although you railed against me for doing so as well. This being the case, the physical universe stands in evidence against your story thus making it moot and nothing more than a simple tale.

Moreover, even accepting your premise, the results are irrational. If God is a Father then "who can separate us from the love of " God? If, as your story purports, man is spiritually broken in some fashion and therefore "alienated" from God it is "sin that separates us" from him and the way that any normal human being regains a right relationship with one against whom he has sinned is to ask forgiveness and for the offended to simply forgive. Nothing more. Nothing less. Sacrifice does not enter into the equation. All that is required is for your God to forgive people. Period. But this is not something that He is willing or able to do.

But your story tries to take things a step further. Not only is it required that one has to accept the conditions of a perfect human sacrifice (something that God abhors in the OT) but your book states that those who do accept this are "a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come." Your religion would have us believe that just as the first Adam was sinless and that his spiritual condition changed as a result of committing a sin, so too those who accept the "free gift" ought to be fundamentally changed so that they are again perfect as Adam was. But this is not so. Indeed, the divorce rate among Christians is 60% (ref). Christians are as prone to "sin" as anyone else. In short, there is no evidence for this later claim of Christians being "a new creation." Evidence against this claim is easily measurable whereas there is no evidence to support it. How then can you expect anyone to believe you about things that are ethereal and unmeasurable such as your story of the "fall of man"?

Finally, the physical completely eradicates the Christian idea of a "sin nature" etc. For example, there was a time in Judeo-Christian history when people were considered to be "possessed by a demon." Today, there are no such claims because we know that mental illness, epileptic seizures and other conditions of the brain are the causes behind the behaviors that were once attributed to demons. And the cures are physical as well. Science has found solutions to those conditions that Christians of former times attributed to spiritual causes. How can that be if there really are demons and a spiritual world plaguing us?

There is no lack of evidence of a growing number of Christians who suffer from depression and who are finding relief with the use of antidepressants. If the spiritual life of an individual has any bearing on their mental status, how do you explain these things?

The reality is that all those conditions that were once considered to be spiritual in nature (possession, lust, anger, hate, etc) in fact are physical conditions. Some of these can be treated while we have yet to discover treatments for other conditions. What will happen to your myth when science has effectively mastered the human mind to the degree that all those things that were once thought to be spiritual have been effectively managed through physical means? Certainly they cannot be managed through "spiritual" means as history has demonstrated quite clearly.

It's all nonsense and the only hope for the human race is to recognize that we are simply physical beings who behave in certain ways (whether because of traits that were valuable in our evolutionary past or what have you) and that the means of changing ourselves as a species lies in the physical sciences and not in the hocus-pocus world of never-ending ethereal debates about "interpreting divine revelations" and whatnot.

In short, Jesus has failed to save anyone from the "sin" that allegedly alienates man from God. So has every other religion that believes that there is an alienation between God and man. That people still buy into it is amazing but there are a growing number of people who have shunned religion (ref) and that, to me, is a wonderful thing.