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Post by moviemouth on Feb 19, 2021 3:48:34 GMT
That it has hundreds, if not thousands of interpretations and many religious people can't even agree on what the criteria is for the most important thing - eternal life and to avoid eternal torment. How does an all-knowing God who wants us to believe he is great and loving...or that he even exists screw that up?
I could be doing everything I think the Bible is telling me to do and be completely off base.
How to believers get around this?
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Post by gw on Feb 19, 2021 3:57:02 GMT
I suppose the Catholics will say to go to Church and follow the Ten Commandments while avoiding unforgivable sin. The Protestants would say to live an upright life and that you're not quite sure but the more upright the life you live, the more likely you'll be allowed into heaven. For other denominations, I have no idea.
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Post by moviemouth on Feb 19, 2021 4:03:08 GMT
I suppose the Catholics will say to go to Church and follow the Ten Commandments while avoiding unforgivable sin. The Protestants would say to live an upright life and that you're not quite sure but the more upright the life you live, the more likely you'll be allowed into heaven. For other denominations, I have no idea. That is my whole point. But I am also talking about the character of God in the Old Testament for example or which parts are metaphor and which parts aren't. Many religious people accept the theory of evolution by natural selection for example, while many still don't. This goes on and on. You have the different variations of believers who tell each other they are misunderstanding it. To an outside observer who has read the Bible, this seems like the nail in the coffin and reason not to take any of it seriously. The only thing believers have to use against that is threats of Hell. A Hell that the outside observer doesn't even believe exists.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Feb 19, 2021 4:07:24 GMT
"How to believers get around this?"
Well often by gatekeeping and No True Scottsman: "Oh well they're not true Christians, they're not following the Bible correctly"
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Post by gw on Feb 19, 2021 4:16:46 GMT
I suppose the Catholics will say to go to Church and follow the Ten Commandments while avoiding unforgivable sin. The Protestants would say to live an upright life and that you're not quite sure but the more upright the life you live, the more likely you'll be allowed into heaven. For other denominations, I have no idea. That is my whole point. But I am also talking about the character of God in the Old Testament for example or which parts are metaphor and which parts aren't. Many religious people accept the theory of evolution by natural selection for example, while many still don't. This goes on and on. You have the different variations of believers who tell each other they are misunderstanding it. To an outside observer who has read the Bible, this seems like the nail in the coffin and reason not to take any of it seriously. The only thing believers have to use against that is threats of Hell. A Hell that the outside observer doesn't even believe exists. I agree that it's a mess. Lowtacks pretty much summed it up while I was considering my reply. I suppose that it's like Amazon where everybody uses it for their own reason. Ever since Jimmy Carter united the US relgious sects by calling them all Christian, there's been a sort of false unity and it's been like a struggle between those who watch TV and those who don't. Doesn't matter what they believe as long as they're religious.
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Post by moviemouth on Feb 19, 2021 4:18:47 GMT
"How to believers get around this?" Well often by gatekeeping and No True Scottsman: "Oh well they're not true Christians, they're not following the Bible correctly" I know how they pretend to get around it, but I mean in their own minds. I mean, yeah, I get that they have to lie to themselves and stroke their own egos and grasp onto faith that they are interpreting it correctly, which sounds like excuses, excuses of a mind deep in fear.
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Post by moviemouth on Feb 19, 2021 4:23:22 GMT
That is my whole point. But I am also talking about the character of God in the Old Testament for example or which parts are metaphor and which parts aren't. Many religious people accept the theory of evolution by natural selection for example, while many still don't. This goes on and on. You have the different variations of believers who tell each other they are misunderstanding it. To an outside observer who has read the Bible, this seems like the nail in the coffin and reason not to take any of it seriously. The only thing believers have to use against that is threats of Hell. A Hell that the outside observer doesn't even believe exists. I agree that it's a mess. Lowtacks pretty much summed it up while I was considering my reply. I suppose that it's like Amazon where everybody uses it for their own reason. Ever since Jimmy Carter united the US relgious sects by calling them all Christian, there's been a sort of false unity and it's been like a struggle between those who watch TV and those who don't. Doesn't matter what they believe as long as they're religious. I agree with you, which is why I was hoping for a believer to answer my question. Assuming you aren't a believer, whether you go by non-believer, atheist or agnostic.
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Post by Rodney Farber on Feb 19, 2021 13:25:02 GMT
That it has hundreds, if not thousands of interpretations and many religious people can't even agree on what the criteria is for the most important thing - eternal life and to avoid eternal torment. How does an all-knowing God who wants us to believe he is great and loving...or that he even exists screw that up? I could be doing everything I think the Bible is telling me to do and be completely off base. How to believers get around this? Cherry pick. Most believers have not read the Bible so they allow others (prophets, priests, etc) to feed them the "truth". The prophets only tell you the good stuff. For example: the prophets tell us that Noah saved thousands of animals and his family to recreate life on earth. What the prophets gloss over is that Jehovah killed millions of people and billions of animals in the process. The prophets also ignore the logical: if Yahweh was able to create life on earth in less than seven days, why bother with a flood that took months and re-population that took centuries.
When I asked a bible-beater on the street these questions, her only answer was, "He must have had a good reason." She was unable to expound upon that response. I was obviously harshing her buzz.
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Post by Isapop on Feb 19, 2021 14:37:32 GMT
That it has hundreds, if not thousands of interpretations and many religious people can't even agree on what the criteria is for the most important thing - eternal life and to avoid eternal torment. How does an all-knowing God who wants us to believe he is great and loving...or that he even exists screw that up? I could be doing everything I think the Bible is telling me to do and be completely off base. How to believers get around this? Some Christians think that Christianity is a "big tent", and that accepting Jesus as savior is the only thing that is actually necessary, differences notwithstanding. Others will say, "No, there is a right Christian religion, and the others are false. And God will lead you to the right one if you pray over it and are sincerely seeking Him." And BOTH sides can point to some Bible verse that will back them up - which is sort of your point. And, like you, it sums up my own main problem with the Christian's claim that the Bible is God's message for your eternal salvation. With so much supposedly at stake, a book originally written in languages no longer in use, translated in so many varied and sometimes inconsistent ways, and finally explained to average people with countless different and warring explanations - well, that is just no way for a wise god to transmit a life saving message to anyone.
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Post by mikef6 on Feb 19, 2021 20:00:14 GMT
One way that is tough for some believers - and even non-believers who pick at inconsistencies and the various horror stories – is to accept that the Bible, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, are a collection of literary works – almost all stories that illustrate faith but not theological essays - from the pre-scientific (to put it mildly) ancient world and which not only are NOT infallible in any way but present a myriad of points of view set in their own time and from knowledge and superstition and world events of their own time. This includes the writing of the Gospels and other NT lit. They may be studied for the secular and religious history they relate (and which often must be teased out of the religious narrative) and may be found profitable for showing how God acts through and within history. None of it is timeless. None of it is dictated or guided by god. All is historically based by authors rooted firmly in their culture. Yes, there are believers who can live with that because they understand that this is the reality and any other interpretation is wishful thinking.
Personally, I was an evangelical Christian for a time many, many decades ago but have not believed in the supernatural or life after death or a pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die since then. However, I have always kept my interest in the academic study of the history of the Bible and of Christianity even to the point of learning Biblical Greek and taking some graduate seminary classes and being pleased with the secret knowledge that I was the only atheist in the room.
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Post by Isapop on Feb 19, 2021 20:14:54 GMT
One way that is tough for some believers - and even non-believers who pick at inconsistencies and the various horror stories – is to accept that the Bible, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, are a collection of literary works – almost all stories that illustrate faith but not theological essays - from the pre-scientific (to put it mildly) ancient world and which not only are NOT infallible in any way but present a myriad of points of view set in their own time and from knowledge and superstition and world events of their own time. This includes the writing of the Gospels and other NT lit. They may be studied for the secular and religious history they relate (and which often must be teased out of the religious narrative) and may be found profitable for showing how God acts through and within history. None of it is timeless. None of it is dictated or guided by god. All is historically based by authors rooted firmly in their culture. Yes, there are believers who can live with that because they understand that this is the reality and any other interpretation is wishful thinking. Personally, I was an evangelical Christian for a time many, many decades ago but have not believed in the supernatural or life after death or a pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die since then. However, I have always kept my interest in the academic study of the history of the Bible and of Christianity even to the point of learning Biblical Greek and taking some graduate seminary classes and being pleased with the secret knowledge that I was the only atheist in the room. If a believer accepts your description of the Bible, how can they also think that the Bible shows "how God acts through and within history"? At best, it could only show how men thought about how God acts through and within history.
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Post by mikef6 on Feb 19, 2021 22:48:23 GMT
One way that is tough for some believers - and even non-believers who pick at inconsistencies and the various horror stories – is to accept that the Bible, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, are a collection of literary works – almost all stories that illustrate faith but not theological essays - from the pre-scientific (to put it mildly) ancient world and which not only are NOT infallible in any way but present a myriad of points of view set in their own time and from knowledge and superstition and world events of their own time. This includes the writing of the Gospels and other NT lit. They may be studied for the secular and religious history they relate (and which often must be teased out of the religious narrative) and may be found profitable for showing how God acts through and within history. None of it is timeless. None of it is dictated or guided by god. All is historically based by authors rooted firmly in their culture. Yes, there are believers who can live with that because they understand that this is the reality and any other interpretation is wishful thinking. Personally, I was an evangelical Christian for a time many, many decades ago but have not believed in the supernatural or life after death or a pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die since then. However, I have always kept my interest in the academic study of the history of the Bible and of Christianity even to the point of learning Biblical Greek and taking some graduate seminary classes and being pleased with the secret knowledge that I was the only atheist in the room. If a believer accepts your description of the Bible, how can they also think that the Bible shows "how God acts through and within history"? At best, it could only show how men thought about how God acts through and within history. That is certainly part of it, probably the part that an academic, rather than faith based, reader would be interested in. I had said that each document had a different author (sometimes several authors, e.g. Isaiah). My interest would be to try to learn, as best as can be learned at this remove, what the book meant to the original audience that received it. If a believer wanted to go farther, then that original meaning would somehow have to be translated into modern language to fit modern living. I wish them luck doing that but it is a contrast to the fundamentalist and TV preacher readings of the Bible as if it were written yesterday about upcoming events and can predict them.
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Post by DrPaulsLaugh on Feb 20, 2021 5:47:32 GMT
I suppose the Catholics will say to go to Church and follow the Ten Commandments while avoiding unforgivable sin. The Protestants would say to live an upright life and that you're not quite sure but the more upright the life you live, the more likely you'll be allowed into heaven. For other denominations, I have no idea. Evangelicals believe that it is not any good works you might do on Earth that will get you into heaven, only belief that Jesus will save you is all that is needed. Now, some will say that a truly saved person will automatically want to do good works and some say that it does not matter how good or bad a saved person is because the Blood of Jesus will cover or ignore all sins going forward.
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Post by DrPaulsLaugh on Feb 20, 2021 5:54:12 GMT
I could be doing everything I think the Bible is telling me to do and be completely off base. How to believers get around this? By believing that not everything they think the Bible is telling them to do *is* completely off base?
It's a bit of a strange question, is it not? It's like asking, "How to believers get around the possibility that their god might not exist?" Belief is the operative word here.
The problem arises when the believers are confronted with the fact that most of what is in the Bible is impossible to have actually happened...like the universe being 13.5 billion years old instead of 6 to 10 thousand years old as the Bible claims via counting back the ages of patriarchs to Adam. And these factual conundrums are what created the modern biblical fundamentalist movement in the late 19th century.
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Post by gw on Feb 20, 2021 5:58:27 GMT
I suppose the Catholics will say to go to Church and follow the Ten Commandments while avoiding unforgivable sin. The Protestants would say to live an upright life and that you're not quite sure but the more upright the life you live, the more likely you'll be allowed into heaven. For other denominations, I have no idea. Evangelicals believe that it is not any good works you might do on Earth that will get you into heaven, only belief that Jesus will save you is all that is needed. Now, some will say that a truly saved person will automatically want to do good works and some say that it does not matter how good or bad a saved person is because the Blood of Jesus will cover or ignore all sins going forward. Now that you've reminded me I remember an Evangelical preacher saying that everyone in heaven was held up by a very thin thread by god's grace and that if you did anything wrong your thread would be cut and you'd plummet to hell.
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Post by DrPaulsLaugh on Feb 20, 2021 6:20:24 GMT
Evangelicals believe that it is not any good works you might do on Earth that will get you into heaven, only belief that Jesus will save you is all that is needed. Now, some will say that a truly saved person will automatically want to do good works and some say that it does not matter how good or bad a saved person is because the Blood of Jesus will cover or ignore all sins going forward. Now that you've reminded me I remember an Evangelical preacher saying that everyone in heaven was held up by a very thin thread by god's grace and that if you did anything wrong your thread would be cut and you'd plummet to hell. And this is one of the reasons a fundamentalist evangelical, at least, will not entertain any history or science that is not confirmed by their particular church or denomination. They fear if they read about it, they will be tempted to believe it. And once they think there is a possibly Adam and Eve were not as literally real as you or I, that will damn them from accepting Jesus Christ as the New Adam savior. For them the Bible is a living document where God speaks now and not a ancient set of oral tradition and documents collected over several thousand years. Certainly, not all evangelicals are fundamentalists, but that so many who are also are ardent Trump supporters should be noted.
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Post by DrPaulsLaugh on Feb 20, 2021 6:22:55 GMT
One way that is tough for some believers - and even non-believers who pick at inconsistencies and the various horror stories – is to accept that the Bible, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, are a collection of literary works – almost all stories that illustrate faith but not theological essays - from the pre-scientific (to put it mildly) ancient world and which not only are NOT infallible in any way but present a myriad of points of view set in their own time and from knowledge and superstition and world events of their own time. This includes the writing of the Gospels and other NT lit. They may be studied for the secular and religious history they relate (and which often must be teased out of the religious narrative) and may be found profitable for showing how God acts through and within history. None of it is timeless. None of it is dictated or guided by god. All is historically based by authors rooted firmly in their culture. Yes, there are believers who can live with that because they understand that this is the reality and any other interpretation is wishful thinking. Personally, I was an evangelical Christian for a time many, many decades ago but have not believed in the supernatural or life after death or a pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die since then. However, I have always kept my interest in the academic study of the history of the Bible and of Christianity even to the point of learning Biblical Greek and taking some graduate seminary classes and being pleased with the secret knowledge that I was the only atheist in the room. And the Bible itself makes no explicit claims to infallible or without error.
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Post by mystery on Feb 20, 2021 14:32:06 GMT
I suppose the Catholics will say to go to Church and follow the Ten Commandments while avoiding unforgivable sin. The Protestants would say to live an upright life and that you're not quite sure but the more upright the life you live, the more likely you'll be allowed into heaven. For other denominations, I have no idea. Evangelicals believe that it is not any good works you might do on Earth that will get you into heaven, only belief that Jesus will save you is all that is needed. Now, some will say that a truly saved person will automatically want to do good works and some say that it does not matter how good or bad a saved person is because the Blood of Jesus will cover or ignore all sins going forward. I was raised Evangelical and the religious philosophy of my childhood church was boiled down to only one verse, John 3:16. It doesn't matter what you do or how you treat others, all that matters is that you believe that Jesus was the son of God. I'm pretty open minded about religion and I can find some redeeming qualities in most of them, but this branch of Christianity seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It doesn't encourage growth or personal responsibility, or the development of a mature conscience. They don't seek wisdom or humility, and they tend to view God as the sky daddy who grants wishes and excuses their transgressions. God is there to serve them, rather than vice versa. It just boggles my mind. Some of the very worst people I know claim to be devout Christians, and yet they are incredibly self centered and egotistical, they act without conscience, and they become outraged if you hold them accountable for their actions. It's not good. Obviously not all Christians are toxic like that, but I know enough to make me lose a lot of respect for the faith. Religion should make people strive to become better human beings, not merely enable and excuse bad behavior. |
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Post by Father Jack on Feb 20, 2021 14:47:41 GMT
Evangelicals believe that it is not any good works you might do on Earth that will get you into heaven, only belief that Jesus will save you is all that is needed. Now, some will say that a truly saved person will automatically want to do good works and some say that it does not matter how good or bad a saved person is because the Blood of Jesus will cover or ignore all sins going forward. I was raised Evangelical and the religious philosophy of my childhood church was boiled down to only one verse, John 3:16. It doesn't matter what you do or how you treat others, all that matters is that you believe that Jesus was the son of God. I'm pretty open minded about religion and I can find some redeeming qualities in most of them, but this branch of Christianity seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It doesn't encourage growth or personal responsibility, or the development of a mature conscience. They don't seek wisdom or humility, and they tend to view God as the sky daddy who grants wishes and excuses their transgressions. God is there to serve them, rather than vice versa. It just boggles my mind. Some of the very worst people I know claim to be devout Christians, and yet they are incredibly self centered and egotistical, they act without conscience, and they become outraged if you hold them accountable for their actions. It's not good. Obviously not all Christians are toxic like that, but I know enough to make me lose a lot of respect for the faith. Religion should make people strive to become better human beings, not merely enable and excuse bad behavior. Great post. Surely the salvation of the soul offered by JC comes from actually living his earthly example... Love, compassion, peace, poverty, and all that good shit. He was a teacher of how to live. Personal redemption is achieved through living what he taught. You can't just say 'Jesus saves', then go about your life being a bigoted, hate filled, money-grubbing, self serving twat 🤨 |
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Post by Isapop on Feb 20, 2021 16:59:10 GMT
Surely the salvation of the soul offered by JC comes from actually living his earthly example... Love, compassion, peace, poverty, and all that good shit. Is that really sufficient for salvation? You left out believing that Jesus was sent by God and, accordingly, getting baptized a Christian. If a person lives as you describe absent what I've mentioned, does salvation still await them?
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