Religulous

[Pinchandroll]

As someone else mentioned in a previous post, it's important to keep context in mind. I'm no biblical scholar, but I wouldn't find it far-fetched if people at that time were not really comfortable with large numbers or arithmetic in general. So saying something like "seventy times seven", might be akin to saying "a million". A number that by its magnitude alone lets us know that there is no limit or that the limit is so high we should not concern ourselves with it.

True, and that pretty much proves my point. Many people use the argument: "if the Bible is the inspired word of God, then every word is true, thus you can't interpret it since that would subject it to human fallibility." Cases like the quote you responded to are pretty solid evidence in support of my point of view, I think. The validity of the interpretation rests on the reliability of the Church the interpretation belongs to, and that's where Protestantism / Catholicism / Orthodoxy have a few disagreements (though they are in agreement on the vast majority of topics, especially the 'important' ones).

[Kolle]

Originally Posted by Coren

I really have yet to find any errors/flaws that aren't due to translation/transcription errors and the like.

I've spent many many hours of research into looking into errors and figuring out they weren't errors after all.

There are a great many errors and contradictions. But let's say you managed to provide a perfectly acceptable explanation for all errors. In your own post that I have quoted you admit translation/transcription errors. You are admitting that millions (if not more) people have read, studied, and believed in a bible that is wrong. A translation error is still an error. Someone is reading and believing a mistake. Isn't it odd that a perfect god would let mistakes riddle his perfect word? Any admission of translation errors is an admission that the bible is capable of being wrong. Think that even further through. It's not as if we have audio clips of Jesus and the apostles. If the bible is capable of being wrong today (as even chrsitians are forced to agree, unwittingly perhaps), even though it's a translation error, what else is wrong between the time the words were first spoken/written and our oldest documentation? It's very possible there are a great many.

But that doesn't matter. There are blatant mistakes. There are also more abstract flaws. I think we've went over this a dozen times on this board over the years. What you will notice is that christians try to excuse away these mistakes by blaming it on "copyist error". As I stated above, they unwittingly agree with atheists that the bible is indeed capable of being wrong.

In any case here is an example from exodus. And yes there are many more. I could make hundreds of post listing them in the spam attack of the century. This is the period of time when egypt was getting hit by all the plauges so that the jews would be let go:

9:6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

9:10 And they took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast.

9:25 And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.

10:15 For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

Here is an example of what you might see as an abstract flaw. It's not something that's specifically detailed at length, but it's there anyways. When this story is discussed in church or sunday school it's glossed over and not mentioned. I've already brought it up in other threads. You all know the story of noah and the flood. Only noah, his sons, and their wives were spared. This means god purposely drowned a bunch of children and pregnant women. Maybe that's ok with christians. I dunno. It's not ok with me. Doesn't matter if the story is literal or not. It's meant as a lesson and part of the lesson is that god is willing to drown children and fetuses.

Another such example would be the many wars the jews engaged in. As you will read in the old testement, they would not only destroy an army, but also go into the towns and slaughter those who could not fight. Elderly, women, children, etc...all of this approved and supported by god. You can't use the "allegorical" excuse for these instances. They are meant as historical fact. Different bible versions try to make these instances sound less offensive, however.


As for christians today...they don't follow a great many things taught in the new testement. This is the time in the post where I point out my most favorite. It's by far the coolest one. First timothy chapter two:

9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

The interesting thing about some of these rules is that certain churches do follow them while most do not. In most cases it will be one of those small churches in the middle of nowhere. The women are forced to wear simple clothes without jewelry and they are not allowed to talk, teach, preach, or lead prayers. Other churches will blatantly disobey and even allow women preachers.

The simple truth is that many christians and churches choose what they will and will not follow. Usually these sections of the bible are never discussed or taught in those particular churches. They focus mainly on the parts that everyone is familiar with and does not include controversy or blatant mistakes and offensive material.

[Kiely]

What I dislike most about devouts and preaching religious folk (okay and over enthusiastic atheists too) is that they are being taught/encouraged logic, political style debating skills and counter arguments to everything in existence aswell as being taught about the religion they are involved in. The entire exercise of delving into debate is completely pointless and I pity you people being trolled on this level. It would be like debating with someone brainwashed that they are a toad. Even if you show a mirror you still can't win and you are now a toad also.

[Surlok TP]

Originally Posted by Kolle

There are a great many errors and contradictions. But let's say you managed to provide a perfectly acceptable explanation for all errors. In your own post that I have quoted you admit translation/transcription errors. You are admitting that millions (if not more) people have read, studied, and believed in a bible that is wrong. A translation error is still an error. Someone is reading and believing a mistake. Isn't it odd that a perfect god would let mistakes riddle his perfect word? Any admission of translation errors is an admission that the bible is capable of being wrong.

This was the argument I was going on about a page back or whatever. When we were discussing the other texts that were thrown out and how I dispute the fact that the events and the books were "fact". It happened in history ! Men wrote about it!

This is why we look for archaeological proof on things because simply believing what men wrote doesn't work. And the proof in that is in the failings of the translations of the Bible. Men don't have the ability to to write history and have it be fact because men fail at remembering shit and fail at figuring shit out. The fact that it was also likely written by a man and not a woman means the guy that did it wasn't likely to have admitted he made a mistake. Because guys don't like doing that.

There are all kinds of accounts and writings in history about historical events. The loch ness monster ended up in the lake because some dude banished it there in like 465 AD or something. It's written down somewhere, so it must be fact? Doesn't make any sense, and it's a weak argument for religious folks to take because of the failings in it. Requiring a person to have faith to believe it happened isn't an agreeable copout either. Might work when you are arguing members of the Faith but not when you are arguing with people that do not believe.

Originally Posted by Kiely

What I dislike most about devouts and preaching religious folk (okay and over enthusiastic atheists too) is that they are being taught/encouraged logic, political style debating skills and counter arguments to everything in existence aswell as being taught about the religion they are involved in. The entire exercise of delving into debate is completely pointless and I pity you people being trolled on this level. It would be like debating with someone brainwashed that they are a toad. Even if you show a mirror you still can't win and you are now a toad also.

Then you just find a hot princess to change you back, problem solved.

[Coren]

Originally Posted by Kolle

Stuff cut for length, addressing the 1st Timothy passage

The 1st Timothy passage Kolle quoted is an example of an issue with translation. The critical verb there, authentein, is not used anywhere else in the Bible, and how King James translated it is very different than it's likely usage. In the KJV that one word gets explained as "to usurp authority over a man." The word that translated to be silent also means to be in harmony or agreement with.

Around the time the New Testament was written, the most common meaning of authentein was 'to be, or claim to be the author or the originator of something.'

And considering that this is in a letter that Paul had specifically written to Timothy (and noone else...note that Paul was supportive of Phoebe and Priscilla's ministries), and Timothy at the time was in Ephesus which was a center for the worship of Artemis...well in short, skipping to what I think is a better translation of that passage -

[Now in response to the Gnostic teaching stemming from the worship of Artemis that Eve was the originator of Adam and the goddess of life], let a woman learn (in agreement with sound doctrine) with all submission (to that doctrine). And I do not permit a woman to teach that she is the originator or the illuminator of man, but to be in agreement (with the church). For Adam was first formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived [his was direct disobedience], but woman being deceived [thus not being infallible], fell into transgression [proving that she was human.]


So yeah, it *is* kind of bad that tne end result is churches thinking women are supposed to be silent and not allowed to teach because that's not what Paul was trying to tell Timothy at all.

[Kolle]

Even with that version if a woman is supposed to be in agreement with a man...well, someone has to first make a decision in order for someone else to agree with it. It's still telling a woman to do as the man says. Also there are the versus prior to that. Women are instructed to dress simply and avoid fancy hair, clothes, and jewelry. Most churches do not make their females do that. Most christian women don't do that at all. At any rate, even if the translation isn't perfect it just goes to show how flawed the bible is and how you simply can't trust what it says. If a god can't make sure his message is delivered to 100% of everyone in a clear and concise way...then why worship him? I'm supposed to put my soul in the hands of a diety that can't master human language? Even though, some mistakes can't be pushed aside by the translation excuses.

Of course basically any bible you pick up and read will sound similar to what i posted. If one wants to argue that entire sections of scripture are completely the opposite of what's in millions of bibles then...exactly. Everything american christians have based their lives on for 500 years is an enormous mistake. People learned, taught, and lived false scripture.

I think that anyways since I believe the entire thing is nonsense. There's an interesting comparison there, though. On one hand you have billions of people (over the past few thousand years) that based their faith off of flawed scripture (I would assume other languages also have translation errors. I would also assume that before people had personal bibles that clergy would interpret things differently before "teaching" the bible) and on the other hand you have billions of people that were born, lived, and died while never hearing anything about christianity, jesus, jews, islam, or any of that. Just recently in the news we had a tribe of people in brazil that never had outside contact (supposedly). But, we know this is true as little as a few hundred years ago. All the people who lived and died in the americas before white men invaded. All the people on the pacific islands. All the people everywhere else starting from the second after jesus' death.

So who has a better chance to enter heaven? A man who follows false doctrine instead of true scripture or a man who never had the opportunity to do either?

[spronk]

lets face it God is pretty much your drunk asshole single uncle Bob... the guy who puts out some candy and tells you not to eat it, the guy who hits on everyones wife, the guy who swears he's best friends with grandpa Jeremiah while telling the other guys to follow him and they'll steal Jeremiahs car, and the guy who sings loudly while the rest of the family is yelling about who has to drive Bob home based on who knows him best.

[Coren]

Originally Posted by Kolle

Even with that version if a woman is supposed to be in agreement with a man...well, someone has to first make a decision in order for someone else to agree with it. It's still telling a woman to do as the man says.

No it's not. It's telling Timothy to tell the women in Ephesus to be in agreement with established church doctrine. (I admit that it's hard to read with the clarifications thrown in on each part).

At any rate, even if the translation isn't perfect it just goes to show how flawed the bible is and how you simply can't trust what it says.

That's not the Bible's fault though. If I were to try to type up the entire Bible myself, I guarantee there would end up typos and such by the time I'm finished. And that's just trying to copy it, not trying to translate it. That's why the NT is specific about God sending his spirit to guide us in that (Though if I elaborate on my experience with that you probably *will* think I'm a loon even more than you probably already do, so I'll leave that alone.)

[Kolle]

Which further discredits the religion and its' god. The spirit is guiding the people who first wrote it and they made mistakes. If the spirit is guiding people who translate it as well then the spirit is failing yet again. It doesn't matter who the blame is placed on. Tons of people have only ever owned an error-filled bible where translation is concerned. Most christians have not and will not learn greek or hebrew and read the bible in its' earlier forms. If god had a tiny ounce of the power he's suppose to have then something as simple as human language would be no obstacle. Still, translation errors only address a certain number of mistakes. After saying all that I still think some of the bible lessons are pretty good to live by. It won't happen, but I'd love to see the religion at least trimmed down. Here's a few more passages to pass the time:

genesis 1

11 - And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 - And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 - And the evening and the morning were the third day.
20 - And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 - And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
23 - And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 - And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 - And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 - And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
31 - And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

genesis 2

5 - And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
7 - And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
9 - And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
18 - And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 - And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

jesus crucified in matthew 27

32 - And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.
33 - And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
34 - They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
35 - And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.

jesus crucified in mark 15

21 - And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.
22 - And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull.
23 - And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.
24 - And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.

i should note that some will try to explain these instances one referring to when they offered jesus drugs to help with the pain, but that doesn't happen until later in matthew 27:48 and mark 15:36. And of course some will say each author is simply recording one drink offered and excluding the other. yeah ok.

the different gospels are actually a nice place to find these types of things. as we all know, different sets of eyes and ears will see and hear the same event differently. this is good if you want to make sure all angles are covered, but bad for something like the bible when they contradict one another on the same thing.

jesus death in matthew 27

46 - And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
48 - And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
49 - The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.
50 - Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

luke 23

44 - And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
45 - And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
46 - And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

john 19

29 - Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.
30 - When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

[Coren]

Quote:
jesus death in matthew 27

46 - And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
48 - And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
49 - The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.
50 - Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

luke 23

44 - And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
45 - And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
46 - And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

john 19

29 - Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.
30 - When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

I don't see the contradiction there. Jesus was obviously quoting Psalms while on the cross, so he said quite a bit more than what was relayed by each disciple.

[Agraza]

I actually believe Jesus and the apostles existed, but that Jesus never claimed to be more than a prophet and successive generations of christianity have elevated the founder of the ideology to empower their faith structure. It isn't that different from Islam, though I think Muhammed was probably a far less charismatic and benevolent prophet.

Regardless, the fundies ought to be lobotomized one and all. I don't mind pedestrian believers, but the whackjobs that act "in the name of the lord" need to be put down. Even if we did all agree God exists and takes actions directly upon the world I still wouldn't agree he uses ignafucks to do it.

The philosophy expressed in Kevin Smith's Dogma is spot on though I disagree with the existance of divinity.

[Kolle]

looks to me like they are each describing his last words since it's promptly followed by him giving up the spirit


back to the topic movie...one thing i liked from the clip is that he's talking to people of different faiths. i'm glad he didn't focus on one particular point of view for the entire show.

[Coren]

Originally Posted by Kolle

looks to me like they are each describing his last words since it's promptly followed by him giving up the spirit

Well putting them together, and with John being closer to Jesus, and with none of them writing down more than him beginning to quote, etc...it just seems perfectly plausible that Jesus could have said "Into your hands Father, I commend my spirit. It is finished," as his last words.

[Neferata]

There are/have been hundreds, possibly thousands of religions. Each with their own minutiae. We all know this, yet somehow a large chunk of us manage to convince ourselves that our particular religion is the right one, and everyone else is wrong. We all know the "other guys" feel the exact same way, but that doesn't seem to affect our own belief in the slightest. We know we're right, and they're wrong.

Furthermore, the vast majority of all religious people seem to have no problem looking past the fact that they most likely didn't even really choose their religion. Odds are they were simply brought up as a child in that particular faith. Their parents told them it was true, and they believed them because that's what children do. Perhaps they're not actually looking past this fact. Perhaps they think this only applies to the children of every other religion. Pretty arrogant.

Look at this thread. You guys are arguing over the minutia of Christianity. Perhaps if this message board were based in India you would be arguing over the minutia of Hinduism. This is ridiculous. You're acting ridiculous. You have failed The Test, just as billions did before you. The religion of your parents is not special. The religion the snake oil salesman sold you during that tough period of your life is not special. You're not right and neither are the "other" guys. Odds are you're all wrong. You let someone else sell you bullshit.

I have no idea if there is a god. Most likely you don't either. I *think* the existence of a personal god is probably very unlikely, but honestly I don't really know. However, if we're going to speculate that there is a god, I find it even more unlikely that he/she/it holds the "virtue" of faith in very high regard at all. Personally, the ability to believe without proof ranks pretty low on my list of desirable attributes. The fact that most people hold it in such high regard is hilariously insulting. It's not surprising that all religions love to promote faith, though. Religion needs faith to survive.

-Edit-
I know my post comes off as arrogant. Maybe I'll rephrase and ask a few questions. 1) How did you come to choose your particular religion? 2) Why do you feel faith is a virtue? 3) How do you reconcile the fact that there have been thousands of other religions, and the way you feel about their followers is exactly the way their followers feel about you? What makes you think their religion is false and yours is true? 4) How do we know the difference between scripture teachings that are to be taken in the proper context, such as the previously quoted scripture regarding the treatment of women, and scripture teachings that are to be taken literally, such as the teaching that homosexuality is a sin? Is this because something like homosexuality was supposedly still a sin after the new testament? Why do we even care about the old testament if its teachings are no longer valid? 5) Why do we think god cares so much about whether or not we believe in him?

Thanks.

[Chips]

Jesus was metro sexual