Seasons

Yes, the part about opinion was that I said(well not actually said, but I think you all got my point) that I don't believe in god. Like I said, I think it originated as a combination of myths and folktales and such. The religion gained more and more followers, and by the time the governments used it to their advantage, it was too late to turn back. And although america was founded by puritans, now that we aren't legally obligated to believe anything, people are(and have been for the past couple hundred years or more) questioning religion. And for good reason: The bible has little to no scientific evidence proving what it says is true, it simply attempts to explain the inexplicable(like, say, Norse myths, for example: they were eventually proven to be wrong). Of course, this is referring to Christianity, but I believe the same about other religions too(although I know far less about them).

Aaaarghhh! Brain overload!

I defy anyone to read the twenty odd posts between my last one and this and be able to keep everything they consider worth responding to in their head. Jeepers, guys, I go away for two days and you totally redecorate!

First, since it's freshest, I'll follow up on some of STRMKirby's points. Certainly some of the bible descends from myth that was set up to explain the inexplainable. Some of it (I'm thinking of books like Tobit) is generally considered to be more of a parable in nature than an actual series of events (which is why books like Tobit are not in all editions of the bible because they are contested)

Now what I've said probably doesn't wash well with some, since as Eugene said, the bible is supposed to have been created through God's direct inspiration.

The thing is, I believe that that is in fact the case. The thing is that while God is devine and infallible, man is not. Because the writers of the bible were men (and perhaps women), it is as though all that devine inspiration goes through a kind of filter which instead of straining out impurities actually adds them. Personal beliefs, linguistic limitations, the evangelist simply wishing something were not so, all go into the mix. This is perhaps where we get a lot of the contradictions in messages in the bible.

Add to this the fact that the gospels were written somewhere between 60 and 120 years after Christ, in several different languages (from memory Luke's was actually written in Greek) and room for human error creeps in again.

I'm sure similar time lags between the recording of events and their actual occurence exist elsewhere in the bible.

Then there is the fact that even the decision of what to include and exclude in the bible is a debate that (in the hands of humans) raged on for centuries. At various times there were up to fifteen or twenty versions of Christ's life that were considered canonical, until finally they were reduced to the four we have today, in part because they were verified as being written closest to Christ's time, but also probably because they agreed the most, and also probably because it suited someone's political ends to have these versions over others.

Even now there is no standard translation or standard set of inclusions. Pulp Fiction's famous Ezekiel 25:17 reads a lot less powerfully in most of the editions I have looked at. Tobit, the book I mentioned earlier, is not included in all editions. In some it is listed as Apochryphal, in others it's just considered in one with the rest.

Just to clarify, as I said earlier, I think the bible is a wonderful book, inspired by God, but in the same way that the phrase "based on the book" can still lead to a totally different movie, "based on God's word" can still lead to a lesser thing when placed in the hands of man.

There were about fifty other things that I wanted to respond to which I have lost in the composing of this post. I think I'm going to have to start taking notes when I read posts in this forum from now on.

Prof, it was Robinson. PS, PSI may be a reality (though I know not what you mean), but using the word "proven" is suspicious to me -- science can't "prove" anything, it can only disprove things. More to the point, when science records phenomena but offers no explanation or theory for how they occur, that is science of the shallowest kind. And any scientific theory is going to be materialistic, since material is the only thing that exists as far as we know... though if I'm imagineing what PSI means correctly, I'd suggest there might be phenomena that are not one force acting on another necessarily, but could be, like gravity, a function of the shape of the landscape...

Subject 2, "the church is and has always been a political power" have to disagree with you there, it surely has been but religious institutions have actually sometimes been religious foremost and political secondarily. Perversions occur when that order is flipped. Perhaps your perspective on this is informed specifically by the early Christian Churches where whole tenets were added to support a hierarchy of priesthood where there was none before?

But even furthermore, the whole idea of church and politics being separate concepts is a secularist notion. The same could be said for STRMKirby's comment about the Bible not offering scientific evidence. Why should the Bible offer scientific evidence? Obviously this question would be moot before the existence of the scientific method. Now that we have the scientific method, why should this change what we accept on faith?

I had a conversation with a friend today in which he said that although he doesn't, he *could* believe in any God he doesn't find to be logically impossible (e.g. self-contradicting on its own terms). As a result, he can accept pretty much any God that is not omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. So he can accept an all-powerful evil God, or an all-powerful and benevolent but stupid God, or any other number of combinations. Though he views all of these as equally irrelevant to him because he would defy an evil God, and see no point in appeasing a stupid or impotent God. I suppose I can see his point, I just don't go that far -- for one thing, I don't see an omnipotent, benevolent, omniscient God as logically impossible, and for another thing, I just don't go as far as trying to pry open the characteristics of a God if it exists, because I simply have no access to them.

Corwin, it's not much of a news flash that Luke was written in Greek. Guess what? So was the rest of the New Testament. I fail to see how this generates errors.

Concerning the idea of humans filtering God's message and messing it up, do you really think that He is that incompetent?

As for Tobit, it is a Jewish fairy tale designed to teach a moral lesson. The Jews never claimed that it or anything else in the Apocrapha was inspired. They would be the ones who would know about those particular documents.

As for scientific evidence for the contents of the Bible, it is true that much of what it has to say about God and the nature of reality is not testible by science. However, in many of those details which are it has been verified. Archeologically, for instance, the Bible has been shown to be historically accurate. For instance, archeologists denied for years that the Hittites had ever existed, and laughed at the Bible for talking about them. Then they found their cities.

But moving back to the important issues, I'd be interested in people's responses to this question:

If you were to die tonight, are you certain that you would go to Heaven?

Eugene, I was under the impression that the various sections of the new testament were written in more than one language, greek, hebrew, aramaic, whatever. If you say otherwise, I'll defer to your judgment.

However, that doesn't invalidate my point. Ancient Greek no longer exists as an understood language. It differs from modern Greek a lot. For the most part they are like separate species. Now the bible you and I grew up with was written in English. Not every concept in every language has an equivalent in others. Russian, as far as I'm aware, doesn't have articles (the, a, an) and there are languages in the pacific region which do not have past and future tenses.

The point being is that what we read in the bible has been altered from the original by a combination of translation, human error, human action and simply by the passage of time. You may be right that God may have been able to directly inspire evangelists so that what they turned out was pure. However, that does not mean that others could not have manipulated it over the centuries to support their own ends or because it clashed with their own personal beliefs.

There is another subject we haven't covered, that of oral tradition, which for the most part was responsible for preserving the deeds and words of Christ until they were finaaly written down. Now, tales do grow in the telling. Details get lost or added. Certain minor inconsistencies between various accounts show that.

I am not in any way trying to say that the bible has been corrupted by all of this. The words change, but the essence of the message lives on. Change is an inevitable result of being part of the world. It is the reason why we have protestantism for one thing.


Now as to your current question, if I were to die tonight, do I think I would go to Heaven?

No.

For one thing, I think it would be presumption of the highest order, and vain of me as well, to assume I was worthy enough.

For another, it is impossible to be sure of what it is that makes a person fit to enter.

By my own personal way of seeing things, I am essentially a good person. At the same time, I have my share of transgressions. I see no reason why anything I have done would necessarily exclude me, but as I say, I can never ne sure.

That brings me to another thought. And that is that there is nothing more inherently dangerous than the good man who has committed a single act that he thinks has damned him beyond hope of salvation. Such a man has no reason to hold back from doing anything.

Which is why there must always be hope, or else, what would stop us?

I am in the middle of moving out of my dorm room in preparation to fly back to my home state...see you all when I get there.

I have no expectation of going to heaven, and no belief that such a thing as heaven exists, but it is beside the point since I *know* that I have no control over whether I will "go to heaven" in any event since there is no way for me to know what behavior would have that result.

My point exactly.

Eugene, if one part of the bible is proven wrong by science, then, unless that was an error such as that which Corwin described, then, by my reasoning, the whole book is wrong. If god himself dictated what to put in the bible, then wouldn't it be entirely true?

And in answer to the heaven question: No. I have never believed in god, for starters. Another reason is that unless they have hideously low standards up there, I bet only a couple hundred of the people living today would make it up there, judging by all that the bible declares as wrong.

Well STRMKirby, you're also positing that only someone who comports themselves throughout life and in every instance in accordance with the literal directions of the Bible (such as they exist) could go to heaven. Now who's making stuff up?

I never said you were making stuff up...

Anyway, who are you to judge what heaven's(if there is one, which I think there isn't) standards are?