Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 208 - 219 of 6,170
Posts 208 - 219 of 6,170
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?
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?
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.
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?
Anyway, who are you to judge what heaven's(if there is one, which I think there isn't) standards are?
Crab, I'm confused. I thought Heaven was a part of the Jewish faith. Or is this just a personal belief of yours?
STRMKirby the bible's truth is not in the historical facts. It's not who lived when and in what circumstances. It's about HOW that person lived.
STRMKirby the bible's truth is not in the historical facts. It's not who lived when and in what circumstances. It's about HOW that person lived.
STRMKirby: I wasn't. I was challenging your notion that only 200 people would go to heaven.
Corwin: I was speaking as me, not representing anything about Judaism. In general, I speak for myself unless I specifically describe something as a Jewish tenet. But no, there's not really a Heaven in Judaism with the exception of in some medieval (read: influenced by Christianity) and mystical writing, which does not have the force of law or divine speech. There *is* the notion of a world-to-come, but I don't think that's really very similar at all to Christian Heaven or Islamic Paradise, for instance. And it's pretty hard to get kicked out of the world-to-come.
Corwin: I was speaking as me, not representing anything about Judaism. In general, I speak for myself unless I specifically describe something as a Jewish tenet. But no, there's not really a Heaven in Judaism with the exception of in some medieval (read: influenced by Christianity) and mystical writing, which does not have the force of law or divine speech. There *is* the notion of a world-to-come, but I don't think that's really very similar at all to Christian Heaven or Islamic Paradise, for instance. And it's pretty hard to get kicked out of the world-to-come.
For the record, I believe in God but as far as I've been able to tell, my view of God isn't covered in any conventional religion and would be rather annoying to describe in detail. It has a lot to do with the way I think reality is set up. Anyway, I'm not stupid enough to assume I'm getting into heaven, or whatever you wanna call it. I'm not assuming I'll go to hell either, but it doesn't really matter what I think because I'm not the one making the decision. For all I know, maybe when the time comes God will be having the godly equivalent of a bad hair day and stick me in hell when if he'd been in a good mood I woulda gone to heaven.
What I find interesting is that the Bible lists all these things you shouldn't do, and then says that no matter how much you sin you'll be forgiven. I think this could (and most likely has) caused some pretty stupid behavior on our part. "Well gee I really SHOULDN'T kill my husband, but I'm gonna be forgiven anyway, so why not?" Does this mean the unbelievers and idol-worshippers and whatever else are gonna be forgiven for being infidels? Oh gee, how the medieval Christian church would've loved me.
Ok, I have no idea what my point was but Liddora's been distracting me and I just got a bug I should prolly report.
What I find interesting is that the Bible lists all these things you shouldn't do, and then says that no matter how much you sin you'll be forgiven. I think this could (and most likely has) caused some pretty stupid behavior on our part. "Well gee I really SHOULDN'T kill my husband, but I'm gonna be forgiven anyway, so why not?" Does this mean the unbelievers and idol-worshippers and whatever else are gonna be forgiven for being infidels? Oh gee, how the medieval Christian church would've loved me.
Ok, I have no idea what my point was but Liddora's been distracting me and I just got a bug I should prolly report.
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