Hijack - Endless rehash of contradictory bits of the bible

[Iota]

 

For the first point, Keep the Old and New Testaments separate.

 

Nope, it's all the word of God, stand by it or you don't stand for Christianity. How dare thee take from or add to the word of the LORD.

 

“You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it”(also Deuteronomy 12:32)

 

Revelation 22:18-19 says, "For I testify unto everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, and from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

 

 

 

The Old God was vengeful, the slightest thing against the rules was punishable, much in the same way as the old gods of the Roman Pantheon. However, during the New Testament, God's attitude changed and He was seen as a more loving and just God, not at all like the Old.

 

I like how the law of God changes depending on his mood swings when he's writing each book. I also like how Christians try to dismiss all of the things they used to teach for many generations.

 

 

 

Was this because, according to Scripture, his son had been born? Who knows.

 

No it's because it was clearly written by mere people, certainly not by an infallible deity.

 

 

 

Please do not assume that anyone with schizophrenia believes themselves to speak with a deity. Schizophrenia is...

 

According to the NHS page on Schizophrenia, two out of four of the primary symptoms of having the disorder are "hallucinations- hearing or seeing things that do not exist", "delusions- unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict evidence".

 

the prior symptom is very reminiscent of many Christians, some who express it to worse degrees than others. Some just by praying, believing they're talking to someone, who frankly, isn't there. Whereas others who believe they speak in tounges, or who out-loud speak to God, and think they can hear God speaking to them (e.g. those who wrote the Bible.)

 

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

 

 

2:21 of this video shows the more severe case. Brought on because a woman preacher with clear mental illness is being allowed to teach fear into children and teach the same bat s*** beliefs she has. And before you say it, not all Christians behave like this, I know, but read what I said above, and you should see it's relevant to 99% of practising Christians, and the majority of religionists in general.

 

Just to summarise plainly:

 

hallucinations- hearing or seeing things that do not exist (God)

 

delusions- unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict evidence (Christianity 100%)

 

Sure it's not Schizophrenia per se, but it's so close that anyone who meets this criteria should be very worried about their mental health.

 

Finally- Schizophrenia has unknown causes, but it's suspected to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

 

 

 

And I clearly never said that I follow Christianity. I merely said that I follow Christian values...

 

I recall, yet I don't recall you justifying your reason for following Christian values, in fact, your reasoning contradicts you following Christian values, and makes very little sense in general.

 

 

 

Granted this is just a very brief look at my beliefs and doesn't include anywhere near everything.

 

This is a very nice defence to have, because you know your beliefs are impossible to attack when most of them remain undefined, it removes the need for a rational explanation for having said beliefs, whatever they might be, which I'm sure you don't even really know.

 

 

 

By this time, they would have been considered adults by the community after having their menstruation cycles and able to bare children.

 

Ages 12 and up, Oh, that's OK then. Thanks for settling that.

 

 

 

What's completely backwards is your order on the events.

 

If you look back I didn't give an order of events, I merely states that he ALSO gave up his daughters to be raped by an angry mob, and quite frankly, I don't see that the order in which these events happened, makes them any less sick.

 

 

 

Also, the daughters slept with him to keep their bloodline going.

 

Completely normal when you consider that! I should've noticed.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Iota

[WWLabRat]

 

Nope, it's all the word of God, stand by it or you don't stand for Christianity. How dare thee take from or add to the word of the LORD.

 

“You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it”(also Deuteronomy 12:32)

 

Revelation 22:18-19 says, "For I testify unto everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, and from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

 

 

I like how the law of God changes depending on his mood swings when he's writing each book. I also like how Christians try to dismiss all of the things they used to teach for many generations.

 

 

No it's because it was clearly written by mere people, certainly not by an infallible deity.

 

 

According to the NHS page on Schizophrenia, two out of four of the primary symptoms of having the disorder are "hallucinations- hearing or seeing things that do not exist", "delusions- unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict evidence".

 

the prior symptom is very reminiscent of many Christians, some who express it to worse degrees than others. Some just by praying, believing they're talking to someone, who frankly, isn't there. Whereas others who believe they speak in tounges, or who out-loud speak to God, and think they can hear God speaking to them (e.g. those who wrote the Bible.)

 

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

 

 

2:21 of this video shows the more severe case. Brought on because a woman preacher with clear mental illness is being allowed to teach fear into children and teach the same bat s*** beliefs she has. And before you say it, not all Christians behave like this, I know, but read what I said above, and you should see it's relevant to 99% of practising Christians, and the majority of religionists in general.

 

Just to summarise plainly:

 

hallucinations- hearing or seeing things that do not exist (God)

 

delusions- unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict evidence (Christianity 100%)

 

Sure it's not Schizophrenia per se, but it's so close that anyone who meets this criteria should be very worried about their mental health.

 

Finally- Schizophrenia has unknown causes, but it's suspected to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

 

 

I recall, yet I don't recall you justifying your reason for following Christian values, in fact, your reasoning contradicts you following Christian values, and makes very little sense in general.

 

 

This is a very nice defence to have, because you know your beliefs are impossible to attack when most of them remain undefined, it removes the need for a rational explanation for having said beliefs, whatever they might be, which I'm sure you don't even really know.

 

 

Ages 12 and up, Oh, that's OK then. Thanks for settling that.

 

 

If you look back I didn't give an order of events, I merely states that he ALSO gave up his daughters to be raped by an angry mob, and quite frankly, I don't see that the order in which these events happened, makes them any less sick.

 

 

Completely normal when you consider that! I should've noticed.

 

If you're going to quote me, please use the full quote and don't take things out of context.

I never said to remove it entirely. I just said to keep them separate. There's a reason there's an Old and a New Testament. They are separate parts of the whole story. Also, Deuteronomy is one of the first 5 books of the Old Testament, so after that was written, already this command was broken. Again later it was broken when the New Testament was added. And they are discussing actually taking parts out of the book, not discussions on sections of the Bible. There is a difference. In school when you are reviewing a chapter in Huckleberry Finn, you aren't changing Mark Twain's work, merely talking about a certain part of it.

As you pointed out, contradicting yourself within 3 sentences, the Bible was written by man, not by God, or any deity for that matter. The Bible is what's considered to be Divinely Inspired, yet has always been taught that it's written by man.

The way you discuss schizophrenia implies that every person who has it believes themselves to talk to a deity. I also love how you are singling out Christianity as the only religion that has members who are schizophrenic. ("delusions- unusual beliefs not based on reality which often contradict evidence (Christianity 100%)"). To say something like that, implies that all those who have religious/spiritual beliefs are borderline schizophrenic. And that is an OUTRAGEOUS assumption.

Please point out to me, verbatim, how my beliefs contradict each other.

The only way to explicitly state all of my beliefs would be for me to write down an impossibly long list of every possible scenario that could come into life and all the ins and outs of every possible moral choice that could be made and the possible consequences of each. I don't know about you, but I do have a life outside of this forum and as such don't have the time to write it all out. I'm pretty sure even close friends of yours haven't stated in full detail every single thing they believe, whether religious or not, and what they feel are the consequences of the choices they make based upon tose beliefs.

It's well known that people back in the BC/AD (or BCE/CE if you're politically correct) era that people didn't live as long and began procreating at a younger age. So it wasn't uncommon for a girl who was 12-16 to already be pregnant.

And the order of events was implied from the order it was stated in. I never said it wasn't any less sick. And I don't think it's normal either, just that their decision was based on that reasoning.

[Iota]

I'll make a few points, but I rest my case after this:

 

 

 

If you're going to quote me, please use the full quote and don't take things out of context.

 

Yes I didn't quote all of what you said each time, because they're very big text, but I took the most relevant part and answered within the context.

 

 

 

I never said to remove it entirely. I just said to keep them separate.

 

You said this in response to me quoting the OT. Almost as if to say, whatever I quoted was irrelevant, because there's also a NT, which is an irrelevant point which avoided the parts I quoted.

 

 

 

I also love how you are singling out Christianity as the only religion that has members who are schizophrenic.

 

I'm singling out Christianity, because I'm discussing with you, and you brought up your Christian value beliefs.

 

 

 

To say something like that, implies that all those who have religious/spiritual beliefs are borderline schizophrenic. And that is an OUTRAGEOUS assumption.

 

I don't think so. And I also mentioned the varying degrees of severity of the mental illness. It's very clear that Christian religious beliefs, match the definition of being delusional and hallucinating, in the context of how a lot of Christians do practice. That's an observation.

 

 

 

Please point out to me, verbatim, how my beliefs contradict each other.

 

Like I said, you haven't properly defined your beliefs, so how can I?

 

 

 

And the order of events was implied from the order it was stated in.

 

I can assure you there was nothing implied.

[pears]

 

 

IMHO you can't cherry pick and get a reasonable determination of what is going on. Yes you are correct, relating something that happened is not the same as condoning it but if you are to make a clear call on this you cannot give passes for some things but ignore others. IOW if you are going to assume Lot's story is true and the result of humans acting immorally not God condoning it you have to examine the places where God is clearly condoning or demanding immoral acts and acting immorally as well...

 

I'm not saying there are no difficult or problematic passages in a collection of texts such as the bible, but to point to a narrative that contains a morally questionable act and imply that the text condones it, or for example to insist that the bible says unicorns are real, because it uses the a word that could be translated unicorn in some rather figurative passages is twisting things somewhat. Why the need for such straw man argumentation if one's position is so strong?

 

Moontanman I respect your opinion but I don't agree with it. Discarding the whole plant is not the only valid response to finding thorns on a cherry tree. One could choose to ignore the thorns. One could sit and eat the cherries and ponder the thorns with concern. One could refuse to see the thorns as thorns and interpret them as cherries, and insist everyone interprets them that way. Likewise one could refuse to see the cherries as cherries and interpret them as thorns and insist everyone interprets them that way.

 

You say it's not possible to cherry pick. Well I could say it's equally not possible to thorn pick. You could throw difficult passages at me, passages that appear to say bad things. I could respond with passages that appear to say good things. Someone might look at a religion and focus on the difficulties in its texts, and the ugly stains in its history and see a bogeyman. Someone else might look at the beauty in the texts, and the triumphs in its history and see the opposite.

 

Not everybody sees things in black and white. Some people see shades of grey.

[Moontanman]

 

I'm not saying there are no difficult or problematic passages in a collection of texts such as the bible, but to point to a narrative that contains a morally questionable act and imply that the text condones it, or for example to insist that the bible says unicorns are real, because it uses the a word that could be translated unicorn in some rather figurative passages is twisting things somewhat. Why the need for such straw man argumentation if one's position is so strong?

 

Moontanman I respect your opinion but I don't agree with it. Discarding the whole plant is not the only valid response to finding thorns on a cherry tree. One could choose to ignore the thorns. One could sit and eat the cherries and ponder the thorns with concern. One could refuse to see the thorns as thorns and interpret them as cherries, and insist everyone interprets them that way. Likewise one could refuse to see the cherries as cherries and interpret them as thorns and insist everyone interprets them that way.

 

You say it's not possible to cherry pick. Well I could say it's equally not possible to thorn pick. You could throw difficult passages at me, passages that appear to say bad things. I could respond with passages that appear to say good things. Someone might look at a religion and focus on the difficulties in its texts, and the ugly stains in its history and see a bogeyman. Someone else might look at the beauty in the texts, and the triumphs in its history and see the opposite.

 

Not everybody sees things in black and white. Some people see shades of grey.

 

 

You have misrepresented what I said, i agreed that a description of something doesn't mean condoning it but to say you can approach the bible in the way you suggest accomplishes nothing.

 

If you are going to assert the good parts as true you have to assert that bad parts as true as well. You can't ignore the thorns to get the cherries any more than you can ignore the cherries and point out the thorns, neither is an honest appraisal of what the bible says.

 

I would suggest that the tree in question has far more thorns than cherries and in fact most of the cherries are poisonous as well...

 

You say you can point out as many cherries as i can thorns, i doubt that very much, I am quite familiar with the bible and it contains few if any cherries... but the thorns are everywhere....

[pears]

Then we probably have to agree to disagree on our differing views of the tree.

[Moontanman]

Then we probably have to agree to disagree on our differing views of the tree.

 

 

I would think that depends on your definition of morality and the justification of behaviors demanded by god...

Also there is the fact that I admitted the unicorn in the bible was plainly a mythological characterization of a rhino.... There are things of real substance wrong with the bible, I have no need of strawmen...

[Iggy]

 

Contradictions within churches aren't the same as contradictions within scripture or the faith itself. Christianity is most definitely not black and white. The overarching message is summed up in the book of Matthew where someone asks which commandment is the greatest (im an attempt to trap Jesus in some dichotomy that could then be disproven, thus calling him into question. Jesus' responce was that two commandments were the foundation of all law. Love God and love your fellow man. All Christian law is based upon these guidelines and are subjective.... Only these two laws take priority over all other things.

If Matthew is the message, and "love God" in particular, then why does Matthew say that we should fear God because he can destroy both our body and soul in hell? In Matthew 10.28?

 

We are supposed to "love our fellow man" while Matthew says things like "cast into eternal fire", "eternal punishment", "burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire".

 

If all Christian law is based on love then I don't understand where all this sadistic stuff comes from. I know what love looks like, and I know what "burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire" looks like (I've seen WWII videos of concentration camps). I don't understand how Christians square that circle.

[Didymus]

Re: everything in this thread-

 

Context. The bible has a lot of stories about people making bad decisions. Not everything in there is a commandment.

Fear not what can harm the body but can not destroy the soul.... Is not a threat to fear God to avoid hell. Context.

 

Also, the concept of "hell" in the first place is a mistranslation. Yes, sinners from Jerusalem were pitched into the never-ending fires of gehenna.... Which is not an afterworld torture.... Gehenna was the valley used as a landfill. Those unworthy of a proper burial (murderers and whatnot) were simply thrown into the dump they assumed would burn forever.

[Iggy]

Context. The bible has a lot of stories about people making bad decisions. Not everything in there is a commandment.

Fear not what can harm the body but can not destroy the soul.... Is not a threat to fear God to avoid hell. Context.

I wish, for the sake of your peace of mind, that were true. But, it certainly is not.

 

The context is that you don't have to fear people because they can only destroy your body. The point is that you do need to fear God because he can destroy your body and soul in hell:

 

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell

 

-Matt. 10:28

If you continue to insist that I'm taking it out of context you can read Luke's account which really drives the point home:

 

And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!

 

-Luke 12:4-5

And you say all Christian law is based on love. I wish that were true.

 

 

Also, the concept of "hell" in the first place is a mistranslation. Yes, sinners from Jerusalem were pitched into the never-ending fires of gehenna.... Which is not an afterworld torture.... Gehenna was the valley used as a landfill. Those unworthy of a proper burial (murderers and whatnot) were simply thrown into the dump they assumed would burn forever.

And the word "vanilla" comes from the Latin word for vagina. This doesn't literally mean that we flavor chocolate chip cookies with Latin vagina. It's just the etymology of the word. The new testament also uses the Greek 'tartarus', which is the subterranean land of the evil dead. Besides that, the new testament makes very clear with the story of Lazarus and the rich man that hell is a physical place that people go after they die -- with real physical torture.

 

You can rationalize it, but it says what it says. Read your book of Matthew again. Read chapter 25 that actually describes the moment God segregates people into two groups, and blesses one group, 'cuz he likes them, and tells the other group "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire"... "away into everlasting punishment".

 

"Everlasting punishment"

 

"all Christian law is based on love"

 

You'll have to try again. Cursing people and throwing them into everlasting fire as punishment because they didn't like you isn't so much love as it is childish sadism.