I was kicked out of religous instruction at school for debating with the teacher,
She told us that Jesus walked on water, and I pointed out that in the language that the original documentation was written she will find that the word for in and the word for on are actually one is the same.
So it stood to reason that if you wanted to impress someone with such a character, you would interperate the story as Jesus walking on water rather than Jesus walking in water.
That was enough to have me sent to the library for that first period each tuesday whilst the others were further brainwashed.
I didnt notice any Hinduism or Budism being taught at these religous instruction sessions,
Ironic?
Hardly,
Budists and Hindus dont seem to feel quite the same need to force their beliefs on others.
Thus began my spending of my time constructively to learn in the library instead of have my head filled with guilt and fear.
and Yes, Jesus would have looked more like Dany devito than the classic image we see today.
If you want to control people you need to unite them so they can be easily manipulated hence the birth of religions of all shapes and forms,
And fear of the unknown is a basic tool for recruitment, Like lets say, What if God created man? arent you scared to find out what will happen to you when you die?
Some will go, Oh my gosh, I might burn in hell for an eternity and there you have a new recruit,
If there is a God, I am sure he is mighty pissed at having his name used to wage war and make peoples life riddled with Guilt and Fear,
Any God who would want that from me can't be a god of any worth anyway.
62 Ragtop Herbie with a little extra oomph.
Oh my god !!
Right thats it i'm selling anything i have vw based!!! It's all just too much !!! now how much was that cbr i was looking at !!!then i can tell ya what it's like when i have died!.....................
Da Time For The Aircooled Revolution Is Upon US.
Brothers & Sisters Lets Hit The Streets, Roll As One. And Feel The Power Of The Aircooled Storm.
i was embraced as a top student in my religious studies as i was at constant debate with the teacher... i was however reprimanded when i showed the the teacher that in the times of the virgin mary, 'a vrigin' was a lady aged between 16-25... more like a mrs or ms rather than sexual status as we know it today.
i have noticed in many religious debates over the net that they rarely get heated... juicy yes, but not angry 'ooh i hate you christian' etc etc. i think theyre fun!
ill bet jesus drove a splitty!
odin>jesus
Herbie wrote:She told us that Jesus walked on water, and I pointed out that in the language that the original documentation was written she will find that the word for in and the word for on are actually one is the same.
So it stood to reason that if you wanted to impress someone with such a character, you would interperate the story as Jesus walking on water rather than Jesus walking in water.
Matt 14:25,
int the original Koine Greek,
"
peripatoan epi tairn thalassan" (that's how we'd pronounce it)
Translated literally; "walking on the water."
The Greek word for 'on' is
epi. It can also be translated using 'to' or 'against', but leading scholars (non-christian scholars) agree that in this instance it is 'on'.
The greek word for 'in' is
en.
Just wanted to clear that up.
Herb, God is not about riddling people's lives with guilt and or fear, or causing wars. People cause all of those things. But being God means he is God and therefore supreme. There are consequences for wrong actions, that's why people feel guilty.
Even you'd have to agree there is such a thing as right and wrong.
[Edited on 16/3/2005 by pete wood]
Thats very true, people abuse religion and thats probably the thorn in my side, not so much any religion in itself.
I guess I have been witness to too much religion abuse.
I am curious to know why we are talking about the Greek language, were the scriptures that were hand selected for the bible for this portion written in greek?
I have been led to believe it was Hebrew, I am interested to find if I have actually been mislead in this matter,
Not that it will change my thoughts on the matter, but it wouldnt hurt to know if that is not actually the case with the translation.
Cheers Anthony
PS Can you tell I'm not so wound up about it now as its been withdrawn.
I'm sure Jonny777 is a cool dude, but I'm glad my objection was noted and further more agreed with as much as it was.
If you dont stand for something, you'll go for anything.
62 Ragtop Herbie with a little extra oomph.
You are right about Hebrew being a key biblical language, but that is only the case for the Old Testament (OT), that is all the books until Matthew. Although even some of those are even in slightly different dialect called Aramaic.
Everything after and including Matthew, that is the New Testament, was written in the Greek dialect of the day (1st century) called Koine Greek. Greek became the cheif language in the middle east after Alexander the Great (greek dude) conquered that part of the world a few hundred years before Jesus was born.
Now Jesus and most of Israel spoke Aramaic mostly, but the New Testament books seemed to have been written in Greek so that they could be spread all over the Roman empire to Jews living elsewhere, many of whom didn't speak Aramaic.
On a side note, Greek was so popular that the OT was translated into Greek about 100 years before Jesus was born. This version was called the LXX. The letters refer to the number of rabbis or priests or something involved. This Greek version was the standard for most Jews for many centuries after. It's also generally accepted that Jesus was fluent in Greek too.
Interesting stuff eh?
Might also interest you to know that the bible is regarded as the most reliable historical document of all time. There are literally thousands of accurate historical copies.
Heaps of people reckon Julius Caesar existed but there are only a handful of documents talking vaguely about him.
Yet, with all the copies of the bible floating around, some people like to say Jesus never existed. Some people... :o
Anthony, I respect you and removed the post for that reason. It was obvious the guy's story wasn't welcome and I didn't want it to result in more trouble between us or anyone else here.
Glad to see you take it like a fellow dubber. You can call me the zombie with the kombi. :P
I am sure Jesus existed,
and I'm sure that its quite natural to Nail someone up if they behave differently or seem too peaceful, cos that gets treated with suspicion.
No worries Jonno,
You just hit a nerve on a tender subject.
Its Ironic that he went against the grain, now anyone opposing his followers are today, going against the Grain.
I always think of Jesus as the Masiah from Monte pythons life of brian,
having the most innocent statement misconstrued and inflated out of context.
I guess we will never really know as none of us were actually there.
Accurate? most replicated sounds more realistic.
We can never really know just how accurate and In the correct context the Bible is because time has swallowed the unbiased evidence for comparison.
I bet the original litriature says Celebrate not Celibate.:thumb
62 Ragtop Herbie with a little extra oomph.
see there are so many problems with the new and old testament... for example... adam and eve. according to the old testament we are one biiig happy family, and we are all related in one way or another. now if adam and eve were the only couple, where on earth did all of these black people come from? caucasians asians africans europeans ugly people middle eastern... all from the same white couple?
and dont get me started on noahs ark
Herb,
replicated is the right word. The copies all goes back to the original testimony of the guys who wrote the accounts of Jesus life, the gospels, and the early letter to the churches.
The gospels are interesting. They were all written by different guys from different perspectives. At least two were tradesmen and one was a doctor. Doctors deal with reality everyday and no tradesman i've ever met swallows bullsh#t.
If these guys hadn't seen it all with there own eyes and known it to be true they wouldn't have written it down. They had nothing to gain from it, in fact all Jesus apostles were killed eventually for following him. It wasn't until many centuries later that the christians got any real power. They were just persecuted, killed and tortured before that, all because they wouldn't worship the roman emperors of the time.
Kikko,
I won't go into great detail about Adam and Eve. There's way too much debate and too much misunderstanding to be had in this setting, but i'd be more happy to thrash it out over a beer anytime. I'm not too far from you.
Same goes for you Herb or anyone here, send me an email, and we can have a barbie and debate all this stuff if you want.
Also can I say, thanx for actually being willing to discuss the real questions instead of just bashing stuff indiscriminantly. 🙂
as with you pete. good intellectual discussion.
and yes, beers are good we must do it sometime
Actually my father read a book once that proved the veracity of the bible from a mathematicians perspective.
If you look at the original transcripts of the bible in Hebrew and Greek, start at the beginning in Genesis, every single word (and sentence and therefore the whole book) in the bible is divisible by 7. The probability of a human composing such a thing is impossible.... so I guess you could deduce that the men who wrote the bible were influenced by something higher than themselves.
Dunno... guess it depends on the way you look at it
😉
Theres a website that looks at bible numerics if you're interested
(
http://sigler.org/finnestad/bible.htm)
Hehe i was just joking when I said jeus was black. But he definitely did drive a splitty.
My view on the bible is that it is a historical document, and like any other historical document it has human errors and bias. i.e. it is not a fax from God. Also I don't interpret it literally, unlike a lot of Americans who believe in Creationism. Its something like 60% or 70% of Americans believe in it, compared to the rest of the developed world which is around less than 10% or so.
Caesar is mentioned in a lot more than just a handfull of documents, his head is embossed in a bit more than a handfull coins, there are a few busts, statues of him as well as being mentioned by a few different civilizations of the time.
There may be a lot of copies of the Bible, but there are also a lot of copies of the Da Vinci code (which is utter rubbish). I'm not discounting the bible, but I'm just trying to say that popularity does not equal credibility (I guess it probably diminishes it).
Jon
Where has the pic gone i wanna see an accident , why is there talk of religion?????
"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you." - Anonymous 🥷
As for the authors of the new testament...
The majority is attributed to a man whom his contemporaries thought was mad (Saul/Paul). He had no personal relationship with the historical figure of Jesus, yet called himself an Apostle after some dehydrated right brain "visions" (ie delirium). He wrote "moralistically" about the mores of the time and culture of which he was immersed - moral standards not "devine" standards - morals which the churches who accept this mans ravings purport to be the guidelines for living. It is also interesting to note that his are the only canonincal writings which carry his own authority ("I") rather than the will of his imaginary friend.
Don't forget how many Ecumenical Councils added and deleted books from what is know regarded as the bible.
Like any document regarding an historical period you need to review it against other sources. Including those the churches have tried to (and in many cases succeeded) supress.
If only divinity and other myths weren't tied up in the political life of Jesus would be very good for people to understand. Once you remove the selfish motivation of an eternal life of joy (after you die so you can't complain if it isn't there) and put some of the tennents of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic philosophy to practice for the good of real living people then maybe we wouldn't need the carrot of "heaven" to inspire egalitarianism and agape.
Don't be too worried about hell either. If you read the texts you will see that if you are happy now without "god" you will be happy later (if you believe you are more than worm food after dying) as hell is not given to us as fire and brimestone but simply abscence of god. To many people that sounds like heaven.
[Edited on 16-3-2005 by HotRodMatt]
also according to sciptures, no one has yet entered heaven or hell. as the day of judgement has not come and it is said that the day of judgement shall be the day when heaven and hell's gates shall burst open and people can party.
so here we have billions upon billions of souls just kinda sittin round waiting for our tickets until we get so messed up the day of judgement cometh and kicketh our asses out of this world and into the next, then we can go in...
and yet when taught in school church etc. we are told when we die our spirit shall go to heaven or hell... no mention of this limbo that we have to wait for, possibly as it is not as enticing as heaven or as frightening as hell? its like those tiny disclaimers on mobile phone ads... costs nothing for the phone, but the plans gonna roll over you for around 2 years!
If I go to Hell, it will be full of gorgeous young ladies all wanting to touch my body but they would have sealed over vaginas,and an adversion to oral sex,
and there would be constant music by jarule and 50 cent and all his croneys playing 24/7 and I couldn't turn it off
and of course there would be all these bloody christians blocking my view in all directions, and still trying to convince me of the meaning of things that no one really understands, despite all the evidence of their misguided efforts, like "Hello, you're in Hell."
Which makes a very Bable fish type loop in the scheme of things, doesnt it.
My Hell would have heaps of christians in it therefore something would have gone awefully wrong for the Christians.
Here is an interesting story
Hell is alledgedly well known for being hot in comparison to Heaven.
Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?
The following is supposedly an actual question given on a university chemistry exam. The answer by one student was so profound that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"
So there you have it,
Debating a topic at a BBQ or over a Beer with someone who has made a point of devoting their life to learning the Dogma of Christianity and all the appropriate answers for non believers sounds like hard futile work to me.
I would eventually grow wearing of the discussion as my life is not dedicated to the subject and it would become a life long debate,
a debate to the death as it were,
I'm not prepared to waste that much time.
to spend the sort of time and effort it would take to win a debate with a devout christian talking about god jesus and the bible means I may as well be one if I'm going to spend my life discussing the subject.
Therefore even the opposer loses in the long run as he has his life consumed by talking about god anyway.
I'm sure many a person has been worn down, confused and converted.
You need to debate these things with someone who is equally devoted to disproving christianity, an equal battle, now That would make for a great TV Show.
World series religous debating.
History Survey says,.......
No doubt it would result in another war, cos no one likes to be told that they are wrong especially if they are quite convinced that they are right.
Fundamentalists of anything are quite dangerous, for they believe that they are undeniably correct in their devotion, and they dont want it questioned in case they discover that they have been barking up the wrong tree all their life, everything they live for hinges on their being correct, they will fight to the death.
Its excactly this sort of devotion that allows people to walk into crowded puplic areas with explosives strapped to their chest in the belief that they are working for the greater good.
The world is so corupt and there are so many hidden agendas that one persons life time is not nearly enough to spend trying to find the real Truth about anything.
And even if you did, then you die and someone else starts to work it out all over again.
Its really not the main show, its a sideshow.
Dont focus on the wrong part of the story.
Create your own reality with your own new experiences,
it doesnt matter if your wrong in the long run, its not a test, its the adventure of life.
Although if religion was not being discussed a BBQ sounds quite good but I dont drink Beer much more than Urine, however White russians are my favourite at the moment, Once I learned you could have a Kaluah and milk with more alcohol, I was impressed.:beer
62 Ragtop Herbie with a little extra oomph.
i think you should all worship me... become fundamentalist fishtians!
herbie, id like to know your opinion of those who worship a living being for his teachings instead of a god. rastafarians worship haile silasse as a god for his teachings on the opression of the african race, spirituality etc etc. they do have a heaven and hell just not in the sense that we would think.
Herbie wrote:Fundamentalists of anything are quite dangerous
Have you ever noticed that the middle word in fundamentalist is MENTAL!
therapist has THE RAPIST in it too... both dangerous people
Kroozin_Kikko wrote:also according to sciptures, no one has yet entered heaven or hell.
Wrong again Kikko. There is the doctrine of assumption. Most notably with Catholics and their dogma regarding the mother of Jesus (where you were half-right with the definition of virgin). The old and new testament has several texts from which the doctrine can be deduced, however there is no explicit mention of it (Enoch & Elijah for example).
*Virgin. The term indicated a woman who was "betrothed". The mariage was not completed until the woman was pregnant. If the husband (having already gone through two ceromonies) was absent during the gestation and the baby was born before the third and final ceremony it explains the virgin birth.
[Edited on 17-3-2005 by HotRodMatt]
I would bet that the three wise men were much wiser than joseph, they knew what Mary Liked, thats how they knew Jesus was coming.
62 Ragtop Herbie with a little extra oomph.
Three gifts. No mention in the myth about the number of wise men (Magi).
Just remembered another good one. "God" calls Noah a "just man and perfect".
Damn, is getting pissed and dancing around naked in front of your sons the picture of a man who is just and perfect?
[Edited on 17-3-2005 by HotRodMatt]
And Abraham - the godly and righteous - so godly and righteous he owned 318 slaves! [genesis 14:14]
careful, you may convince yourself of its hipocraful teachings.
62 Ragtop Herbie with a little extra oomph.
I think the defining point for Noah and Abraham was that they both feared God. To God, that's more important than a person trying to be perfect to attain God's satisfaction (an impossibility).
(Gen 6:8) But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
That was very fortunant for Noah. :kiss
King David is described in 1 samuel 13:14.. as "the man after God's own heart", yet he arranged the killing of a woman's husband to sleep with his wife. David didn't escape the consequence of that sin, but God saw beyond error and into his heart. David rejoiced in God that he was forgiven, and still God's chosen.
[Edited on 17-3-2005 by Jonno777]
So David had to be forgiven his adultery where Hosea was told by god to go shagging.
The the offspring of Lot's incestuous daughters were gifted and feted.
And offereing your virgin (well that was a lie anyway) daughters to ravenous fornicators is ok too!
Damn. This is sounding better and better!
I have studied under the Moore College people. I can keep going if you like.
if you need to have a belief/religion, then think of it this way...
17 billion years ago, a tiny mass of superdense matter exploded and started expanding.
everything we see, and everything we dont see, came from this tiny mass.
everything we think of came from this tiny mass
everything we are, and everything that has ever existed and will exist in the future came from this tiny mass.
EVERYTHING is inextricably linked to this tiny mass!
if god him/her/itself exists, then it only seems reasonable that they came from this tiny mass.
The question now is, where did this tiny mass come from? while there are many theories, we shall never know where this tiny mass came from because we just dont exist in the extra dimensions needed to make an educated guess.
if you need something thats bigger than you to fear/be humbled by, try this one out: the half life of a proton is 45 billion years. that gives us 28 billion years before half the protons in this universe are anihillated. By the law of conservation, energy can never die or be created, it just changes form. now, the energy released by this tiny mass 17 billion years ago somehow found a way to form matter, but matter eventually breaks down again, releasing energy.... nothing changes as energy is conserved. the energy we started with 17 billion years ago is the energy that we have got till... whatever happens to this universe...
this basically gives us 28 billion years to figure out a way to create matter out of energy, because in 28 billion years, half of everything you know will cease to exist....
as you can see, im not a religious person. my personal beliefs are governed by something thats bigger than all the gods put together: mathematics and science.
so by this reasoning, god didnt create the universe, the universe existed for a long time before god ever did.
so who created god?
probably the people who believe in him/her/it.
i think ive bored you all enough, so im not going to go into my theory of why there is religion....
[Edited on 17/3/2005 by Starbug]
in the beginning, the universe was created.
this made alot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.
