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Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

Rusty Tyler said:
The choice is always "Anything but God". Seems like an escapism cop-out.
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You have that backwards, God is the cop-out. God is the 'answer' when you don't have an answer.

In ancient times - when people knew little - gods seemed to make sense. The human mind is focused on social interaction. Getting along with others is vitally important for society to work, and has big advantages. So when humans interact with the natural environment there's a tendency to apply the same thinking. No rain, crops failing? Perhaps you did something to upset the 'gods' of weather or fertility. So you offer them something and what do you know - it rains and the seeds germinate. It's silly magical thinking, but once the 'correlation' has been established it reinforces the theory - and a religion is born.

Rusty Tyler said:
Where does that leave you?
Those with a God have hope in something beyond themselves.
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A god is not needed for that. Hoping for a fantasy to exist is natural, but when it can't exist it's not productive. Hoping for things we can actually achieve is much more rewarding, both for the individual and the species.

As I get older I realize there are some things I want to achieve but realistically won't. So I've had to scale back my plans and get rid of stuff I won't use. For example yesterday I practically gave away a nice electric motor I was going to use in an RC model airplane. But I probably won't build that plane and a friend wanted a motor for his so.... hoping I get to see him fly it when it's finished. That's plenty enough for me to feel good about life, knowing there is something beyond myself.

When I die I will be thinking about the big bright beautiful world I leave behind, hopefully made a little bit better due to my influence. I make sure to appreciate what the world gives me, savoring every experience as if it was an extremely detailed simulation. It was cold and windy today so I put on some warm clothes and walked to the shops. The wind was blowing garbage around so I picked some up on the way. It's not a chore, but an exciting experience I won't get when I'm dead.

I don't need a god, nor do I want one. The Universe we have is plenty enough for me. The civilization and technologies we have created make it even better. Who could ask for more?
 
Helen said:
You know better, but still choose to believe? I don't think that is true.
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I suspect it's the same for most 'believers'. When I 'believed' in the Christian god it was only because people told me it existed. The evidence was weak though, and in my mind it was no more than an idea - and a fuzzy one at that. But I wanted to know more so my mother told me to read the Bible. That's when the penny dropped. This 'god' was no more real than any other fictional character. To make matters worse the Jesus described in the Bible was even less of a god, and didn't even consider himself to be one. How could that have slipped by the church?

Even after realizing it was all bunk I kept going through the motions. I dutifully took religious instruction at school and even got a prize for my knowledge of the subject. I considered becoming a priest. My mother was not amused. She had me taken out of that class to do real schoolwork instead. I didn't complain because it didn't actually make sense to fill my mind up with religious nonsense, and the priesthood wasn't a good career choice even if I might be good at it.
 
Probably been said before, but at least the position of the Catholic Church is that, yeah, it evolved by random mutation and selection, but God guided that SOMEHOW.

And I mean, I don't believe in that, but, hey, if it's good for the Vatican, it's good enough for me. I mean, God is supposed to be omnipotent, meaning he can literally do anything. It's the guy who created a whole universe just so Earth has pretty little lights in the sky. If he wants to try his hand at experimenting with an evolving and adapting experiment, who's gonna say he can't? Are YOU gonna tell him he can't do that? Amirite?
 
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Probably been said before, but very loosely quoting Bart Ehrman (a respected Bible scholar) from memory, reconstructing history is about what is more probable to have happened*. A miracle is literally the least probable thing to have happened. (I mean, trivial example, if people routinely came back to life after being tortured to death on a cross, it would be mundane, not a miracle.)

Did it actually happen? Dunno. It technically COULD have. But in the end it's like believing that my neighbour raped a high schooler, when there is no evidence for that,
 
Roger Ramjets said:
I suspect it's the same for most 'believers'. When I 'believed' in the Christian god it was only because people told me it existed. The evidence was weak though, and in my mind it was no more than an idea - and a fuzzy one at that. But I wanted to know more so my mother told me to read the Bible. That's when the penny dropped. This 'god' was no more real than any other fictional character. To make matters worse the Jesus described in the Bible was even less of a god, and didn't even consider himself to be one. How could that have slipped by the church?

Even after realizing it was all bunk I kept going through the motions. I dutifully took religious instruction at school and even got a prize for my knowledge of the subject. I considered becoming a priest. My mother was not amused. She had me taken out of that class to do real schoolwork instead. I didn't complain because it didn't actually make sense to fill my mind up with religious nonsense, and the priesthood wasn't a good career choice even if I might be good at it.
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Going through the motions, that I can easily understand, if you've grown up in a religious family/community, it's very human to want to continue to belong to your flock. To choose to believe, however, even if you know better? No, I don't think the "choose to believe" part is true.
 
Helen said:
I don't see a conflict; the KJV, as well as similar works in other languages, have shaped our cultures; that will no change with any new translations. Those texts are much more representative of their time, and the minds of those who interpreted the texts, than of the original disjointed scribblings. I will always be far more interested in getting as close as possible to the original texts of ancient fiction, to not see them through the filter of later translations. I am not interested, however, in trying to keep the texts palatable for later generations. That, to me, is doing them a great disservice. It is, essentially, lying to them. Enjoy the KJV, by all means, for its literary values, which remain the same, but new translations, based on new knowledge, will be far more interesting to those who actually want to know more about the texts, the people who wrote/retold them, and the times and circumstances they lived in.

And if it's not good for the religion, than that's a problem for those who care about that pov. Translators should follow the texts, wherever that takes them.
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To stick to the KJ version is problematic for another reason, the English language has changed since it was written, that adds another layer for potential misunderstanding. This happens even with words that seem straightforward, a classic example is "prevent" which when the KJ was translated didn't mean "to stop, to hinder" it meant "to go before, get ahead of". A modern English speaker will read a passage with "prevent" in it and come away with a different meaning compared to what the translators meant. Another example is "let" which originally meant what prevent means today!
 
Darat said:
To stick to the KJ version is problematic for another reason, the English language has changed since it was written, that adds another layer for potential misunderstanding. This happens even with words that seem straightforward, a classic example is "prevent" which when the KJ was translated didn't mean "to stop, to hinder" it meant "to go before, get ahead of". A modern English speaker will read a passage with "prevent" in it and come away with a different meaning compared to what the translators meant. Another example is "let" which originally meant what prevent means today!
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Language tends to do that to old texts. I loved the translation of Homer I read as a child, and it is still in a sense the "real" one to me, but the latest one is so much better, and so much more appealing - much closer to the original, which also makes it speak more directly to me.

The earliest translations of Sappho are dismal; purified, so as not to offend with her sensuality, and horribly stilted, in a way that she certainly wasn't. Newer translstions, which are faithful to the original texts, make me feel as if she is looking steaight at me, from around 600 BCE. Good, new, translations are invaluable.

If you ask me, that is...

(Sorry, mentioned a poet, please forgive me, Darat.)
 
Foster Zygote said:
I grew up among Evangelical Christians, so I'm very familiar with the belief that people who aren't of like faith can't know true happiness. I even remember claims that non Christians who say they lead happy lives only think they're happy. But the truth is that many people lead satisfying lives in which they find love and personal meaning not only without Jesus, but without any gods at all.
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Well said. Thanks.
 
Darat said:
To stick to the KJ version is problematic for another reason, the English language has changed since it was written, that adds another layer for potential misunderstanding. This happens even with words that seem straightforward, a classic example is "prevent" which when the KJ was translated didn't mean "to stop, to hinder" it meant "to go before, get ahead of". A modern English speaker will read a passage with "prevent" in it and come away with a different meaning compared to what the translators meant. Another example is "let" which originally meant what prevent means today!
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Another one is "suffer".
"Suffer the little children to come unto me.", Jesus said.
 
Helen said:
Language tends to do that to old texts. I loved the translation of Homer I read as a child, and it is still in a sense the "real" one to me, but the latest one is so much better, and so much more appealing - much closer to the original, which also makes it speak more directly to me.

The earliest translations of Sappho are dismal; purified, so as not to offend with her sensuality, and horribly stilted, in a way that she certainly wasn't. Newer translstions, which are faithful to the original texts, make me feel as if she is looking steaight at me, from around 600 BCE. Good, new, translations are invaluable.

If you ask me, that is...

(Sorry, mentioned a poet, please forgive me, Darat.)
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As an aside - have you ever listened to Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc/episodes/player if not I think you will enjoy her take on the Classics - she of course did an episode on Sappho https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zd8gy
 
Language slowly changes, yes, but there are translations to more modern vernacular. I mean, even KJV or even the original translation into Latin were an effort to go back to the original Greek and Hebrew to figure out what it actually said.

I think the biggest problem is understanding the cultural context and attitudes back then. Speaking of Homer, I've heard people for example argue that Odysseus was an anti-hero because he did such stuff like hang the palace maids after one person said they (literally) screwed around with the suitors, but probably at the time it just showed how rock-solid his contemporary morals were. Or that originally he tried to pretend to be insane to weasel out of an alliance; no, that tied in to the cultural ideas of the ancient Greeks of being a smart guy. Or same about Hercules for braining his music teacher in response to being struck, but it was partially the same thing, and partially just linking him to another legend. (The legendary author of the funerary dirge, named after the word for that dirge, tragically dying himself... you see where I'm going.)

I think much of the cult of flawed anti-heroes these days is based on such missing the context. In reality ancient heroes were actually depicted as a bloody perfect Garry Stu. But then it's not even a modern phenomenon. The Romans, whose morals were more along the lines of respecting duty at all cost interpreted Odysseus as a downright villain.

But, yeah, anyway, it would take more than a new translation for that.
 
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Rusty Tyler said:
Another one is "suffer".
"Suffer the little children to come unto me.", Jesus said.
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To be fair, if you read the whole thing, it's pretty clear what he meant. I mean, he even goes, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Which was used to justify literally doing that to anyone teaching the old pagan stuff in the Byzantine empire. But, anyway, Mat goes on for two chapters about it. It takes some effort to misunderstand it based on one word :p
 
Doubting Thomas was a skeptic.
Jesus applauded those who believed having not "seen". (scripture below)

The Bible says that creation makes plain the evidence of a creator God. (so men are without excuse)
Skeptics renounce the Bible. How many other ancient texts do they discount?

Is it fair to reject God on the basis of evidence?

John 20:29 NIV
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed;
blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Hebrews 11:6 NIV
And without faith it is impossible to please God,
because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists
and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

 
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Well, the only problem with that is that the same argument can be applied to any other god, and they can't all be true at the same time. I mean, you could say the same about Ra. (And we've seen in Stargate that he wasn't a real god;)) Or about Ptah crafting the world.

Hell, it can be used to argue that an abused spouse should have faith in their abuser.
 
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exactly.
Faith and Science are none-overlapping.

You can believe in God, but do what the best empirical evidence supports.

Don't use science to disprove the existence of God, don't use God to question science.
 
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