The Anti-Bible

Well, for one thing, in Genesis, the Bible first says that all life is created from water, including the fowl, but then it says that all life is created from dry ground, including the fowl. That's pretty contradictory to me.

 

Well, for one thing, in Genesis, the Bible first says that all life is created from water, including the fowl, but then it says that all life is created from dry ground, including the fowl. That's pretty contradictory to me. [/b][/quote]
I'm not sure I understand. The bible says all life was created from God. Do you have an exact verse as to where it states that it was created from land or water.

NVM, I think I see what you're saying.
Genesis 1:2
The Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirite of God was hovering over the waters

There, it says God was over the face of the Earth, which was all water. God had made the Earth so far, when he spoke the universe into existence, and was returning to this planet so that he made light. I say this because some think that this means something else had created the Earth, and God just added life to it. Anyways, What God is saying is this, The world was like one big undersea world, what he did was make certain land rise up from under the waters to create dry land. Is this what you were referring too?

 

Made of water but from the Earth? The literal meanings of the Bible you make may not make sense, but use common sense, people. I don't think God was really trying to tell every last detail or thing he ment when he was inspiring the disciples to record this. I mean, come on, when you're telling your friend a story you don't give them every last detail and thought you had, do you? It'd take forever! Well think of that story as the bible. Like Derek said, it was used to teach about God and peace and respect for one another. Religion is not the thing that drove the Pilgrims here. The crazy uptight people that took their religion way too seriously was what drove them here.


It's like hating the game instead of the player. Think about it.

 

single celled organisims

Used the earth to create their bodies and things.

I would say the anti-bible guy just got served.

 

Hmmm, my version reads differently.

Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the face of the firmament of the heavens."

So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
That was 21 and 22

Wait a sec... OK, they're pretty much the same. And you do have a good point, but the answer I've always used is this, These are two seperate stories, God recreated those animals so that they may all be in one place so that Adam could name them and find a companion. and in verse 20 of chapter 2, he named the animals, but didn't find a companion. then God created Eve. So, the whole purpose of the second one was not to have another creation, but to recreate all animals so that they may be in one place to be named and one found as a companion.

 

Don't know if it's already been said, but what irritates me (as a Messianic Jewish person... yeah, that's right... a Jewish person who believes that Jesus was the messiah lol) is when people say that God wrote the bible.

God did NOT write the bible. He is a spiritual being, therefore not having the properties of a living physical being. He TOLD people what to write.

And we, as erring humans, tend to paraphrase. Not to mention, each book was written by someone different. At the most, a couple of books were written by the same person, but still, its not like God came down, and went into somebody's body and physically wrote it.

Also, it is written in the books that Jesus said to remember his death and not his birth. His birth, like someone had already mentioned, was to enter the world. His death was to show that he sacrificed himself for the well-being of others.

And I kind of see half-way on the whole athiest thing. I mean, I believe that God did create Man and all of the other stuff here on earth, but that evolution kind of took its own course. It's like that damn Chicken and Egg thing... who really CARES?!

Also, I did a project on religion, and I remember reading that Catholicism is actually a combination religion, taking Judiasm, Christianity, and Paganism beliefs and mixing it together.

One example of this. Notice how Chanukah ( A Jewish holiday), Christmas ( a Catholic holiday), and the Roman Pagan holiday of Saturnialia are all around the same time? Judaism and Roman Paganism actually coexisted, and some of the Jews were the slaves of the Romans, therefore melding both holidays together. Also, the Church got its start in Rome, therefore some of the beliefs of the Romans and their slaves MUST have been melded into the Christianity, therefore creating Catholicism.

Another example is Easter. Notice how Easter, Pesach, Fortuna Publica and Floralia tend to be in the same month (April). Easter,Pesach (better known as Passover), and Fortuna Publica tend to be around the same weekend, but Floralia tends to be at the end of the month (even though the Roman calendar starts in March and not in January). They are all festivals of rebirth and/or good fortune for the people. Pesach and Fortuna Publica are the most alike because they both celebrate the luck of the people, which is was Fortuna Publica literally means in Latin. Easter and Pesach both celebrate God or his angels saving the people (and also both have to do with Jews, if you think about it). Easter and Floralia both celebrate fertility of the earth too.

Now... think about it. All in the same month. All revolving around the same topics. And all connected. Romans had Jews as their slaves. Jesus was a jew. Think. You cannot deny the fact that they are all strangely similar.

That's really why I don't take Catholicism that serious (no offense). There is a might difference between Catholicism and Christianity. The "true" Christians, as they like to be called, are more often referred to as Jehovah's Witnesses (I have a few in my family). They do celebrate Easter, but only because of the Last Supper, which was a Pesach Seder. They do not celebrate Christmas, because, if you read the bible, its more around late September to early October. While I know that the Bible takes place in the Middle East, I still don't think that there will be shephards in late December. Nah. Again, that's how Christmas connects to Saturnalia. Saturnalia takes place the week of the 20th to the 27th. That's the week of Christmas, and tends to be around the time of Chanukah. They alo don't celebrate birthdays, but that's way too long and complicated for me to explain.

And wow, I just went totally off topic for 20 minutes. Sorry...

My two cents went over its minutes... got raised more to like, 20 cents... overage fees suck...

 

Unless I missed something, I don't think anyone has said that God wrote the Bible.

anyone else get a burning sensation when they touch one?

 

No I mean, people are saying that God was being hypocritical. God isn't being hypocritical. The people who wrote it are paraphrasing, therefore warping the true meaning of the words.

God could have said "I personally do not like that a man sleeps with another man, but if they love each other, love knows no gender." The person who wrote that could have wrote "Gays suck", you know?

((and that wasn't a flame, I was just giving a little scenario. I love gay people. My uncle is gay ))

 

i dont know what to think i have only been to church like two times and i have never read a bible.

we have to read and interpret the king james version of the bible for ap english 12, and two of us in there are atheist. i dont know what she thinks but i am...um....leery of the situation because i am about to get graded on something that was not as important in my childhood as it was in others, and i dont know anything about what the bible says.

 

Old Testament: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

New Testament: Love your enemy. If your enemy strikes your cheek, turn and let him strike the other, blah blah etc.

 

The 'eye for an eye' concept was mosaic law, which was the current system of law at the time. Loving your enemy was something that Christ taught during the time he was alive.

 

Ok no. If there's one thing I know (because I've studied them ever since I first saw Jurassic Park) is dinosaurs. They did not exist at the same time as man, and that "fossil" you talk about, I want proof on that because I've never heard of that. Man wasnt seen until a few million years after the dinosaurs died off. T-Rex was not a scavenger. It's lack of small arms was overtaken by it's speed, size, and its other extremely powerful limbs. They were hunters. And this "god" is so powerful, but he even has rules. He wont affect our free will, so he does NOT have control over us, because that would be affecting free will.

 

Heh, firstly, you can't put rules on God, if you acknowledge God, you also acknowledge that's he's perfect and all powerful. Secondly, would you know if you didn't have free will? Think about that for a second.

 

On the free will subject:

One of the biggest problems I have with religion, is that in some way or another it often preaches that our life is predestined and everything will always work out the way its going to work out and we can't change it. So in this case God would be controling every aspect of our life, because he is 'all powerful'. Well then, did he predestin all the victims or murder and rape? Were the Jews predestined to be slaughtered by the Nazis and were the Nazis predestined to be the killers? If God's so all powerful, then he sure has made some major #### ups. Or maybe only the 'good' people have decent live predestined for them. It makes me sick. I see religion used as a means by many to not take responsibility for their actions. "Oh i wouldn't have passed that test anyways", "I'm fated to do poorly in ____". Bullshit, 99% of the time you are able to make your own future. If I chose to study for a test, I'd usually do well, If I didn't I'd usually do bad. That simple. There wasn't any 'being' determining whether I did well or poorly, I chose one or the other.

 

The Bible, even if it's the word of God, was clearly written by men. Humans make mistakes, so IMO it should only serve as a source of moral guidance, not a rule book to life. When people base their actions on a book written hundreds of years ago instead of independent thought and judgement, things will inevitably go wrong. IMO (again) the stories/parables in the Bible are merely allegorical - they are symbolic of Biblical truths and truths that God would want us to believe. I've always found it a bit naive and impractical to think God would actually take a clump of earth from the ground and start moulding it into Adam like kids would do with Play Dough.

Not counting the many contradictions within the Bible, the book's been translated and paraphrased so many times that some of it is no longer credible. In fact, some scholars have even found errors that occurred as a result of mistranslation from one language to another (can't remember the errors but trust me, there are errors in the Bible).

Going back to Shade's point, I don't think God intends for any of the rape, murder and slaughtering to happen to us. God's probably given up on us, 'cos we're a hopeless bunch and He'll just leave it up to us to sort things out or screw ourselves over. Think about it: all the misery and suffering that have descended upon the human race were afflicted by US. No deity or divine being ever intervened and thought it a good idea to bump off the Jews in WW2. Even if God oversaw our selfish actions and irresponsibility, it sure as heck wasn't HIS job to intervene. Who to blame for the starvation and poverty in Africa? Rich countries. Who to blame for the UV rays that are penetrating the ozone and killing our skin cells? Human activity and pollution. I don't know if this holds true for anyone, but if you spill something on the floor, you clean up your own sh*t. If something goes wrong with the world, it's probably our responsibility to clean up our act rather than whine about how the Lord Almighty didn't do enough to help us. I guess the only thing we can blame God for are all those hurricanes and tornadoes Mother Nature cooks up to destroy our environment. But then again, even some natural disasters can be linked back to human negligence and apathy.

Sometimes, I wonder how many times this has been said before: humans invented religion, and humans corrupt it. I agree there that religion is too often used as a security blanket, a cushion for them to fall back onto when they're in trouble or as an excuse for people to dodge responsibility. All I have to do to pass that test is pray to God and God will miraculously grant me an A. If we just pray and hope that the world will be a better place, God will make it so. That's all wishful thinking. Sometimes, praying and hoping ain't enough. If people won't even lift a finger to get what they want, God can't always deliver it to them on a silver platter.

On the record, religion/God have been used and exploited so that:
- We can feel good about ourselves even when we encounter failure in life. Just pray and God will hopefully get us back on our two feet.
- Leaders of nations can wage wars on the pretext of religion. (In reality, the Protestants and Catholics are fighting about class, and the Jews and Muslims are fighting about land.)
- People can discriminate others on the basis of their 'faith'. Did Leviticus said that homosexuality was wrong? I guess that makes it okay for gays to be discriminated.
- People can carry out revenge without feeling guilt. The Bible did say "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". Unfortunately, some people fail to recall that the Bible also said "forgive your enemy".

.....and scores of other unholy deeds, all in the name of God and religion.

Maybe we should just go back to worshipping Nature. :wth:

 

^ I think I love you.

 

Do any of you attend a Catholic school?

In Religion class they explain a lot to you about God and the Bible. They never said that God has planned out our lives and we are destined to whatever.

I think that people that were brought up going to a Catholic School have more of an understanding of the Bible and God and probably have more faith than others that don't.

I'll admit that sometimes it's hard to believe that God is real and stuff like that, but we all had to come from somewhere and it's bad to be a non-believer just because you have doubts or find it hard to believe.

Ever since I came to the LPA Forums I've bcome very confused about all this and I wonder if God really is real. It seems as though some of you are against the existence of God and that you are postitive He doesn't exsist.

In school they tell me a lot of things about God (and the Bible) some things make sense others are very hard to believe.

I haven't read the 'Anti Bible' page yet so maybe I'll understand more of what it's saying when I do. And maybe I'll agree with some of you :wth:

I believe in God.. so I think it's wrong for people to say that I shouldn't. And so therefore I must say that's it's wrong for us believers to say that non-believers are wrong for not believing. (Not that anyone has said that.)

Anyway, I'm not very informed about all this. And since I'm out of school for the summer, religion and the Bible are off my mind so I can't that much go into detail.. even if I wanted to, because I just don't know what to say.

 

I think many of the inaccuracies of the bible are based on the fact that it was written a long time ago and culture has greatly changed.

 

i agree.
but still, the thought of so many generations passing the stories down until they were written makes me think that the old testament is buls*it.