Robin wrote:
“should you not say which version you believe”

That just gave me an idea Robin.

I think I’ll publish a new version of the Bible. It will be full of nothing but blank pages.

Then when people ask me if I believe in the Bible I can say yes.

When they ask me which version, I can say, “The Blank Version”.

just a few christian translations


New American Standard Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NAS.htm

New Century Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NCV.htm

New English Bible [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NEB.htm

New Evangelical Translation [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NET.htm

New International Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NIV.htm

New Jerusalem Bible [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NJB.htm

New JPS Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NJPS.htm

New King James Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NKJ.htm

New Life Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NLV.htm

New Living Translation [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NLT.htm

New Revised Standard Version [Versions] [Bible History]
http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/bible/versions/NRS.htm

----------------------

for more go to

http://www.bible-history.com/links.php?cat=13&sub=139&cat_name=Bible+History&subcat_name=Bible+Versions

this is what i meant by which version

many many differnt ones

which do you believe

Of course not!

After all, it is just a piece of literature, no better or worse than, say, Shakespeare, or Da Vinci..

It is written my "Man" and so, it is fallible.

Do I believe in a "Higher Power"??
Certainly, and, He/She gives me all the comfort and solace that I require.

My "God" did not spurn and demean women, and make them appear as mere 'chattles'..

Indeed, my God has no gender, no animosity, and no preferences..

All!..and I mean "All" are welcome in my God's domain..And, "All" are equal, also!!

kinda like the what men know about women



hey magic man

maybe it would work

never know

*EDIT* "It is written by 'Man'.."...

My typos suck...

I have browsed a few versions and finished one.(niv) I have also listened to many pastors and friends who have helped me believe.
I have attended many bible studies and found that alot of my faith comes from hearing the Word of God.

I would love for anyone to give me scripture that they find false.....

cmon abra this is your chance.....

But also, if I prove that it is what is written and the meaning f it is maybe put in a clear perspective.......then so be it.....also curious why abra you come into threads that obviously will draw in Christians........what is the purpose of your visits anyway.

Why do you have such an urgency to prove that its hall hog wash as you say.

Feral wrote:
“Why do you have such an urgency to prove that its hall hog wash as you say.”

I’m glad you asked.

I have no urgency to prove that it’s false.

However if you ask me why I don’t believe it I’ll gladly point out a myriad of contradictions and inconsistencies until the cows come home.

But then you’ll probably start up with something like, “Why are you bashing my religion?”

I’m not. I’m just responding to your* claim that I need to believe it, and I’m pointing out why it makes no sense to me.

*Please note that the word ‘your’ here refers to the constant barrage of fanatical Christians who keep telling me that it’s important that I believe the Bible. (please note also that “fanatical Christians” does not include ALL Christians)

I get tired of people telling me that I have to believe something that they have no proof for. So in response to their constant badgering, I explain why I believe the story can’t possibly be true, and why I believe that it is just made up mythology written by men.

Then they start screaming, “Why are you bashing my religion?”

Which I respond to with, “Why are you trying to shove it down my throat?"

Which they respond to by saying, “Because you need to be saved”

Which I respond to by saying, “But didn’t I just tell you that I don’t believe it?”

Which they respond with, “But why don’t you believe it?”

Which I respond to by pointing out the obvious inconsistencies,…

Which they respond to by screaming, “Why are you bashing my religion?!”

Which I respond to with, “Why are you trying to shove it down my throat?!”

Ad infinitum,….

It just never STOPS!

Why can’t you just accept that I don’t believe it? Why do you INSIST that I give REASONS?

Feral wrote:
” I would love for anyone to give me scripture that they find false.....

cmon abra this is your chance.....”

See! You’re challenging me right now! Do you really want to get into a debate again?

Can’t you just accept that I believe in pantheism? And leave it at that?

You seem to want to force me to debate Christianity. And then when I point out the inconsistencies and why I don't believe it, you claim personal foul, and say that I’m ‘bashing’ your God?

It just NEVER STOPS!

We just don’t run into this problem with any other religion. The problems are always associated with Christians trying to convert everybody else to Christianity.

They just won't accept NO as an answer.

Abracadabra:

I presume you've yet the pleasure of discussing this sort of matter with a whabbist whose answer to your (presumed) disagreement is simple. ;)

Who can deny that the work of man is imperfect?

The bible is infallible.

Manami, I dont know where the bible states about magic and santa.

Knowing the bible is 100% true and that God exists and therefore that Jesus died on the cross for all mankind is something you can only EXPERIANCE because how can you know if something is real if you dont believe in it in the 1st place?

I know from my life that Jesus works through me, He has constantly answered my prayers and not a day goes by where I dont see his guidance in my life.

I know exactly how atheists can look at any religion esp. christianity and state that its brainwashing, but ask yourself this:

Why is it that then an atheist begins to try and debunk the bible; they end up converting? many people have done this because they go as far as to learn greek and try to PROVE, this is when they see that its entirely perfect.

theemachine wrote:
“Why is it that then an atheist begins to try and debunk the bible; they end up converting? many people have done this because they go as far as to learn greek and try to PROVE, this is when they see that its entirely perfect.”

You’re little statement here isn’t quite true.

There are many people who have gone the other way. They started out as Christians and then realize that it isn’t true. Some who leave Christianity are even preachers, etc. So it’s not a one-way door.

On average, there are probably just as many people leaving Christianity as there are people entering into the religion. In fact, although Christianity is growing, it’s isn’t growing any faster than the growth of the population.

In fact, atheism and pagan religions are both actually growing at a faster rate than Christianity (and probably many of those are ex-Christians). Islam is also currently growing at a faster rate than Christianity (you can probably blame that on George Bush).

So to say that people who begin to debunk the bible end up converting is a bit of a stretch. Since Christianity is only growing at the same rate as the population growth that basically only accounts for the children of existing Christians who are being born into the religion. It isn’t really suggestive of any ‘converts’ at all.

Finally, counting converts wouldn’t be suggestive of any truth to the religion anyway. It’s the very nature of the religion to attempt to convert people. That’s what Christians are always trying to DO!

Yes I do believe in the man generated DEVINELY INSPIRED written word of God aka The Bible (regardless of version). If he can raise the dead, heal the sick and part a sea he can most certainly write a book via men.

Emachine...very well put! I don't recall the bible talking about magic where belief and salvation is concerned nor santa at all. I too would Love to see the scripture specifically being referred to.

Studying = Brain Washing? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm this seems like a bizarre unusual pairing to me?

So I guess a doctor who studies medicine is incapable of discerning if a treatment is working or not? regradless of what he is witnessing?

The experience has to be lived...

I agree also that there is also TONS of contradictions if you OVER INTELLECTUALIZE ANYTHING (isn't intellectualizing one of the coined terms ~copin mechanism~ used in psychology and listed as dysfunctional long term?). You have a perfectly imperfect brain by which to think you're out thinking God for finding error in something perfectly written and so graceously given as a gift.

the fact that you think that something is wrong, it does not mean that it's actually wrong, it only means that it does not fit your mind setup.

exactly lonely walker...an imperfect human mind can play all sorts of tricks on itself.

abra,

sure you do most definatley get people that have a go at Christianity and leave back to atheism or join another religion. But the people that take REAL hacks at it ie: learning to read greek, searching the history and links between other historical records and seeing how they match up.

Im not surprised that Christianity is diminishing, why? because thats prophecy.

"Broad is the way and wide is the gate that leadeth to destruction."

Its a damn shame too.
It just shows how hard satan is working in attempts to break the church. Thats why there are SO many denominations incl the catholic church.
Churchs simply CANT believe what is said in the bible, if they did, there wouldnt be so many sects of christianity.

They cant agree on what is required for salvation, and the fact is that NOTHING is required! There are NO sacraments!

Eternal life is a GIFT, a gift has been left on the floor, all you gotta do is pick it up and treasure it.

Thats why theres TWO KINDS of religions in this world the DO's and The DONE.

Jesus Died on the cross for the sin all mankind, all you gotta do is accept that you are a sinner, believe that Jesus did what he did (therefore believing the bible is infallible), love Jesus and love everyone as you love yourself.
Baptism will not save you.
Eucarist will not save you.
mass will not save you.
confessions will not save you.
there is not purgatory, once your dead, thats it. finished.
I could go on and on.

B- Basic
I- Instuctions
B- Before
L- Leaving
E=Earth


That' says it!!!

Treemachine,

You make it sound so simple, but obviously it’s not, or there wouldn’t be so many sects.

You said in your previous post that the Bible is infallible. But if that’s true then why can’t very many people agree on what it’s saying?

I have no desire to debunk the Bible for the purpose of denying the existence of a god. On the contrary I believe in god, I just view god differently than the Biblical picture.

You say,
“Churchs simply CANT believe what is said in the bible, if they did, there wouldnt be so many sects of christianity.”

But if the Bible is taken literally there are difficulties. There are places in the Bible where it states that women should have no voice in religious matters and that they should be silent in ‘church’ and only speak in private with their husbands. It clearly has chauvinistic implications.

Well, one thing to realize is that back in the days that this was written the church was the center of authority. Not like today where we have separation of church and state. So if you take the Bible literally it’s basically saying that women should not speak about any political issues period. It’s a highly chauvinistic book in many ways. It even lays the burden of original sin on the woman.

You see, I personally believe that these stories were written by men for the purpose of keeping their tribes in order. To silence the women they made them secondary to man. Women are supposed to be man’s helpmate. Plus it’s the woman who was responsible for leading Adam into sin. Shame on her! Women had better keep their mouths shut now! They’ve already caused enough trouble!

But seriously, if you view the book as having been written by men it makes PERFECT SENSE.

If you view it as having been written by chauvinistic God it makes no sense at all.

Why would Adam need a helpmate? God never even gave Adam a specific project to work toward. What would he need help with? Also, how was he going to procreate without a woman?

Yet the story goes that woman was created as an afterthought, and that’s clearly how it’s described in the Bible. So this God that supposedly had a master plan changes things on the fly to create a helpmate for a man who has no need for help, and it just so happens that she can procreate but he couldn’t.

Had the story been told the other way around it would have actually made sense. God created woman in Her image and then the woman said to God, “Gee God, it’s kind of hard trying to bear young and collect food at the same time”.

Then God would have said, “Of course! You need a helpmate. And then God would have created man as woman’s helpmate”. That makes much more sense.

The fact that the book is so chauvinistic reveals to me that it was clearly written by men and not by God.

In any case, you say the book is infallible and perfect. This is obviously your view, but one that I clearly don’t share.

Treemachine wrote:
“Eternal life is a GIFT, a gift has been left on the floor, all you gotta do is pick it up and treasure it.”

NO SALE!

To me that’s no reason to believe in a God. On the contrary if that’s the motivation it’s pretty pathetic. Especially if the driving motivation to be a good person is just so you can win free tickets into an eternal Disneyworld its pretty sad. That would be like a pay-off for being good. Like God saying, “Here I’ll pay you to be good!”

Would you be a Good Person if there was no carrot dangling in front of you?

What if God said to you, “Sorry, but Disneyworld is full and there’s no more openings, but I’d still like you to be good”.

What would you do then? Would you tell him to shove off? Would you tell him that if there’s nothing it in for you then you have no interest in doing anything he asks? Is the gift of eternal life the ONLY reason you care about God?

What about the life he already GAVE YOU? Isn’t that enough? Do you feel you need something more than that before you owe God a favor in return?

I don’t base my morals or my actions on whether or not there’s a God, or whether or not I might live forever. I’m just a good guy all the time. I’d be a good guy even if I knew with absolute certainty that there is no God and that I’ll just die when I die. In fact, there are many examples of atheists who have very high moral standards. Although, I’m not an atheist, but if I were it wouldn’t change my morals. There was a time when I was a very strongly agnostic and I still had very high morals. My morals simply aren’t dependent on whether or not their might be a god.

I just don’t see why God would be interested in people he has to lure into heaven by placing the carrot of eternal life in front of there noses for incentive. If God really wanted to test people he would simply ask them to be good and not promise them any reward. Then the ones who pass the test would be pleasantly surprised.

And clearly worthy of the gift.

Its crystal clear to me that you arent really thinking this through thoroughly abra, its a shame because its also clear that you are intelligent. If I got a dollar for every time I've seen this...

www.lifewhy.org

I found this sight very insightful into understanding God.
Its more of an article rather than a site, the 1st part shreds up the theory of evolution nicely, so you can skip that part if you want and move straight onto God.

One of the reasons why I know that you arent thinking this through is because of this:

God has always existed, and God loves us. Now, if a being that is capable of love was alone since before time existed (we cant even understand that very statement) it makes PERFECT sense when God said:

Gen 2:18And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Empathy.
God didnt make Eve out of some chauvinistic agenda.

as far as the women not being permitted to speak in Church; this has been something that I think about a lot and I haven't looked into it yet as its going to take a whole lot of cross referencing.
So yea you've stumped me on that one for now, but my experiance with all Bible problems is that it -always- proves itself perfect once thoroughly checked.

You said "Especially if the driving motivation to be a good person is just so you can win free tickets into an eternal Disneyworld its pretty sad. That would be like a pay-off for being good. Like God saying, “Here I’ll pay you to be good!”

Would you be a Good Person if there was no carrot dangling in front of you?"

Wrong.
This is another classical example of why there are SO many sects and why people can SIMPLY CANNOT BELIEVE (just as you've shown with that statement) how SIMPLE salvation is.

"Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast."

So why be good? Since salvation is GIVEN by the grace of God through FAITH and NOT of works; why should I be good?

Because Jesus said; John 14:15- If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Jesus said to love one another like you love yourself - by doing this you essentially cover everything; think about it.
If you live this way; is there ANY situation where you might be inclined NOT to be good?

So nope. there isnt a carrot dangling in front in terms of salvation; but because I dont have to DO anything to be saved since Jesus as already DONE everything, this brings up the arguement of "license to Sin"

In short; No you dont have a license to Sin because if you are a TRUE christian, you would LOVE God enough to want to PLEASE him.

But there IS motivation to be good; this goes into the spiritual gifts discussion. You cant expect me to talk about HOW SALVATION WORKS and the whole GIFTS idea aswell; these subjects are HUGE but if you are interested I have the lifewhy's authors ebook that covers both.

I need not worry of Disneyworld closing as the gates are always open.
Why do I care about God?
Because 2000 years ago God only begotten Son; God in the flesh (ah the trinity, another thing people just cant understand) lived a PERFECT, SINLESS life and then DIED for ME, on my behalf.

Imagine this; tomorrow you get a call, and the person on the other side of the line said
X: "you know that homeless guy that lives in the park"
you: "yes"
X: "well did you know that he took a bullet for you the other day?"

Imagine a COMPLETE stranger sacrificing their life over yours so that you *may* live?
THats why I love God.

"What about the life he already GAVE YOU? Isn’t that enough? Do you feel you need something more than that before you owe God a favor in return?"

Since you dont know God, you've missed the concept of having a Soul. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that one has the Holy Spirit (yes that confusing trinity again) living within him and the other doesnt.

Its THAT that give him LIFE. Without the spirit you are dead (When the bible talks about this it means that you are dead in terms of eternal life.)
The bible talks about giving men hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone- same thing here.

I dont know how you think the way is to heaven abra but I must say good on ya for living by a set of standard even if you didnt believe in God.

I can say for sure without a doubt that if I wasnt Christian I wouldnt give a flying **** about the next person. Why should I?
This life is difficult as it is, to tell you the truth if I didnt have Jesus I would have committed suicide years ago.
If I have no purpose, why should I live?

But, I know Jesus and he knows me inside out. I have a purpose.

Please have a browse of that www.lifewhy.org site abra, Im sure you'll find it a good read.

First off, I must say that I qualify myself as a CULTURAL Christian, and on that basis consider myself fully worthy of 'christian' invitation.

Cultural?!?!? Beacause I was born and raised within a judeo-christian dominant continent and culture.

I have faith, and I consider myself to be questing and welcoming 'spirit', but I have no relationship with organized religion, the christian catholic church, or the bible,
other than the obvious ontological reality that it all represents.

One cannot live in North America, or anywhere in the world for that matter, and deny or ignore religions, beliefs systems, and the people practicing them. Whether we agree, believe, or disagree and disbelief, we all swim in a spirituality and faith based humanity.

We, as a race, have fabricated IMO, myths, legends, stories, books, dogmi, belief teams and families called religions and churches to give ourselves the illusion that our unfounded faith has some sort of physical, not just metaphysical dimension.

To language one's faith with words, in the form of myths, stories, parables, which leads one to be totally inspired, and totally free in his relationship to the world, is faith and one's spiritual quest.

When one takes myths, stories, parables, and morals and needs to confuse them with THE TRUTH, in order to relate to his spirituality or faith, one then perverts and corrupts faith and spirituality.

Not unlike the man looking at the finger pointing to the moon, a pagan and indiscriminate devotion and adulation of stories, myths and dogma: the finger, robs him of a true relation with faith and spirituality: the moon.


So to your question:

"... Do you believe what's written in the Bible? Do you think the Bible is words from God?..."

I answer absolutely no. A profound distraction from faith, spirituality and universality.

"god is a concept by which we measure our pain"- john lennon

Wow who ever started this must have been itching 4 some arguing!